, Columnist
The Rise of the Left Was the Real Story of 2022
From Brazil to Germany to New Zealand, social democrats and even outright socialists are addressing voters’ widespread longing for reassurance.
Leading a pink wave.
Photographer: Miguel Schincariol/AFP/Getty Images
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Pundits reviewing 2022 are heaving a palpable sigh of relief. This was the year, or so the consensus goes, when far-right strongmen such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro were enfeebled, China stumbled and the “West” made a comeback, at least against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Such assessments, nostalgic for a lost “liberal international order,” ignore a more widespread development: how a general discontent with the old order, exacerbated by the pandemic, is fueling a revival of the left in Latin America, Europe and Australasia.