Politics & Stuff

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

Republicans Abroad are blaming the Moderators for Trumps abysmal performance 🫠

[Vesper 30,227]

1 hour ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Republicans Abroad are blaming the Moderators for Trumps abysmal performance 🫠

pro tip for Trumpy and the MAGAts:

do not bring up insane, xenophobic RW social media invented lies like Haitians eating cats and dogs (this same RW lie was attempted to be pushed here as well) in Springfield Ohio and you won't get real time fact checked

[Vesper 30,227]

23rd anniversary of 9-11 today

☹️

[Vesper 30,227]

replay of the whole debate

 

[Vesper 30,227]

The Zeal of the Convert

Matthew Sheffield, a former rising star in the conservative movement, turned away from what he finally realized was an extremist, anti-truth agenda.

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-09-11-zeal-of-the-convert-matthew-sheffield/

Matthew Sheffield is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. His father had rebelled against the Mormonism of his youth, resentful of how it had shed its original, 19th-century strangeness. So he invented his own version, one in which he had direct prophetic access to the supernatural realm—for instance, the time Satan tempted him to become gay. He spent several years beseeching God, walking around in the mountains above the University of Utah, nearly killing himself several times from starvation.

The elder Sheffield was a professor of classical guitar, a brilliant composer beloved by the great Andrés Segovia. God commanded him to abandon his job, pack up his growing family, and become an itinerant street musician instead. “There were times we were homeless,” Matthew Sheffield told me. “One of my brothers was born in a tent. My mother gave birth to one of my other brothers by herself, in our apartment, with two kids around.”

He corrects himself: “No, three kids. Right next to her.”

Busking became a family profession. (“The Dark Osmonds,” I propose. “Yeah,” Matthew replies, “but we were classical.” He played French horn.) He grew interested in politics, in part from family connections (a grandfather was the Republican whip in the Utah state Senate), in part because the family did a lot of performing in the streets of Washington, D.C., because it was easy to scavenge food that vendors on the Mall threw away.

He and a brother developed computer proficiency, and he picked up a college education in dribs and drabs. He has a hard time remembering which of the nine universities he attended he was attending when he developed the first college newspaper website. He was around 20, and still on the road with his family, when he and his brother decided that CBS Evening News anchorman Dan Rather was too mean to Kenneth Starr, the special counsel investigating Bill Clinton. His brother came up with the idea to put some quotes of Rather’s on the internet to reveal his stealth liberalism. Matt said they should aim higher, and build a comprehensive website. So they did. “But we were afraid to put our names on it because we were two college kids. So we didn’t. And, um, the CBS people accused us of being a secret operation funded by Republican donors!”

More from Rick Perlstein

The exclamation is a rare touch. He explained the rest nonchalantly at the Szechuan restaurant where we’re lunching in Chicago’s South Loop during the Democratic convention. Sheffield’s typical mien is sardonic bemusement at the strangeness of the world he managed to escape—as when he explains a second reason why he and his brother kept themselves hidden.

“Also, we were afraid because my mom had a dream that Bill Clinton was going to try to kill us.”

Sheffield’s faculty profile at the Leadership Institute, a right-wing clearinghouse for what they call “journalism training,” is no longer online, but it had noted that RatherBiased.com was “credited by the New York Times as being the most influential blog in taking down Dan Rather during the famous ‘Memogate’ scandal. Since that time, Matt has worked with … groups such as the Media Research Center where he created NewsBusters, Rush Limbaugh’s favorite blog. He also works with the Washington Examiner, helping them increase their traffic by over 600 percent to over a million visitors per month.”

Sheffield has long since become a committed leftist. I’m writing about him not just because he fascinates me. I’m writing about him because the lessons he learned on the road to becoming a right-wing media operative, and what he has learned since in his almost entirely frustrated efforts to impart those lessons to the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, are so crucial for all of us to know.

SHEFFIELD’S CAREER ON THE RIGHT was rather doomed from the start. Because he cared about the truth.

His damnable allergy to propaganda had already shown out by the time he came up with an idea for a study during a stint at Virginia Commonwealth University. It asked: Where Do Columnists Come From? “And my general thesis was that newspaper columnists who are on the right come out of political operations, and ones from the left come out of—journalism.” That is to say, they carry with them journalistic values of fairness and accuracy, by which conservative columnists remain blessedly unburdened.

In 2007, he joined Brent Bozell III’s Media Research Center, because that’s where the money was. He started NewsBusters, the site Limbaugh loved, which ferreted out alleged liberal media bias. NewsBusters would run pieces about Michelle Obama, “and we’d have to shut off the comments because they were too disgusting.”

RatherBiased, Sheffield notes, got all that New York Times attention because “it was completely accurate in every way. We didn’t use inflammatory language; we didn’t even state any political opinions.” No room for that in his next lunge up the right’s greasy pole. “I was horrified a lot of the time, quite honestly. You know when Ted Cruz was doing his first government shutdown attempt? I was in meetings about how we should cover the media’s coverage. I said, ‘Well, it’s an objectively stupid idea. It’s not unfair for the media to say that this is destabilizing and extreme and absurd.’”

My response is a guffaw, his a sardonic chuckle. “Uh, yeah. They looked at me like I had suggested they grow a third eye or something.”

THERE WAS A SECOND REASON Matthew Sheffield did not fit the conservative movement mold. “Our family musical group never really got off the ground. So we were beginning to wonder whether, you know, our father was as divinely led as he told us.” So he became an atheist. And you could only get so far in the conservative world without being religious, or at least paying religion obsequious tribute. “What’s her name, S.E. Cupp? She actually wrote an entire book saying, ‘Well, I’m not religious but I sure wish I was.’ That was her way of trying to get on the gravy train. And I wasn’t willing to do that.”

The consequences are more than theological. When it comes to conservatism, “the one thing that non-Republicans don’t understand is that almost all of them are bizarre religious fundamentalists. Even the ones who don’t present that to you.” And that’s how they learn to reason: as fundamentalists. Sheffield saw it over and over again on the job.

Sheffield became the first managing editor of the Washington Examiner. It’s now a website. But the project, handsomely funded by a right-wing billionaire, began in 2005 as a suite of local daily tabloids in several cities, as a strategy to move the media environment to the right by making readers feel like they were reading normal news in a normal local newspaper. “The people who I was recruiting and were writing for me often had no concept of verifying a story … Because religious fundamentalists don’t need that.” Conservatives always descend from some sacred, impregnable prior truth. As Sheffield says: “The reasoning is about affirming the concept.”

Sheffield tells a story from the Obama era about the federal program known as “Cash for Clunkers,” a rather thoughtful policy win-win that got inefficient cars off the road, stimulated new auto sales, and put cash in folks’ pocket after the financial crash. It was administered through car dealers. Someone sent the Examiner a tip that the Obama administration was discriminating against Republican car dealers. “But the thing is, almost all car dealers are Republican. It’s almost impossible to discriminate against Republican car dealers and have that program!” He nonetheless farmed it out to a young colleague, just in case. “You know: ‘This could be a really hot story if it’s true.’”

Two hours later, the kid comes up to him, exultant: “Yes! I got a Drudge link!”

“I was like, ‘Wait, for what?’ And he’s like, ‘That story you gave me.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, did you …verify it at all?’”

Right there, I put down the cumin lamb and leaned in. This was the real shit.

“And he’s like, ‘It had everything we needed right there!’ And of course it came out almost immediately that it was all bullshit. We had to pull the article. But ultimately, the fact that I believed in empirical reasoning was what destined me to flee. It meant I was not a good fit.”

THE SHUDDER INTO FULL APOSTASY came on the next rung up the ladder. He was working on a right-leaning comedy show, a kind of SNL “Weekend Update” rip-off, aiming for syndication on broadcast TV. It actually wasn’t terrible. (Here’s a segment covering Donald Trump and Barack Obama’s infamous convergence at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.)

“We actually got more favorable coverage from the mainstream media than the right-wing media. The right-wing media didn’t like us because it wasn’t nasty enough.” (It was plenty nasty: Grok the joke about Sharia law.) But for Sheffield’s team, not-as-nasty was the feature, not the bug. That was the pitch they made for the better part of a year to, among others, the Koch organization: “We’re going for a broadcast audience here. We’re going for Jay Leno, but slightly more conservative.” That, he argued, was the missing piece of the puzzle to keep conservatism a thriving concern: to build and keep a majority coalition. He also pointed out that without conservative-dominated media organizations that aspired to some degree of mainstream credibility, like the sort he built with RatherBiased.com, they’d lose all the smart young talent, “because the only paths available to them are to become talk radio hosts or crazy bloggers.”

This pitch failed. “They thought it didn’t go hard enough after the Democrats.” This is conservatism’s authoritarian ratchet in action: the way the movement contains no mechanism for moderation—only for ever-greater extremism.

The last straw was when Sheffield learned about a lawsuit evangelicals filed against a liberal church in North Carolina, before the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling, that was blessing gay unions. “I was just horrified at all the awful things they were saying, and how anti-American they were, how they literally don’t believe in freedom of religion,” he said. The conservatives’ argument was: “Unless you’re historically rooted in your doctrines, you don’t have religious freedoms.”

I’d never heard of that, but it doesn’t surprise me, having written about the nascent religious right’s arguments in the late 1970s about why the state had no right to regulate churches at all, whether it came to building codes or segregation laws. They published law review articles saying that the Founders intended only Christian schools to have public legitimacy, that in fact non-Christian schools violated the First Amendment because they discriminated against Christians by inculcating a “state religion,” which was “secular humanism.”

Liberals tend to maintain a lingering sentimental attachment to the idea that people calling themselves “Christians” are, well, Christian as the word is commonly understood outside the evangelical world. Faith, hope, and charity, turning the other cheek, that sort of thing. The people who most clearly understand and articulate their imperialist designs for the rest of us tend to be apostates like Sheffield, Matt Sitman, and Frank Schaeffer.

Exiles, Bertolt Brecht suggests, make the best dialecticians. They refuse protective sentimentality toward the world they left behind. Thus Sheffield. “I was looking at polling and demographics that younger people do not believe in fundamentalist religion, that many of them are explicitly nonreligious; we have to change to have a future, to be relevant to people. If we actually want to serve people, we have to change for them.” That’s when the whole thing collapsed. “I realized that they don’t actually want to serve the public.”

I ask him to explain to liberals for whom this makes no sense how someone can be interested in the profession we after all call “public service” and not be interested in serving the public.

He replies, “The core American reactionary motivation is that they want to force the public to obey their principles.”

SHEFFIELD SHOULD BE MUCH BETTER KNOWN. You can read the exposés he wrote in Salon during the Trump presidency and his reporting from The Hill after that, or listen to his ambitious podcast theorizing how change-making works, or see him pop up in the media from time to time as a disinformation expert. But like my friend David Neiwert, the calls aren’t coming from the people who really need to understand what we’re up against, like strategists in the Democratic Party and the media voices to whom they pay most attention.

He’s a little bitter about it—“I haven’t been invited on MSNBC once”—but that’s OK; so am I, and so should you be. A party opposing authoritarianism ignoring resources like this is leaving money on the table.

“There are a lot of people like me. I have ten million-plus Twitter engagements every month. People like what I’m saying. But it goes back to that liberal thing—that they think the Republicans can be saved. They can’t be saved.”

Maybe that bluntness limits his impact. That sentimentality that there are no red states or blue states, only the United States, remains oh so seductive. Sheffield finally grasped the impossibility of Republican redemption during the high tide of Barack Obama’s fervor imploring Democrats to believe in the existence of Republicans of good faith—and that once he was re-elected, “the fever will break,” and “we can start getting some cooperation again.”

That wasn’t true then. And to believe it is bonkerdoodles now.

The conservative movement, he says, is “100 percent controlled by extremists. And they are very, very wealthy. So they can afford to push a politics that almost no one believes in. We’re not to that point yet, but let’s just say that at some point in the future the Republican Party is not getting even 15 percent in elections. They’re rich enough, fanatical enough, that they wouldn’t change. They would just keep trying to push the same things. And it might get more extreme. It will get more extreme. They have no relationship to the political marketplace.”

Who needs mere votes when you’re in direct touch with God?

“That’s right. There’s nothing that these people will do to compromise with you.”

The fever is not going to break?

He said it, I didn’t: “They have to be broken.”

Edited September 11, 2024 by Vesper

[Fernando 6,585]

20 minutes ago, Vesper said:

replay of the whole debate

 

She is very smart in how she replies. 

I think if she continues this way she might win. 

[NikkiCFC 8,337]

Didn't watch the debate. Is it true that Harris wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison? 👽 🤣

[robsblubot 3,595]

5 hours ago, Vesper said:

pro tip for Trumpy and the MAGAts:

do not bring up insane, xenophobic RW social media invented lies like Haitians eating cats and dogs (this same RW lie was attempted to be pushed here as well) in Springfield Ohio and you won't get real time fact checked

Totally unfair! that's all Trump talks about. 😃

9 hours ago, cosmicway said:

I don't believe in debates.
How many times have we seen various arguments demolished from their foundation and then the perpetrators return with the same gobledy gook ?

Same, jested about the importance of being a good debater to run a country earlier... so silly. The main quality for me is the ability to surround yourself with the best people; Trump brought in his family and friends when president... I rest my case.

On the other hand, this isn't about us is it? So, the question is whether it moves the needle enough or not.
I think it will, but not a whole lot.
People who aren't already shocked by the nonsense trumps utters all the time weren't shocked yesterday. So, looking at the debate from our point of view isn't the right take IMO.

4 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Didn't watch the debate. Is it true that Harris wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison? 👽 🤣

Not really. It's out of context, but she did vote on something stupid like that back in 19.

[NikkiCFC 8,337]

13 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

😃

 

Not really. It's out of context, but she did vote on something stupid like that back in 19.

I just saw the meme of Trump saying that sentence. 

[Vesper 30,227]

3 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

Totally unfair! that's all Trump talks about. 😃

Same, jested about the importance of being a good debater to run a country earlier... so silly. The main quality for me is the ability to surround yourself with the best people; Trump brought in his family and friends when president... I rest my case.

On the other hand, this isn't about us is it? So, the question is whether it moves the needle enough or not.
I think it will, but not a whole lot.
People who aren't already shocked by the nonsense trumps utters all the time weren't shocked yesterday. So, looking at the debate from our point of view isn't the right take IMO.

Not really. It's out of context, but she did vote on something stupid like that back in 19.

it was not a vote

it was an answer to an American Civil Liberties Union questionaire from 2019 in regards to the 2020 Democratic POTUS primaries

https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/08/Harris-ACLU-Candidate-Questionnaire.pdf

 

That said, in an interview on Tuesday morning on Fox News, Michael Tyler, Harris’s campaign communications director, distanced Harris from the 2019 statement. “That questionnaire is not what she is proposing or running on,” Tyler said.

 

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

49 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

I just saw the meme of Trump saying that sentence. 

He did say that  - also called her a commie, a  Marxist - 🙃

[robsblubot 3,595]

16 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

He did say that  - also called her a commie, a  Marxist - 🙃

Also called her Biden a couple of times apparently. 😆

[Vesper 30,227]

35 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

He did say that  - also called her a commie, a  Marxist - 🙃

Revealed: Kim Jong-un’s hilariously loved-up letters to Donald Trump where he gushed about the time they held hands

https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/09/revealed-kim-jong-uns-hilariously-loved-up-letters-to-donald-trump-where-he-gushed-about-the-time-they-held-hands-13247749/

Edited September 11, 2024 by Vesper

[Vesper 30,227]

 

 

SPECIAL REPORT

Mapping The Far Right

The Movement’s Conferences Illuminate Its Growing Transnational Networks

https://globalextremism.org/reports/mapping-the-far-right-the-movements-conferences-illuminate-its-growing-transnational-networks/

CONTENTS

 

Executive Summary
Principal Findings
GPAHE’s Conference Data
Defining Far-Right Extremism
Influential Speakers
Influential Conferences
The Organizational Network
Major Far-Right Groupings
Conclusion
Appendix: Timeline of Major Conferences

 

Executive Summary

Post-war far-right movements have primarily been concerned with domestic issues, preferring to focus on national sovereignty over foreign entanglements, and interested predominantly in their particular domestic landscape. This is in contrast to traditional left-wing movements, particularly socialists and communists, which historically organized across borders. But things have fundamentally changed in recent years, as an extensive far-right international network has developed over the past two decades. Nowadays, campaigns undertaken in one country by far-right groups and influencers leap quickly across borders and are adopted wholesale by others on the far right. 

Key to this policy and campaign coordination are transnational far-right conferences, where movement leaders and supporters from multiple countries share their ideas. Through these interactions, relationships among far-right actors have deepened, creating a truly transnational movement that shares ideological positions, policy preferences, targets, tactics, and strategies. The support this transnational network provides has contributed to the global spread of far-right extremist ideologies.

Far-right activists are forthright about their global ambitions, which often target marginalized communities, restrict human rights, and push for more illiberal democratic systems. 

To gain further insight into the far right, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) compiled a dataset of speakers and organizations involved in far-right conferences held between 2000 and 2024. The dataset includes 3,000 individuals representing 1,800 organizations, and 302 conferences that occurred in 35 countries during this 24-year time period. 

In the 302 events analyzed, there were speakers from nearly every country in North America, South America, and Europe, as well as a significant number of participants from parts of Africa and Asia. Though the dataset is large, it still likely underrepresents the true number of events and participants during that period, since GPAHE only looked at speakers, not all attendees. 

GPAHE’s data reveals a startling — and strengthening — network of events and speakers that has helped spread a global pandemic of far-right extremism. 

Many of those conferences have continued over years, if not decades, expanding their audiences and demonstrating that far-right ideologies increasingly transcend national borders.

Principal Findings

The growth of far-right movements and the policies that come with them, have real-world consequences. Generally, the shared vision of the far right — anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and anti-woman — is leading to a roll back of human rights for these communities in multiple countries. 

Far-right rhetoric, particularly the transnational, white nationalist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, has inspired mass terrorist attacks against Jews, Muslims, Black people, immigrants, and others in multiple countries. Increasing demonization of immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, key communities targeted by the far right, has contributed to a rise in hate crimes against these populations in the U.S., Europe, and beyond. 

Women’s sexual and reproductive health rights have been restricted in the U.S., Poland, Brazil, and Hungary, and others. Current campaigns waged against abortion may affect the U.K.’s attempts to make the procedure more available. 

Where the far right wields great power, democracy itself is damaged, as in Hungary, which the European Union’s parliament declared an “electoral autocracy,” and in the U.S. where The Economist Democracy Index has downgraded America to a “flawed democracy.” Similar declines in democracy have been witnessed in Brazil, Poland, India, Russia, and Turkey. 

Using network analysis, GPAHE’s data surfaced interesting patterns on the far right including:

• American groups have enormous influence on the far-right conference circuit, as do certain autocratic states, particularly Hungary and Russia. 
• The Heritage Foundation’s authoritarian effort, Project 2025, which has more than 100 American partner organizations, is prominent in the transnational network. Project 2025 supporters sending speakers to conferences included Hillsdale College, the Claremont Institute, the Alliance Defending Freedom, The American Conservative, the American Principles Project, the Center for Family and Human Rights, the Center for Immigration Studies, Concerned Women for America, and the Conservative Partnership Institute. All appear within the top 150 most influential organizations in GPAHE’s analysis of conference data.
• The powerhouse anti-LGBTQ+ legal organization, the Alliance Defending Freedom, is prominent in the data, falling within the top 20 influential organizations. Its representatives spoke at about 10 percent of all the conferences. It often attends conferences organized by groups close to power in Russia and Hungary, and also frequently attends events alongside affiliates of Project 2025 in the United States and the anti-LGBTQ+ coalition, Vision Network (formerly Agenda Europe), in Europe.
• Organizations predominantly focused on anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion efforts have deep ties to allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The World Congress of Families was founded during a meeting held in Russia in 1997, and the 2014 “Large Family and Future of Humanity ” conference, hosted in Moscow mere months after Russia annexed parts of Ukraine, is the second most influential event in the dataset.
• Far-right political parties in the U.S. and Europe have tight ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s autocratic regime and the Heritage Foundation think tank in the U.S.
• Generally, far-right political parties are primary actors in this network. The American Republican Party is one of the most active organizations, sending representatives to nearly a quarter of the conferences in the dataset. 
• While nearly 3,000 individuals spoke at far-right conferences, only a small percentage did so repeatedly. Three-quarters spoke at only one conference, but about 10 percent spoke at at least three events. Forty-eight individuals spoke at more than seven conferences.
• Europe had, by far, the largest number of conferences, followed by North America. Despite this, Americans have an outsized presence at far-right events, representing 34 percent of all speakers (but only hosting about a quarter of all events). Anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-women groups’ conferences were more likely to be held in Central and Eastern Europe and South America. Scandinavia hosted a large number of white nationalist events, and Russia and Ukraine a large number of neo-fascist and neo-Nazi events.
• The far-right groups closest to the right-wing mainstream are well-funded and tied to those with political power in many countries. Their events feature influential speakers from the media, think tanks, and elected officials, including presidents and prime ministers, past and present.

GPAHE’s Conference Data

In order to map the global far right, information on conferences and speakers at each event were taken as the main units of analysis. These data points were chosen because conferences generally list their speakers and sponsoring organizations. This data captures formal instances of collaboration between groups, unlike protests, street events, or informal collaborations which are not always announced to the public or their leadership made clear. 

The conferences included in the dataset, which required at least three speakers in order to be counted, were held by organizations that fit into one or more of the far-right group categories defined by GPAHE, or had a significant number of speakers who fall into GPAHE’s categories. While the various tendencies of the far right included in this report are diverse, they all generally fall within one of four main categories, which appeared in the network as “clusters” (for more, see Section VIII). 

These clusters can broadly be described as groups closer to mainstream right-wing,  anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-women’s rights groups, white nationalists, and neo-fascist and neo-nazi groups. Though the data breaks down into these broad groupings, there is considerable overlap between categories in terms of conference attendance and ideology.

 

Data was collected for both the events and the speakers. Presenters were matched with their country of origin and affiliations, as well as their professional background. Each conference was coded for the country it was held in as well as the most prominent category of far-right extremism the event corresponded to. 

In addition to basic descriptive data, GPAHE determined the level of influence individuals and specific conferences have in the network using centrality measures. 

• “Degree centrality,” the simple number of connections that a node has to other nodes 
• “Eigenvector centrality,” the amount of other influential nodes that the node has ties to
• “Betweenness centrality,” the extent to which a node connects different disparate factions in the network. 

GPAHE created visualizations of the far right’s collaboration by mapping this data. These visualizations help to pinpoint key actors in the network, major factions, the extent to which they are connected, and the shared agendas they pursue. 

There is one important caveat. Because the data used here focuses on speaker participation in far-right conferences, it overemphasizes the influence of institutionalized events and groups and underemphasizes those on the far right that are more likely to engage in other collective but less formal activities, such as street protests, hate music festivals, and sporting events. There are many who partake in such activities, often at a local level, including individuals in GPAHE’s conference dataset. To learn more about far-right organizations in multiple countries, please explore GPAHE’s country reports.

Defining Far-Right Extremism

GPAHE considers the far right to exist on a spectrum, ranging from organizations and individuals who are closer to mainstream right-wing politics to the far-right fringes of white nationalism, neo-fascism, and neo-Nazism. 

To be categorized as “far-right” by GPAHE, organizations must push bigotry or hatred against protected classes, meaning they generally embrace beliefs and activities that demean, harass, and/or inspire violence against people based on their identity traits including race, religion, ethnicity, language, national or social origin, caste, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity (see GPAHE’s FAQ for more on our definitions for far-right hate and extremist groups). 

Prominent far-right groups active transnationally, such as CPAC, the U.S.-based Heritage Foundation, as well as Hungarian institutions such as the conservative think tank The Danube Institute, are those closest to the mainstream right-wing with allies and principals in high office or positions of influence. Given their greater resources and connections, conferences by these groups make up a considerable part of GPAHE’s dataset. Their bigotry may not be as obvious or crude as is found in white nationalist groups, though it is growing more overt, but both movements generally share a disdain for immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ+ people, and are opposed to women’s bodily autonomy. 

The further right one moves on the spectrum, the more crass the hatred targeting multiple communities becomes, and violent racism and bigotry, and racist conspiracy theories become more prominent. But those, too, can be found in far-right groups and political parties closer to the mainstream, where the white nationalist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory is now a central talking point for many political figures.

Influential Speakers

GPAHE collected data on nearly 3,000 speakers at far-right conferences. These included individuals from nearly every country in North America, South America, and Europe, as well as a significant number of participants from parts of Africa and Asia. Despite the diversity in terms of nationality, only a small percentage of speakers were influential network participants according to GPAHE’s network analysis. 

While three-quarters of speakers only spoke at one conference, 10 percent spoke to at least three events (319 individuals), and 48 individuals spoke at more than seven conferences.

GPAHE’s network analysis of far-right conference data shows that influential individuals in the network are those that tend to speak at many events and also have connections to other influential individuals and conferences (based on eigenvector scores). 

The data generally includes three types of influential speakers. There are individuals who work at organizations that host many conferences, and thus they tend to participate in their own organizations’ many events. Others are invited to, and participate in, a large number of conferences by multiple organizations due to their position as an influential actor in the network. Most often, this is the case for major far-right politicians, and other elected officials, who are highly sought after speakers due to their political power and ability to draw an audience. Finally, there are those who are willing to speak to diverse far-right audiences, and provide a link or “bridge” between disparate groups (based on betweenness centrality scores). 

Belgium

Belgian David Engels, a research professor at the Polish Instytut Zachodni (Western Institute) research center, and chair of Roman History at the Université libre de Bruxelles, frequents far-right groups closer to the mainstream in Europe, and Identitarian and Christian Nationalist groups in France, Spain, and Italy. He has participated in the NatCon 2022 event in Brussels, the French Academia Christiana event in 2022, a group that was nearly dissolved by the state in 2023 for legitimizing the use of violence, and the 2022 Institut Iliade Colloque, two “Italian Conservatism” events organized by Nazione Futura, and the “Hacia una Renovación Cristiana de Europa” (Towards a Christian Renewal of Europe) event at Spain’s Universidad San Pablo CEU in 2022. 

France

Marion Maréchal Le Pen, niece of Marine Le Pen, and elected MEP under the banner of Reconquête has attended such diverse events as the World Congress of Families X in Georgia, CPAC 2018 in Washington D.C., the French Convention de la Droite (Convention of the Right) in 2018, NatCon 2020 in Rome, the 2021 Institut Iliade Colloque, the May 2014 conference in Vienna organized by Putin loyalist Konstantin Malofeev, and a May 2016 conference held by Action Française. As such, she serves as a “bridge” between the American far right, French Identitarians, the anti-LGBTQ+ movement, pro-Russian groups, and organizations close to the Hungarian government.

From French Identitarian circles, meaning groups that are largely anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and often advocate for white ethnostates,  Jean-Yves Le Gallou, a former MEP for the French political party Front National from 1994 to 1999, and a leading member of La Nouvelle Droite (New Right) that introduced the Identitarian strain of white nationalism to the world decades ago, is highly influential. He is the intellectual responsible for “national preference,” a discriminatory practice that favors French citizens for social benefits over non-citizens, as well as the white nationalist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory in its early developmental stages. 

As the president of the far-right think tank Polémia, co-founder of the Institut Iliade, and participant in the creation of the Identitarian online television channel TV Libertés, Gallou’s is responsible for the annual organizing of both the influential Forum de la Dissidence events and Institut Iliade Colloque events that invite prominent voices in the French Identitarian world. Beyond his activism in France, Gallou also participated in the 17th American Renaissance conference in 2019. 

Hungary

Miklós Szánthó, the director-general of the Hungary-based Center for Fundamental Rights, scored high in terms of eigenvector centrality (number of highly-connected nodes one has) primarily due to his organization’s hosting of the CPAC Hungary events, which have featured many influential speakers from across Europe and North America. 

Szánthó’s organization has built strong relationships with far-right groups closest to the mainstream and has been invited to speak at events including CPAC 2023 in Washington, D.C., and the “Italian Conservatism” event in October 2022. Szánthó’s self-stated goal is to “organize a coalition of anti-globalist forces.” His organization is also at the center of Hungary’s efforts to roll back the rights of LGBTQ+ people.

Another influential individual is Briton John O’Sullivan, the president and founder of Budapest’s Danube Institute, due to the sheer number of major events in which he has participated. He has been a speaker at nearly six percent of all events in the dataset, including every NatCon event, many Danube Institute events, Italy’s Nazione Futura, Hungary’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium, and the European Conservative, all of which have close ties to Orbánists. O’Sullivan, 82, has also attended events organized by New Direction, the think tank associated with the European Conservatives and Reformists Party.

Israel

Ofir Haivry is the Israeli head of the Washington, D.C.-based Edmund Burke Foundation and vice president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem. He has an outsized influence due to his organization hosting the large National Conservatism (NatCon) events which bring together prominent speakers and elected officials from across North America and Europe. 

Haivry is particularly important within Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s sphere of influence due to his proximity to the Danube Institute — where he was a fellow in 2022 —and the many Hungarian institutions that send speakers to the NatCon events (see GPAHE’s reporting on Orbán-connected organizations here). Yoram Hazony, chair of the Edmund Burke Foundation and president of Herzl, is another figure with an outsized amount of influence.

Italy

From Italy, the head of the far-right think tank Nazione Futura, and the Fondazione Tatarella, Francesco Giubilei, has outsized influence partly due to his presence at a number of far-right events across Europe. He was a speaker at the CPAC Hungary events in 2022 and 2023, the 2020 NatCon event in Rome and 2022 event in Brussels, and the “Hacia una Renovación Cristiana de Europa” (Toward a Christian Renewal of Europe) at the Universidad San Pablo in 2022. 

He is also responsible for hosting the many far-right events under the banner of Nazione Futura: “Pensare L’Immaginario Italiano” (Thinking The Italian Imaginary, 2023), “Essere Conservatori. Il Convegno in Memoria di Roger Scruton” (Being Conservative. The Conference in Memory of Roger Scruton, 2023), the Stati Generali della Cultura Nazionale (General State of National Culture, 2023), and the large 2022 and 2023 “Italian Conservatism” conferences. 

As with the CPAC and NatCon events, the Nazione Futura events frequently host speakers from Orbánist circles such as Balázs Orbán, Danube president John O’Sullivan, and Miklós Szánthó, as well as elected officials from the far-right Italian governing party, Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), and Lega (League). 

As a member of the editorial board of the Orbán-aligned European Conservative, Giubilei has also been present at a number of events hosted by them. As such, Giubilei is not only an influential node in the Italian far-right network, but also the broader network of Orbánist organizations. 

Ukraine

Olena Semenyaka, the “first lady of Ukrainian nationalism” is the spokesperson for the political arm of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi-linked Azov movement, the National Corps. From 2014 to 2020, she bridged both the white nationalist and neo-fascist groupings, speaking at events put on by both networks. 

Semenyaka spoke at the Etnofutur events organized by Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) youth group Sinine Äratus in 2018 and 2019, and the 2019 “Awakening II,” organized by the Finnish Suomen Sisu (SS), the 2019 Scandza Forum in Oslo, the 2019 Fórum Prisma Actual in Lisbon organized by the Escudo Identitário (Identitarian Shield), the 2017 “Shattered Empire” conference organized by Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice, PiS) in the Polish Sejm (parliament), Germany’s Jungeuropa Verlag’s 2018 “Jungeuropa Forum,” Junge Nationalisten’s 2018 “REGeneration Europa,” the 2019 “Prabudimas Conference” in Vilnius, as well as events hosted by German white nationalist groups and the neo-fascist CasaPound Italia. 

A popular speaker on the European neo-fascist and white nationalist circuits, in Kyiv Semenyaka organized the Paneuropa and Intermarium Support Group conferences between 2016 and 2020, with the intention of recruiting extremists to support Azov.

United States

Brian Brown is the co-founder of the U.S.-based  National Organization for Marriage as well as current president of the World Congress of Families (WCF), both virulently anti-LGBTQ+ rights. His influential position within the anti-LGBTQ+ movement has meant that he has been a consistent figure present at conferences. Brown promotes Putin’s brutal persecution of LGBTQ+ people in Russia, advocated for “conversion therapy,” the discredited and dangerous practice of attempting to change a person’s orientation or identity, and regularly compares homosexuality to pedophilia. He travels widely lobbying against LGBTQ+ rights, and in 2019, organized a meeting between himself and American Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh.

Heritage Foundation fellow Mike Gonzalez also speaks at events spanning the far-right ideological spectrum. He was featured as a speaker at the CPAC Hungary conference in 2023, NatCon I, II, and III, the Mathias Corvinus Collegium’s (MCC) Budapest Summit in February 2024, and the “Education Not Indoctrination” event at MCC Brussels in June 2023, where his Heritage colleague Lindsey M. Burke also spoke. Gonzalez was also a speaker at Heritage events including, “Seizing the Moment to Defeat DEI” in March 2024 with U.S. Representative Burgess Owens (R-Utah), the November 2022 “How Cultural Marxism Threatens the United States,” and the April 2024 “NextGen Marxism” event, where former Trump administration staffer Sebastian Gorka also spoke. 

Austin Ruse is a longtime anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion activist and president of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM). For his part, he serves as an important node which bridges those most focused on anti-LGBTQ+ agitating and far-right groups closer to the mainstream, especially those with ties to Orbán. As far back as 2007, Ruse spoke at World Congress of Families events, including the 2007 event in Warsaw, the 2009 event in Amsterdam, and the 2012 event in Spain. Within the pro-Orbán conference circuit, Ruse was a speaker at NatCon 2021 in Orlando and NatCon 2022 in Miami, as well as a Danube Institute event in 2023 entitled “Why Hungary Should Break the EU Consensus on Sexual Issues at the UN.” 

Ruse was also one of the speakers who attended the massive September 2014 “Large Family and Future of Humanity” event in Moscow. He is known to have ties to Alexander Malofeev, Vladimir Yakunin, and other Christian Nationalists in Russia and met with the Russian government in 2013 to thank them for their support for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation at the United Nations. As such, Ruse bridges the gap between anti-LGBTQ+ groups, Russian Christian Nationalists, and Orbán’s network.

For the past 30 years, white nationalist Jared Taylor has organized the American Renaissance conferences, gathering together eugenicists, white nationalists, and far-right figures connected to smaller European political parties that have recently seen more success at the polls. A veteran speaker at a number of conferences in his lengthy career as a racist and eugenicist, Taylor has considerable influence within the white nationalist faction, perhaps more so abroad than at home. “Europe is in a life-or-death struggle. Europe can’t remain Europe without Europeans. When we are being replaced by non-Europeans, it threatens our core way of life,” Taylor told the audience at the white nationalist “The Future of Europe” conference in Budapest, Hungary, in October 2014.

Other frequent speakers at multiple events out of the U.S. include right-wing columnist Josh Hammer who is also editor of the Orbán-aligned magazine European Conservative, Michael Anton of the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College, conservative talk show host Ben Ferguson, Terry Schilling from the anti-LGBTQ+ think tank American Principles Project, and conservative Fox News host Sara Carter.

Elected Officials

Of the five percent of conference speakers who participate in many events, certain individuals do not host any events themselves, but are frequently featured as speakers at conferences organized by other groups. Most often, these are elected officials. These include former U.S. President Donald Trump, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, leader of Portugal’s far-right Chega party André Ventura, the leader of Spain’s VOX Santiago Abascal, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Flemish Vlaams Belang leader Tom Van Grieken, American election denialist Kari Lake, and former UKIP and Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage. 

In Europe, frequent speakers at multiple events include Alvino-Mario Fantini, self-declared monarchist, American expat Rod Dreher of the Danube Institute, and historian Bernard Lugan from L’Afrique Réelle (The Real Africa).

Influential Conferences

 

Far-right conferences span the globe, but most take place in the United States and Europe. While small in number, several events were identified that took place outside of these regions, such as in the Middle East, India, and South America. In terms of the number of events, Western Europe hosted the most far-right conferences, trailed closely by North America. When considering Europe as a whole, the European continent held, by far, the highest number of such events. 

When conferences are analyzed through the lens of the ideological positions of their organizers, geographical variations emerge in terms of locations for conferences based on their primary ideological positions. While Western Europe had the most events overall, again, followed by North America, Central Europe had a large number of conferences organized by anti-LGBTQ+, anti-woman, and Christian Nationalist entities. In Scandinavia, white supremacist and antisemitic conferences were more prominent, while in the east (Ukraine and Russia), more neo-fascist and neo-Nazi conferences took place.

The most influential events in the dataset were those that either invited large numbers of people, invited people of importance (media, elected officials, representatives of religious institutions, etc.), invited well-connected individuals (scoring high in eigenvector), or a combination of the three. 

The CPAC 2023 gathering in Washington, D.C., the Hungarian Mathias Corvinus Collegium Feszt 2022, and the Large Family and Future of Humanity conference held in Moscow in 2014, were the most influential events in the dataset primarily due to the fact that they had over 100 speakers each, many of them influential figures (see Appendix for details). 

Other events that scored high in eigenvector, which measures the influence of how a data point is connected to other highly-connected data points, include many of the NatCon events, the Danube Institute’s Geopolitical Summit, CPAC and CPAC Hungary events, the American World Congress of Families conferences, and events organized by the far-right Italian think tank Nazione Futura (see Appendix for details). 

CPAC

The American CPAC and CPAC Hungary events are consistently some of the most influential events in the dataset. CPAC began in the 1970s as a small event for Reaganite conservatives and quickly became a major event featuring GOP presidential hopefuls and other officials speaking to thousands of rank-and-file conservative activists. 

Since 2014, the American Conservative Union (ACU), which hosts the American CPAC events, has been led by former Bush administration official Matt Schlapp. Following the 2016 presidential election, and the influence of pro-Trump activists on the Republican Party, CPAC events have gone transnational and moved further right, inviting far-right and authoritarian speakers from abroad. They’ve included Nigel Farage, the former United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader and prominent Brexit supporter, former far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his son Eduardo, leader of the French party Reconquête Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, head of the pro-Orbán Center for Fundamental Rights Miklós Szánthó, and far-right Mexican anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ activist Eduardo Verástegui. 

CPAC now has outposts in Hungary, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. The most influential of these is Hungary’s, hosted by the pro-Orbán Center for Fundamental Rights, and CPAC Brasil, organized by the Instituto Conservador Liberal (ICL), the far-right think tank led by Eduardo Bolsonaro, federal deputy for the Partido Liberal (PL) and son of Jair Bolsonaro. CPAC events feature a high number of elected officials, accounting for more than 50 percent of speakers at their events. 

CPAC events are key organizing opportunities for far-right groups and elected officials to foster relationships with their compatriots in the United States. Americans are very often in attendance; CPAC Hungary has hosted Trump, Arizona’s Kari Lake, American far-right agitator and conspiracist Jack Posobiec, former U.S. Pennsylvania Senator and anti-LGBTQ+ activist Rick Santorum, U.S. Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. 

Other major party leaders in Europe are also frequently invited, including Santiago Abascal of Spain’s VOX, Belgian Tom Van Grieken of Vlaams Belang, Geert Wilders of Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV), Brazil’s Eduardo Bolsonaro, and the UK’s Nigel Farage. In recent years, CPAC events have become increasingly radical, featuring rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ speeches, speeches touting the white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory, and white nationalists.

NatCon

Like CPAC, the annual National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) event is a “who’s who” of the international far-right movement including many political party leaders and other elected officials, as well as movement leaders in academia or the media. Some 14 percent of the speakers at NatCon events are elected officials, while 21 percent have ties to think tanks, and 22 percent have ties to the media. (See Appendix for details)

After its initial conferences in the United States, NatCon extended its events to the other side of the Atlantic starting in 2019, hosting large conferences in Rome, Brussels, and London. Aside from a lot of pro-Orbán figures, such as John O’Sullivan (Danube Institute), the NatCon events, led by Israeli Ofir Haivry, are one of the few conferences that feature Israeli groups, including staff from the Herzl Institute. 

MCC Feszt

The MCC Feszt is an annual event held for students at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium campus in Budapest. The events feature a large selection of pro-Orbán speakers, but also have bands, and other cultural activities. It is a part of the MCC “socialization machine” that aims to train up a new generation of far-right intellectuals. 

Staffers from pro-Orbán NGOs and politicians with ties to Orbán’s political party, Fidesz, are often invited speakers. At times, non-Hungarians such as Americans Tucker Carlson, far-right propaganda outlet PragerU director Dennis Prager, and conservative Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, as well as Portuguese right-wing intellectual Jaime Nogueira Pinto and former Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz, have been featured as speakers. 

World Congress of Families

The World Congress of Families (WCF) is a bi-annual event that has traditionally served as the largest convener of anti-LGBTQ+, anti-abortion, and Christian Nationalists from around the world. The WCF is a project of the anti-LGBTQ+ International Organization for the Family and was founded during a meeting held in Russia in 1997 by two Russian sociologists at Moscow State University, Anatoly Antonov and Viktor Medkov, along with former Reagan administration official, Allan Carlson. (See Appendix for details)

The speakers at these events have strong ties to pro-Kremlin groups, and regularly promote the conception of the “natural family” and Russia’s crusade against LGBTQ+ people. Russian Christian Nationalist billionaire Konstatin Malofeev is a major funder of the WCF. Russian anti-LGBTQ+ activist Alexey Komov, who works for one of Malofeev’s charities St. Basil The Great Foundation, is a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church. As an activist for many of Malofeev’s international projects, Komov serves as the WCF’s representative to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, made up predominantly of now independent former Soviet republics. Also, unlike other events, WCF convenings include a large number of speakers from South America and Africa.

“Large Family and Future of Humanity”

The “Large Family and Future of Humanity” conference was a one-off event that took place in Moscow in September 2014 and featured more than 120 speakers, the largest event in the dataset. It allegedly included “over 1,500 people” from 45 countries according to Malofeev’s ISTOKI Endowment Fund (see Appendix for details).

Danube Geopolitical Summit 

The pro-Orbán Danube Institute’s Geopolitical Summit is an annual international conference that brings together far-right intellectuals from around the world. These events frequently include speakers from universities, private companies, international NGOs, and American think tanks (see Appendix for details)

Nazione Futura

As with other large institutionalized organizations, events organized by the Italian far-right think tank Nazione Futura (Future Nation) are filled with elected officials, think tank representatives, and speakers with ties to the media. Nazione Futura, led by Francesco Giubilei, provides support for the far-right political parties in Italy, predominantly Lega and Frateli d’Italia (see Appendix for details).

AFPAC

America First Political Action (AFPAC) III, held in February 2022, was the third iteration of the AFPAC events, white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ alternative to the more mainstream CPAC. At this particular event, Fuentes was able to invite more than six Republican elected officials who commingled with prominent white nationalist activists and pundits (See Appendix for details).

The International Russian Conservative Forum

The International Russian Conservative Forum, held at the Holiday Inn in St. Petersburg in March, 2015, invited more than 150 representatives of the most radical fascist and neo-Nazi parties from across Europe (See Appendix for details).

“Dangers of Gender Ideology at Home and Abroad”

The Heritage Foundation’s “Dangers of Gender Ideology at Home and Abroad” event in  February 2024 brought together members from the group’s new International Coalition on Gender Imperialism, which represented both figures closer to the mainstream and members of the anti-LGBTQ+ faction. Heritage is the lead organization pushing the authoritarian agenda Project 2025, and the American groups ADF and IWF are official supporters of that initiative.

Worldwide Freedom Initiative

Finally, the Worldwide Freedom Initiative, held at the Montparnasse Tower in Paris in November 2023, was organized by the Republicans Overseas and the Danube Institute (See GPAHE’s previous reporting on this event here). This large gathering brought together leaders from many of Europe’s far-right political parties, a handful of Trump supporters from the United States, and Orbánists from Hungary. 

The Organizational Network

GPAHE also analyzed the conference data by organization. Once the data is simplified into single nodes representing the organizations each speaker is affiliated with, the network appears much more integrated. Instead of the several clusters that previously made up the network of individuals, the network of organizations collapses into three categories: groups that are closer to the right-wing mainstream, those mostly focused on anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-women policies, and white nationalist organizations. 

GPAHE’s data reveals the enormous influence that certain American far-right groups have in Europe, but also the continued influence of certain autocratic states, such as Hungary and Russia, on the transnational far right. Because of their links to certain influential nodes in the network, many groups within the network are only one social tie away from actors representing the foreign policy aims of these governments. American far-right groups have become bold enough to seek to form partnerships with autocratic governments. And organizations representing Viktor Orbán or Vladimir Putin have an incentive to form partnerships abroad in order to affect political change, spurred on by their own governments.

A snapshot of the network of organizations. Each red point (node) is a conference or organization that a speaker represents, while each line is a connection (edge).

Nazione Futura

Major organizations have a tendency to have many of their own associates speak at their events. This is the case, for example, of the far-right Italian think tank Nazione Futura that has nearly as many representatives of Nazione Futura speak at its events as it does others. The Hungarian Mathias Corvinus Collegium, the French Institut Iliade, and Action Française are other organizations that stack their events with their own staffers, as well as movement activists, and elected officials. However, organizations are more influential according to network analysis if their representatives speak at other events, and build a movement of supporters from outside of their immediate group.

U.S. Republican Party

This is the case for members of political parties running for office. In the United States, the Republican Party has been the most active in sending speakers to multiple events in many countries. 

European Anti-Immigration Groups

Some of the largest anti-immigrant parties in Europe have also been highly active in the larger network. In France, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (National Rally, RN) and Eric Zemmour’s Reconquête (Reconquest, REC), have sent speakers, either themselves or others, to many events. Other far-right political parties in Europe, such as VOX in Spain, Orbán’s Fidesz, Lega and Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI) in Italy, the Polish far-right Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice, PiS), Estonia’s Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (Conservative People’s Party of Estonia, EKRE), the Belgian Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest, VB), Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD), which is currently under surveillance by the German government for extremism, and Chega (Enough, CH) in Portugal also appear to be particularly active speakers in the network.

Think Tanks

Think tank representatives also appear frequently at international events, especially where elected officials are present.. The Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), Danube Institute, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Nazione Futura, and the now defunct but one-time politically-influential white nationalist group Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) founded in 1985, appear as some of the most active groups in the network (the CCC frequently hosted conservative Southern politicians at its annual meetings).

Pro-Orbán Organizations

The most influential organizations, by way of having connections with other influential nodes in the network, are displayed in the visualization below. As expected, many of the organizations that send speakers to far-right events also appear as the most influential in terms of their eigenvector centrality scores. Again, the significant presence of pro-Orbán organizations can be observed. These include the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), the Danube Institute, the Edmund Burke Foundation, Center for Fundamental Rights (CFR), and Hungarian Institute of International Affairs. The Heritage Foundation, which has a tight relationship with the Hungarian government and its connected think tanks, appears as the fourth most influential organization in the network. 

Heritage Foundation

As GPAHE has previously reported, the U.S.-based Heritage Foundation is making serious efforts to create alliances with far-right groups in other countries. Prior to the Trump presidency, there is little evidence that Heritage engaged with the transnational far right. Since 2019, however, Heritage has fully embraced this opportunity to expand its influence, aligning with Orbánism, and spreading its anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-woman rhetoric, and the “war on woke,” as evidenced by the events that they now host, the speakers that they invite, and their participation at other far-right events around the world

At the center of this endeavor are Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 partners, such as Hillsdale College, the Claremont Institute, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American Conservative, the American Principles Project, the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), the Center for Immigration Studies, Concerned Women for America, and the Conservative Partnership Institute, all of which appear within the top 150 influential organizations within the network, with Heritage ranking at number four (read GPAHE’s report on Project 2025 here). Project 2025 has more than 100 partner organizations, many well-known for their extreme positions on immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and abortion, and for pushing Christian Nationalism. The authors and supporters of Project 2025 claim this plan will “rescue the country” from “elite rule and woke cultural warriors.”

Alliance Defending Freedom

Certain organizations were also present at events in different groupings. The anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-women’s rights Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has connections to many groups abroad, having had representatives at more than 10 percent of the events in the dataset. Speakers representing the ADF attended 10 different World Congress of Families events, the Humanae Vitae Congress hosted by the French Jérôme Lejeune Foundation in May 2023, NatCon Brussels in 2022, NatCon London in 2023, two events organized by “Les Éveilleurs” (The Awakeners), a group that puts on events for politicians and activists in the orbit of the French parties Reconquête and the Rassemblement National, two conferences organized by the Political Network of Values (PNfV), and several events organized by the Heritage Foundation. 

Testifying to their Russian connections, they also appeared at the 2014 “Large Family and Future of Humanity” in Moscow (see Appendix for details), at least three iterations of the Forum on The Sanctity of Motherhood organized by Russian Christian Nationalist Konstantin Malofeev, including two events in Kazan, and Malofeev’s May 2014 conference in Vienna, Austria. 

Despite their American origins, the Alliance Defending Freedom is deeply entrenched in the transnational network, and has offices through its international branch in European cities, and has ties to elements close to the Kremlin, such as Malofeev, primarily through the WCF. Leaked emails from 2014 show how Malofeev and the WCF collaborated on U.S. domestic issues, and used the ADF as their legal counsel. They are incredibly well-funded and are active in almost every major anti-LGBTQ+ conference around the world.

Vision Network

Another anti-LGBTQ+, anti-woman network, Agenda Europe, now called Vision Network, is also well represented in the data. This secretive coalition of hundreds of ultra-conservative, Christian Nationalist lobbying groups and activist organizations, who call for banning abortion, non-traditional marriages, sexuality education, divorce, and contraceptives, and enshrining their religious beliefs in the law, have been behind many of the attempts to roll-back LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S. and EU. 

In the conference data, several organizations within the network are represented. They include American anti-LGBTQ+ groups Alliance Defending Freedom, European Center for Law and Justice, Family Watch International and LifeSite News; the French anti-LGBTQ+ Manif Pour Tous; the anti-LGBTQ+ Spanish groups CitizenGO and HazteOir; the Polish anti-LGBTQ+ Ordo Iuris; and the anti-LGBTQ+ Italian Pro Vita.

Academics

When the speaker data is collapsed for representatives of higher education institutions into data points denoting the university’s country of origin, the significant influence of far-right academics from the American and British university systems becomes apparent, and to a lesser extent those of major European Union member states. 

Of note, however, is the extent to which intellectuals from Hungarian universities have been disproportionately represented on the far-right conference circuit, considering that Hungary is a relatively small country. Following episodes of repression of independent universities in Hungary, the gifting of public money and property to Fidesz-aligned universities, and a series of reforms that brought most universities largely under the control of Fidesz loyalists, it appears Hungarian academics are now an important aspect of the pro-Orbán network. 

Major Far-Right Groupings

GPAHE’s network analysis of this data found that the transnational far-right network is largely grouped around four prominent clusters that surfaced in the analysis: groups closest to the right-wing mainstream, groups largely focused on anti-LGBTQ+ agitating, white nationalists, and a smaller grouping of neo-Nazis and neo-fascists. 

The groups closest to the mainstream have the most access to elected officials, primarily from the American Republican Party, National Rally (RN) in France, and other far-right political parties in Europe, and representatives of think tanks, as well as many media figures. This cluster consists of a large number of connections to Hungarian groups representing Orbán’s autocratic agenda. 

The anti-LGBTQ+ cluster, which has many ties to those closer to the mainstream, has less institutional access but still has ties to a large number of elected officials particularly from Eastern and Southern Europe, and Latin America, as well as representatives of religious organizations. They are also the cluster that is closest to groups in proximity to Russian actors. The two remaining clusters, the white nationalists and neo-fascists/neo-Nazis, with a  few exceptions, do not have much in terms of ties to political power.

A snapshot of the network of conferences and speakers. Each red point (node) denotes a conference or speaker present at a conference in the dataset, while each line is a connection (edge).

Groups Closest to Right-Wing Mainstream

A prominent cluster in GPAHE’s data analysis is far-right groups with close ties to the mainstream centers of power. Most prominent in this cluster are CPAC, the Heritage Foundation, and Hungarian outfits such as the Danube Institute. This group consists of speakers who hold bigoted views that are less stigmatized by the public when compared to other parts of the far right, and that tend to be slightly watered-down in order to be more acceptable for mainstream discourse. This cluster includes a significant number of elected officials, political party leaders, heads of state, media figures, think tank associates, and other members of more institutional groups. It includes representatives from the extreme far right of the American Republican Party, representatives of the major far-right parties in Europe, representatives of major think tanks providing support to their causes, and proxies for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Generally, entities in this cluster have more political power than others due to their positions in government, their access to funding, their social capital, and access to media. Whereas about 18 percent of the speakers in the entire dataset had experience in government, 26 percent of the speakers for the events organized by these groups had governing experience, more than any other cluster. This is exemplified by CPAC events, where elected officials consist of about 50 percent of their speakers.

Prominent events in this cluster include the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which for many decades was an exclusively American affair, but recently has branched out with chapters and conferences in Hungary, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Israel, and Mexico.

More recently, the National Conservative (NatCon) conferences, which have been held in the United States, Italy, United Kingdom, and Belgium, have become important nodes for the transnational far right. Other events of prominence are organized by groups financed by the Hungarian government. These include The Danube Institute, which organizes an annual Geopolitical Summit, and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), which organizes speaking events in both Brussels and Budapest for non-Hungarians.

While far-right individuals from most European and North American countries have participated in these events, Hungarian organizations, especially those close to Orbán, have a significant amount of influence in this cluster. The pro-Orbán Center for Fundamental Rights is the primary organizer of CPAC Hungary events. The CFA was also listed as a sponsor of the 2022 CPAC event in Texas, although the American Conservative Union, which put the event on, denied any links when questioned.

Anti-LGBTQ+ and Anti-Women Groups

Far-right groups close to the mainstream, and some often considered to be mainstream, regularly demonize the LGBTQ+ community and work to strip them of human and civil rights protections. But there is also a major grouping on the far right revealed in the data that focuses more specifically on demonizing the LGBTQ+ population in tandem with restricting women’s rights, particularly sexual and reproductive health rights. This cluster includes groups like Alliance Defending Freedom and C-FAM. These organizations are usually more religious, often Christian Nationalist, and have a presence in countries across Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Despite their widespread geographic dispersion, they are tightly networked and frequently attend each other’s events. As a result, this faction forms a consistent cluster that extends beyond national borders. The individuals and organizations within this cluster largely do not interact with more hardline groups, such as neo-Nazis, though the latter agree with their anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs.

The anti-LGBTQ+ cluster features fewer government officials as speakers, and very few individuals with connections to media or think tanks other than those mentioned above. It does have a significant number of speakers with ties to religious organizations, such as the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, the Catholic Church, the Church of Latter-Day Saints, and a handful of other religious organizations focused on anti-abortion or anti-LGBTQ+ issues. Religious figures make up about 10 percent of the speakers at anti-LGBTQ+ events, compared to about three percent of speakers in the entire dataset.

Beyond those with explicit links to religious organizations, groups and individuals with Christian Nationalist worldviews are also prominent. Moreover, while the anti-LGBTQ+ cluster is tied to fewer elected officials than those closest to the mainstream, elected officials are still prominent at their events, primarily from Eastern Europe, where anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs are more widespread, as well as from Southern Europe and Latin America, where cultural ties to the Catholic Church are strong.

Major events within this cluster include the American-run World Congress of Families (WCF), the Political Network for Values’ (PnfV) Transatlantic Summits, the Forum on the Sanctity of Motherhood, organized by the Russians Vladimir Yakunin and Natalya Yakunina’s St Andrew the First-Called Foundation, and the Humanae Vitae Congress, organized by the French Jérôme Lejeune Foundation. Other points of  interest are the links that this cluster has to Russian far-right organizations, and groups with ties to the Kremlin.

Major Anti-LGBTQ+ & Anti-Woman Conferences

Another cluster that emerges from GPAHE’s data analysis is made up of white nationalists and the closely related Identitarian movement, whose adherents generally believe that those of European-descent are being “replaced” by refugees, immigrants, and people of color in their home countries. This network extends from the United States to as far away as Ukraine, Russia, and the Baltic states. While they do not organize conferences as often as the other clusters, their events attract speakers from across Europe and North America. In France and Germany, most Identitarian groups have a tendency to collaborate regionally or with groups in countries that speak the same language. White nationalist events generally feature fewer elected officials and media figures with little credibility, though at times large online audiences.

The most prominent white nationalist event for years has been the annual American Renaissance conference held in the U.S. since the early 1990s. These conferences primarily feature racist academics, white nationalist activists, and “intellectuals” promoting eugenics and the inferiority of people of color, but also racists from abroad (See Appendix for details).

Another prominent white nationalist event is the Traditional Britain conference organized by Hungarian-based publisher Arktos, the Etnofutur events, organized by the Estonian Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond party’s (EKRE) youth group Sinine Äratus, the Scandza Forum organized in Sweden and Norway, Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes’ American First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in the United States (see Appendix for details), and the white nationalist “Identitarian Ideas” conferences in Sweden.

Prominent individuals in this cluster include American anti-immigrant activist and VDARE founder Peter Brimelow and American white nationalists Sam Dickson. Counter-Currents editor and American white nationalist Greg Johnson has attended many events across the North American and European continents, whereas National Corps spokesperson Olena Semenyaka, associated with the Ukrainian Azov Movement, which has attracted neo-Nazis and white nationalists into its militia ranks, has been a prominent figure at white nationalist events in Europe.

Despite being farthest from the mainstream, these groups do have links to political power. Far-right politicians from Europe and the United States who regularly attend their events include Marion Maréchal-Le Pen from France,  Ruuben Kaalep from Estonia, Austria’s Johannes Hübner, U.S. Congressman Paul Gosar and former Congressman Steve King.

Prior to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022, white nationalist and neo-fascist groups from Ukraine also played an important role in this cluster. In an attempt to build a broader anti-Russian coalition of supporters from abroad, representatives from the Ukrainian neo-fascist Azov movement and Andriy Biletsky’s National Corps party, attended many conferences abroad from both the white nationalist cluster and neo-fascist cluster.

The “first lady” of Ukrainian nationalism Olena Semenyaka, who serves as the spokesperson of the National Corps and the Azov movement, was by far the most prominent node within these clusters. The Azovists are the primary link that bridges the white nationalists and the neo-fascists in Europe; alone, Semenyaka has attended more than 10 percent of the events in this cluster, including events held by the German neo-Nazi political party Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party, NPD), the German neo-Nazi group Der III. Weg (The Third Way), the neo-fascist group CasaPound Italia, Estonia’s Sinine Äratus, the American white nationalist Counter-Currents, and the now defunct transnational organization, Altright. The National Corps was also behind the Paneuropa conferences and the Intermarium Support Group events, which brought many of the same people to Kyiv prior to 2022 to rally support for the Azov movement.

The French Identitarians are unique within the larger white nationalist movement in that they have little interaction with groups and events in other countries, although conference data may undercount the amount of interaction among these groups that happens in other ways. Instead of participating internationally with groups holding similar ideological views, the French far-right groups have a tendency to engage in national politics and attend the events put on by other French groups, even if they do not necessarily share the same ideological views.

For example, French Identitarians do not often collaborate with the broader white nationalist movement in Europe aside from occasional events in Italy. Instead, there is closer collaboration with monarchist groups such as Action Française and the Christian Nationalist, Identitarian Academia Christiana. Jean-Yves Le Gallou and essayist Michel Geoffroy for the Identitarian think tank Polémia, as well as the annual Forum de la Dissidence, organized by Polémia, and Institut Iliad’s conferences (see Appendix for details), serve as important nodes in this grouping. The Academia Christiana conferences and the one-off “Convention de la Droite” (Convention of the Right) event in 2019, organized by the French far-right magazine L’Incorrect, which saw many members who would eventually join Reconquête attend, have also served as events that bring together the broader far right in France.

Neo-Fascist and Neo-Nazi Groups

Given their ideological tendency toward action and street violence over “metapolitics,” (a strategy to change politics indirectly by way of culture and discourse), the neo-fascist and neo-Nazi events are the smallest in number in the conference dataset, consisting of only 19 conferences globally. The data reflects such groups who organize and attend formal speaking events, and underestimates the many groups that do not. Generally, these events feature far fewer speakers than others in the dataset, averaging between five and 10 at most. This group also has an extremely low level of influence based on GPAHE’s analysis, with elected officials, primarily from fringe parties, accounting for nine percent of speakers.

Large international conferences by groups within this cluster are not the norm, but significant efforts to bring together neo-fascist groups from across Europe have been organized by the pan-European Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APF) grouping. A large APF congress in Madrid in March 2022, for example, brought together numerous political leaders from France, Spain, Portugal, and the U.K., among others. Another significant international event was the Nova Ordem Social (New Social Order) conference held in Lisbon in 2019 organized by Mário Machado.

Olena Semenyaka, again, is the most significant individual appearing in this cluster, having attended nearly 37 percent of all of these events, and serving as the most important individual among white nationalists on the circuit due to her ongoing efforts to raise support for Azov in the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These efforts culminated in a series of events called the Paneuropa conferences organized at the Reconquista club, one of the headquarters of the Azov movement, in Kyiv between 2017 and 2018. Another annual conference was the Intermarium Support Group (see Appendix for details) which brought together 15 to 20 representatives from Azov-supporting groups from across Europe from 2016 to 2020.

Another important actor within this group is the Italian neo-Nazi group CasaPound and their student organization Blocco Studentesco Nazionale (National Student Block). They hold regular meetings, seminars, and presentations for their supporters. Foreigners are rarely allowed at these events; however, politicians from Italian far-right political parties Lega or Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI) are occasionally present as speakers.

Other Groups

The conference dataset includes other small groupings of interest. Conspiracy groups do hold conferences, but they are not often connected through common speakers with other conspiracist events, or across borders. These events are insular in that it is difficult to identify influential nodes. Some of the more prominent events have been held by the German conspiracist outlet Compact, the Canadian conspiracist Economic Education Association, and the antisemitic Portuguese group Habeas Corpus.

Election deniers Mike Lindell and Sidney Powell, Q-Anon influencer and former general Michael Flynn, and PizzaGate influencer Jack Posobiec are some of the more influential nodes within the U.S.-based conspiracy network. That these conferences and their affiliated individuals are so unconnected to others may be related to the fact that they are quite specific to a particular conspiracy, such as American election denial, that they don’t branch out to other conferences or across borders.

There are other groups, particularly antisemitic and anti-Muslim groups, that seem to only host events with speakers from their own country or who speak the same language. This can be seen in the case of the German Compact, which primarily invites speakers from the German-speaking community. One of the few international events that Compact put on was a 2015 pro-Russian conclave held after the annexation of Crimea called, “Freedom for Germany!” which claimed to include over 1,000 guests and speakers.

The antisemitic monarchist group Action Française (AF) has a tendency to hold events with speakers predominantly from their own organization, does not appear to invite speakers from outside of France, and rarely invites elected officials to speak at their events.

There were some efforts to internationalize the anti-Muslim movement, and bring together anti-Muslim speakers from around the world, by the now relatively inactive American group, ACT for America, and the also relatively inactive “Counter-Jihad” movement, which was primarily British.

Conclusion

GPAHE’s network analysis of far right conferences and speakers reveals the full extent of  the growing transnational nature of the movement. The far right is highly engaged across borders and with like-minded colleagues, though it does break down into four ideological strands. Each of these strands — far right groups close to the right-wing mainstream, anti-LGBTQ+ groups, white supremacist groups, and groups steeped in neo-fascism and neo-Nazism — have been shown to co-mingle over the years as conferences expand in scope and breadth. It is likely that these ties will simply grow deeper in coming years, and perhaps with that so too will their likeliness to collaborate even more deeply on policies, agendas, and activism across borders.

Appendix: Timeline of Major Far-Right Conferences

1994

American Renaissance Annual Conference, Atlanta

The first American Renaissance Conference was held on May 30 in Atlanta, Georgia. These annual conferences, organized by American white nationalist Jared Taylor, began as a gathering for disgraced academics and eugenicists and eventually pivoted toward hosting far-right figures from around the world, including many from the white nationalist movement. The American Renaissance events are highly influential within the white nationalist cluster. Prominent speakers include Dries Van Langenhove of Belgium’s Schild & Vrienden, Ruuben Kaalep, formerly Estonian Conservative People’s Party MP and founder of the youth group Sinine Äratus, Irish white nationalist Keith Woods, Swedish Red Ice director Henrik Palmgren, French Institut Iliade founder Jean-Yves Le Gallou, Swedish white nationalist social media personality Marcus “Golden One” Follin, Martin Lichtmesz, member of the German far-right think tank Institut für Staatspolitik (Institute for State Policy, IfS) and magazine Sezession, Dutch MPs Filip Dewinter and Anke Van dermeersch of the Flemish separatist Vlaams Belang political party, French Identitarian theorist Guillaume Faye, former Front National MP Bruno Gollnisch, and former British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin.

1997

World Congress of Families, Prague

The first World Congress of Families (WCF) event was held from March 19 – 22 in Prague. Originally bi-annual events, the WCF serves as the largest convener of anti-LGBTQ+, anti-abortion, and Christian Nationalists from around the world. The WCF is a project of the anti-LGBTQ+ International Organization for the Family and was founded at Moscow State University during a meeting between two Russian sociologists, Anatoly Antonov and Viktor Medkov, and Reagan administration official Allan Carlson. Later WCF events were held in Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004), Warsaw (2007), Amsterdam (2009), Madrid (2012), Sydney (2013), Salt Lake City (2015), Tbilisi (2016), Budapest (2017), Chisinau (2018), Verona (2019), Accra (2019), and Mexico City (2022). 

2006

“The White World’s Future,” Moscow

The “The White World’s Future” was an influential, one-time conference held from June 8 – 10 in Moscow at the Russian European Synergy Centre. Among the elder statesmen of the white nationalist movement in attendance were Guillaume Faye (Carrefour de l’horloge), David Duke (formerly Knights of the Ku Klux Klan), Enrique Ravello (Tierra y Pueblo), Alexander Sevastianov (National Sovereignty Party of Russia), Aleksandr Ivanov-Sukharevsky (People’s National Party), and Anatoly Ivanov (United Russia). 

2012

Souveränitätskonferenz (Sovereignty Conference), Berlin

On November 24, conspiracist and Identitarian German organization Compact, hosted the first of a series of annual events called Souveränitätskonferenz (Sovereignty Conference). These large conferences targeted American influence in Europe and sought to promote friendship with Russia. They drew individuals from the German-speaking far right, including André Poggenburg (Alternative fur Deutschland, Alternative for Germany, AfD), Jürgen Elsässer (COMPACT, PEGIDA), Martin Sellner (Identitäre Bewegung, Identitarian Movement), Götz Kubitschek (Institut für Staatspolitik, Institute for State Policy), Susanne Winter (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, Austrian Freedom Party), Oscar Freyinger (Schweizerische Volkspartei, Swiss People’s Party), Lutz Bachmann (PEGIDA), Martin Reichardt (Alternative für Deutschland), and Gernot H. Tegetmeyer (PEGIDA). They also included several figures from other countries, such as former American Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Tommy Robinson (English Defense League), Marco Tirapelle (Lega). Compact was banned by German authorities in July 2024 but successfully challenged the ban in court.

2013

Counter-Jihad Conference, Warsaw

The Counter-Jihad Conference was a large anti-Muslim event organized by the International Civil Liberties Alliance in Warsaw and attended by various organizations and individuals making up the anti-Muslim “counter Jihad” movement in Europe and North America. Participants included several members from ACT! for America, the Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa (Citizens’ movement Pax Europa), and the Alliance to Stop Sharia. Stephen Coughlin from the Claremont Institute and Henrik Ræder Clausen of the far-right Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party) were also in attendance. The “Anti-Jihad” movement is a strand of far-right, anti-Muslim ideology that seeks to defend liberal democracy and all the freedoms that accompany it from “creeping Islamization,” a conspiratorial dog-whistle for the acceptance of Muslim minorities. 

2014

“Large Family and Future of Humanity,” Moscow

In 2014, the World Congress of Families (WCF) event “Every Child A Gift: Large Families, the Future of Humanity,” expected to take place in Moscow, was canceled after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in February, due to the fear of attracting attention that could lead to sanctions being placed on their organization. Instead, a nearly identical conference was held in September called the “Large Family and Future of Humanity” conference without the official sponsorship of WCF but that included many of the same scheduled speakers. Russian oligarchs Vladimir Yakunin and Konstantin Malofeev bankrolled the conference, which featured more than 120 speakers, including the WCF officials who pulled out of the earlier event, and it reportedly included “over 1500 people” from 45 countries. 

This event featured large participation by representatives of religious organizations, such as the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Pontifical Council for the Family, anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ groups, such as HazteOir, CitizenGo, Human Life International, C-FAM, Vladimir Yakunin of the St. Andrew The First-Called Foundation, the National Organization for Marriage, and Notizie Pro Vita. Also in attendance were far-right politicians such as former Hungarian President Katalin Novák, MP for the Estonian Centre Party Vladimir Velman, representatives of the Christian Nationalist Serbian party Dveri, Anastasios Nerantzis, the leader of the Greek right-wing party New Democracy, Spanish MP for Partido Popular (PP) Margarita Durán, former First Lady of Moldova Galina Dodon, Rassemblement National (RN) French MEP Aymeric Chauprade, and Serbian politician Alexandar Cotric from the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO). This event was significant in tying many of the groups in the anti-LGBTQ+ coalition to Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.

Political Network for Values Transatlantic Summit, New York

On November 14, the Political Network for Values (PNfV) held their first annual Transatlantic Summit at the United Nations building. Every year, these large events invite leaders from the anti-LGBTQ+ movement around the world as speakers. Since 2014, PNfV Transatlantic Summits have been held in New York (2014), Washington D.C. (2015), Brussels (2017), Budapest (2022), and New York (2023). The PNfV is sponsored by CitizenGo, the National Organization for Marriage, C-FAM, World Congress of Families, and regularly has speakers from such organizations as the Hungarian ruling political party Fidesz, the Spanish Partido Popular (Popular Party, PP), the Spanish far-right party VOX, and HazteOir.

2015

International Russian Conservative Forum, St. Petersburg

The International Russian Conservative Forum was held in St. Petersburg on March 22 and featured 150 members of European and Russian nationalist and neo-Nazi parties who gathered to promote “traditional values” and in support of the Russian government following its annexation of Crimea. Speakers who attended include Italian Roberto Fiore (Forza Nuova, New Force), Belgian Kris Roman (Euro-Rus), Nick Griffin (British National Party), American Sam Dickson (Council of Conservative Citizens), Russian Vladimir Tor (Russian March), Alexei Milchakov (Rusich), German Udo Voigt (Nationaldemokratische Partei, National Democratic Party), Russians Fedor Biryukov and Yury Lyubomirsky (Rodina), in addition to representatives from Bulgaria’s Ataka, Greece’s Golden Dawn, and the Party of Swedes.

Institut Iliade Colloque, Paris

On April 25, a large annual conference for French Nouvelle Droite (New Right) Identitarians, Institut Iliade Colloque, made its debut in Paris. The Institut Iliade is an organization set up by long-time Identitarian activist Jean-Yves Le Gallou that spreads the white nationalist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Prominent speakers over the years have included German Ein Prozent’s (One Percent) Philip Stein, Alain de Benoist from the Groupement de recherche et d’études pour la civilisation européenne (Research and Study Group for European civilization, GRECE), French writer and author of the Le Camp des Saintes (Camp of the Saints), Jean Raspail, and Paul-Marie Coûteaux (Souveraineté, Identité et Liberté, Sovereignty, Identity, Liberty).

Forum de la Dissidence, Paris

The first Forum de la Dissidence (Dissidence Forum), a major event for the French Identitarian movement, was held by Fondation Polémia on November 21. This conference became an annual event serving as a platform for the most influential French Identitarian activists in the country. Prominent speakers who have attended the Forum over the years include Reconquête’s Éric Zemmour (Reconquest, REC), Robert Ménard, Damien Rieu, Martial Bild from TV Libertés (Freedom TV), Rassemblement national de la jeunesse (National Rally Youth, RNJ) influencer Julien Rochedy, author Renaud Camus, Karim Ouchikh from Souveraineté, Identité et Libertés (Sovereignty, Identity, and Liberty), Marie-Claude Bompard from the Ligue du Sud (League of the South), Academia Christiana’s Victor Aubert, Alice Cordier from Collectif Némésis (Nemesis Collective), and Thaïs d’Escufon from Génération Identitaire (Generation Identity).

2016

Grand Week-End d’Action Française

The “Grand Week-End d’Action Française” (The Big Weekend of the French Action), held May 7-8, was a small one-off event held by the antisemitic followers of Charles Maurras’s Action Française (French Action), unique in that it included a number of politicians that would not typically associate publicly with such elements. Speakers included Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, Yves-Marie Adeline from Institut des Sciences Sociales, Économiques et Politiques (Social, Economic, and Political Sciences, ISSEP), Dominique Jamet from Debout La France (France Stand Up), Robert Ménard, and Professor Frédéric Rouvillois. The event was also one of the few in the dataset that included the presence of the aristocracy: Jean d’Orléans, the Duke of France. 

International Conference of the Intermarium Support Group

On July 2, the Intermarium, an organization run by Ukrainian nationalist Olena Semenyaka to build support for the Ukrainian neo-fascist movement Azov organized the first International Conference of the Intermarium Support Group. This was an annual conference until 2020. These events featured a large number of Azovists and members of the Natsionalnyi Korpus (National Corps) in Ukraine, including many individuals who had fought alongside them in the former Azov Battalion. 

2017

Conservative Political Action Conference 2017, Forest Heights, MD

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), organized by the American Conservative Union, began as a national conference of Reaganite-type republicans in 1974. While the conference has always had its share of far-right speakers, CPAC has now fully transformed into a far-right event. In February 2017, CPAC became more extreme, inviting speakers such as anti-Muslim activist Milo Yiannopoulos and Steve Bannon. In later years, speakers would not only become more extreme in their rhetoric, but also more international. CPAC began hosting prominent far-right actors from abroad including Britain’s Nigel Farage, France’s Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, and Brazil’s Eduardo Bolsonaro, making it one of the premier events for the global far-right movement.

Paneuropa Conference,  Kyiv

The first Paneuropa conferences were influential events in the white nationalist and neo-fascist circles organized by Olena Semenyaka’s Intermarium, which sought to build coalitions of support for the Azov movement. The first Paneuropa conference was held on April 28 in Kyiv, and the second a year later. While the full number of attendees is unknown, Italy’s Gabriele Adinolfi from Terza Posizione (Third Position), France’s Pascal Lassalle from Radio Courtoisie (Courtesy Radio), Sweden’s Marcus Follin, nicknamed “The Golden One,” American Greg Johnson from Counter-Currents, and Italian Alberto “Zippo” Palladino from CasaPound Italia were all reportedly speakers at the events, which also featured representatives from Ukrainian far-right groups including Svoboda (Freedom), Karpatska Sitch (Carpathian Sitch), and Azov.

2018

Geopolitical Summit, Budapest

On December 4, the Danube Institute, a Hungarian think tank funded by the Orbán government, organized its first Geopolitical Summit. This event was small and did not have a considerable amount of foreign attendees, but eventually became a larger gathering that would include individuals that were close to the Orbán regime and its political agenda. Subsequent Geopolitical Summits were held in 2022 and 2023. The second summit included members of the Edmund Burke Foundation, the Migration Research Institute, and even former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. 

2019

National Conservatism Conference, Washington, D.C.

From July 14 to 16, the Edmund Burke Foundation, led by Yoram Haony, held its first National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) in Washington, D.C. Similar to CPAC, the NatCon events are host to a large cast of powerful far-right politicians and representatives of far-right media and think tank organizations. Unlike CPAC, however, their list of official speakers comes from countries across North America and Europe, with a heavy emphasis on American, British, Hungarian, and Israeli figures, as well as individuals from other EU member states. NatCon gathers a “Who’s Who” of the transnational far-right movement, and has held events in Orlando (2021), Brussels (2022, 2024), Miami (2022), London (2023), and Washington (2024). Due to the large number of Orbánists invited to the conference, the events are generally understood to be a part of the Hungarian prime minister’s efforts to exercise soft-power in other countries.

Convention de la Droite, Paris

The Convention de la Droite (Convention of the Right) was a large one-time event organized by allies of French politician Marion-Maréchal Le Pen, in September 2019, that brought together a number of groups from the French far right. Prominent speakers included Éric Zemmour (Reconquête!, REC), Robert Ménard, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (REC), Xavier Breton (Les Républicains, The Republicans), Erik Tegnér (Livre Noir, Black Book), Jean-Frédéric Poisson (Voie du Peuple, Voice of the People).

Scandza Forum, Oslo

The Scandza Forums are a collection of influential conferences within white nationalist, or sometimes referred to as “alt-right” circles. The first Scandza Forum was held in Oslo on January 12, 2019, and subsequent events were held in both Oslo and Stockholm over the next two years. Prominent speakers included America’s Greg Johnson (Counter-Currents), Sweden’s Fróði Midjord (Scandza Forum), America’s Jared Taylor (American Renaissance), Ukraine’s Olena Semenyaka (Natsionalnyi Korpus, National Corps), Germany’s Martin Semlitsch (Institut für Staatspolitik, Institute for State Policy), America’s Kevin Macdonald (formerly American Freedom Party), and Mike Enoch (The Right Stuff).

CPAC Brazil, São Paulo

In October 2019, the CPAC franchise held its first event in Brazil following the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president. The event was organized by Eduardo Bolsonaro, his son, and other members of the Partido Social Liberal (Social Liberal Party). Notable speakers at CPAC Brazil events have been Chilean José Antonio Kast (Partido Republicano do Chile, Republican Party of Chile), Argentine Javier Milei (La Libertad Avanza, Liberty Advances), Mexican Eduardo Verastegui (CPAC Mexico), Americans Steve Bannon and Jason Miller (GETTR), and Brazil’s Ernesto Araújo (Fundación Disenso)

Academia Christiana Colloque Annuel, Paris

In 2019, the first Academia Christiana (AC) Annual Colloquium was held on October 26 in Paris. These events serve to unite various activist and intellectual elements of the Identitarian, neo-fascist, and Christian Nationalist movement in France and other Francophone countries. Organized by AC leaders Julien Langella and Victor Aubert, prominent individuals who have attended include David Engels from the Instytut Zachodni (Western Institute), Thais d’Escufon from the former Génération Identitaire (Generation Identity), Raphael Ayma from Tenesoun, Hervé Juvin from the Rassemblement National (National Assembly), and far-right Catholic Nationalist Matthieu Raffray. Representatives of local Identitarian and neo-fascist groups, often small and regional, are frequently seen at their events. While foreign speakers are almost non-existent, AC events are very influential in bringing together various ideological strands of the far right in France.

2020

America First Political Action Conference, Washington, D.C.

White supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes organized the first America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) on February 28 in Washington D.C. as a gathering point for his Groypers, an online, tech-savvy antisemitic and white nationalist movement. AFPAC has since been organized twice in Orlando, Florida, while AFPAC 2024 in Detroit was cancelled. 

Prominent individuals who have attended AFPAC events include Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Former Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King, anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer, Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers, former Idaho Lieutenent Governor Janice McGeachin, former Trump staffer Garret Ziegler, prominent Arizonan Kari Lake, QAnon conspiracy adherent Lauren Witzke, white nationalist Jared Taylor (American Renaissance), anti-immigrant activist Peter Brimelow (VDARE), racist activist and Jan. 6 rioter Anthime “Baked Alaska” Gionet, Andrew Torba (Gab), conspiracist writer Harrison Hill Smith (InfoWars), podcaster Jesse Lee Peterson, far-right media figure Michelle Malkin (Newsmax), Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, British Groyper and one-time anti-Muslim activist Milo Yiannopoulos, and Canada First leader Tyler Russell.

2021

The European Conservative Launch, Budapest

The launch event of The European Conservative took place on September 20 in Budapest. The European Conservative is a pan-European right-wing publication, managed by Alvino-Mario Fantini, with strong ties to the Orbán regime and far-right think tanks across Europe. Since their launch date, The European Conservative has organized large conferences in Budapest (June 2023) alongside the Danube Institute and C-FAM, Madrid (October 2023) and with the Spanish-based university CEU Centro de Estudios, Formación y Análisis Social (Center of Studies, Education, and Social Analysis, CEFAS), and in Brussels (October 2023 and February 2024). 

2022

CPAC Hungary, Budapest

In 2022, the CPAC franchise appeared in Budapest under the name CPAC Hungary. This annual event has become a large gathering place for elected officials and think tank representatives in the West that are close to the Viktor Orbán regime in Hungary. The annual event is put on by the Miklós Szánthó’s Center for Fundamental Rights, an organization that provides intellectual cover for Orbán’s politics in the country, and both it and the conference receive extensive funding from the national treasury. Szánthó has said his organization seeks to establish “a coalition of anti-globalist forces.” 

Italian Conservatism, Rome

From September 30 to October 2, Nazione Futura, an Italian think tank led by Francesco Giubilei that is close to Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), the ruling Italian party and its Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, held the first large Italian Conservatism conference in Rome. This event hosted a number of speakers from Nazione Futura and other Italian organizations, in addition to speakers from the Danube Institute, Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Sverigedemokraterna (Swedish Democrats), Spain’s far-right political party VOX, Portugal’s far-right political party Chega, and the Spanish-based university CEU Centro de Estudios, Formación y Análisis Social (Center of Studies, Education, and Social Analysis, CEFAS). Another Italian Conservatism event was held in 2023 at the same location. 

Alliance for Peace and Freedom Congress, Madrid

The Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APF) is a large, pan-European coalition of pro-Russian neo-fascist parties that cooperate on a supranational level in order to coordinate far-right activities across the continent and try to gain representation at the European level. On March 26, 2022, a large APF Congress was held in Madrid which included the participation of the British National Party’s Nick Griffin, Spain’s Gonzalo Martín from Democracia Nacional (National Democracy) and Manuel Andrino from the Falange Espanola de las JONS (Spanish Falange of the Juntas of National-Syndicalist Offensive), Misa Vacic from the Srpska desnica party (Serbian Right), Romania’s Tudor Ionescu from Nouă Dreaptă (New Right), Portugal’s Alexandre Santos from Força Nova (New Force), Italy’s Stefano Saija from Forza Nuova (New Force), Yiannis Zografos from Greece’s National Popular Consciousness, Germany’s Claus Cremer from the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party, NDP), and France’s Yvan Benedetti from the Parti Nationaliste Français (French Nationalist Party, PNF).

2023

Multipolarity Forum, Moscow

On February 27, 2023, the first Multipolarity Forum (Форум многополярности) was organized between Brazil’s Raphael Machado of Nova Resistência (New Resistance), Russian intellectual and Putin fan Alexander Dugin, the China-based Thinkers Forum, and the Moscow-based International Movement of Russophiles. While the first conference was smaller, in February 2024, a much larger congress was held in Moscow with the blessing of government officials Maria Zakharova and Sergey Lavrov (see GPAHE’s reporting on this event here). 

The conference featured an unlikely amalgamation of anti-American groups including neo-fascists such as Italian Roberto Fiore, Belgian Kris Roman, anti-LGBTQ+ and Christian Nationalist individuals like Konstantin Malofeev and Cardinal Viganò, authoritarian-left figures like Jackson Hinkle and Liane Kilinc, pro-Russian media propagandists, and followers of Dugin’s “4th political theory.”

2024

International Coalition on Gender Imperialism, Washington D.C.

On February 27, the Heritage Foundation hosted the International Coalition on Gender Imperialism Inaugural Forum entitled “The Dangers of Gender Ideology at Home and Abroad.” While small in scope, this Washington, D.C., event brought together far-right anti-LGBTQ+ organizations from the Center for Fundamental Rights (Hungary), Fundación Disenso (Brazil), Ordo Iuris (Poland), Centro Studi Machiavelli (Italy), Mandiner (Hungary), the Alliance Defending Freedom (USA), the Independent Women’s Forum (USA), and Women’s Rights Matter (Canada).

[Vesper 30,227]

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-09-11-notes-for-next-time/

 

Most commentators have concluded that Kamala Harris outperformed Donald Trump last night. She baited him into occasionally going off the rails. She sounded reasonable and well informed compared to Trump’s repeated inventions, lies, and insults.

I’m something of an outlier. I think she might have done a lot better. She’s a learner and could be even stronger next time, if there is a next time.

Trump’s strategy was to dominate. He never missed an opportunity to demand and get the right to respond to Harris. In this fashion, the moderators allowed him a lot more airtime than Harris got. However, a lot of this imbalance was on Harris. She could have insisted on a rejoinder to Trump’s nonsense every time, but seldom did.

It is the image of Trump’s strength, however demented, that appeals to so many of his supporters. And it plays to the sexist stereotype of a woman potential commander in chief as weaker than a man. Harris needed to counter that, by being just as dominant as Trump was, at every opportunity.

More from Robert Kuttner

Some commentators felt that hanging back and letting Trump impeach himself with bizarre claims was sufficient. But it would have been more effective for her to demonstrate strength by insisting on equal time and using the time to score counterpunches.

Harris did land several, but also missed some. For instance, it fell to one of the moderators, Linsey Davis, to point out that infanticide, contrary to Trump’s claim, is illegal. Harris could have hammered Trump on that: This man believes that a woman’s right to abortion means execution of live babies. He is delusional. Do you want him to have his finger on the nuclear trigger?

When Trump kept attacking Biden and Harris for “never firing anybody,” and bragging about all the people he had fired, Harris might have demanded a response and come back with Who hired all of these incompetent officials whom Donald Trump bravely fired? Donald Trump! We don’t fire a lot of people, because we hire competent people in the first place.

When Trump ducked the moderators’ question about why he had torpedoed a bipartisan plan to secure the border and changed the subject, and the moderators went on to their next scripted question, Harris might have said, Hold on, I need to respond to that. We had legislation for border security early in President Biden’s term, and Donald Trump cynically pressured Republican legislators into killing it. That’s how much he really cares about the security of our border. Did you hear his response? He doesn’t have one.

And when Trump repeated the crazy claim about migrants in Springfield, Ohio, stealing and eating pets, Harris let the moderators fact-check that. She might have insisted on a response: Donald Trump makes stuff up. That’s comical when it comes to fantasies about migrants eating cats and dogs. But what happens to our security when he makes things up, and believes them, about Putin or Netanyahu?

On the whole, the moderators did well. But it was a disgrace that they kept addressing Trump as Mr. President, needlessly enhancing his tattered dignity.

WHO “WON” THE DEBATE, and what difference did it make?

A flash poll of debate watchers conducted for CNN found that by a margin of 63 to 37 percent, they felt that Harris did better. Before the debate, the same viewers were evenly split on which candidate would win. And 96 percent of Harris supporters said Harris had done better, while 69 percent of Trump’s supporters felt he had won.

But drill down deeper and the news is not so great. The percentage of viewers who felt Trump was better on the economy actually widened after they watched the debate. Despite Trump’s exaggerations and lies, debate watchers also gave Trump a 23-point advantage over Harris on whom they trusted to handle immigration. Most tellingly, just 4 percent said the debate had changed their minds about who to vote for.

Harris, in short, narrowly won the debate on points, but it was far from the knockout being claimed. She will need to maximize every opportunity going forward if we are to be spared a second Trump term.

[NikkiCFC 8,337]

4 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

He did say that  - also called her a commie, a  Marxist - 🙃

 

[robsblubot 3,595]

5 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

 

First the illegal aliens are eating pets. Now he's concerned about the sexual identity of the imprisoned illegal aliens? 😆

It hit me right after the debate I did not watch: even if both ridiculous claims were true, why should such small nonsense be the subject in a presidential debate? Shouldn't they discuss things remotely related to being a president instead?

Strange times.

[Vesper 30,227]

2 hours ago, robsblubot said:

Now he's concerned about the sexual identity of the imprisoned illegal aliens? 😆

 

Gender identity, not sexual identity. 

2 entirely different things.

Sexual identity is who you are sexually attracted to. It is not determined by your gender.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,920]

13 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

He did say that  - also called her a commie, a  Marxist - 🙃

Through her father of all people. A man who Kamala saw, at most, once a year after the age of 8 or so. It would have been a low blow, but she should have replied:

"My dad taught me as much as you taught Tiffany"

[Vesper 30,227]

44 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

"My dad taught me as much as you taught Tiffany"

he taught them all to drop hundreds of thousands on plastic surgery

that 'Trump Jaw' and Trump fat isn't fixing itself

 

 

it's magic!!!!!

Edited September 12, 2024 by Vesper