The age of left-right politics is over:far-right is the wrong label for Trump

Politics in the West is fundamentally changing. The likes of Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen and Germany’s AfD are often seen as a rising ‘Far Right’. This is wrong, argues Jean-Paul Faguet, because it implies that these politicians exist on the same Left-Right axis that has long defined Western politics. That axis is increasingly irrelevant. The traditional working class is disappearing: most people, from office workers to Uber drivers, self-identify more as individualistic entrepreneurs than part of a working-class. The real political struggle – in which Trump and co. are already engaged – is to define a new axis of political competition, which reflects society’s real dividing lines.