Followers of Hungary’s Far-Right Jobbik Party Historian James Mayfield offers a provocative, contrarian view of Europe’s extreme Right in “Explaining the Rapid Rise of the Xenophobic Right in Contemporary Europe” in the journal, “GeoCurrents” (July 22). It’s not that he likes the Right. It’s that he questions the popular view that right-wing European extremism is a uniform, continent-wide phenomenon that can be explained by a simple set of electoral, ideological, historical, or “ethnic” generalizations. Where others see right-wing extremism growing out of a European history of fascism, authoritarianism, racism, anti-Semitism, and hyper-nationalism, Mayfied sees the rightist voters as a diverse lot including “traditionalists, pro-Europeanists, Euroskeptics, democrats, nationalists, racialists, neo-Nazis, and even Greens.” Other than being on the rightist side of the political spectrum, and sharing—in varying degrees and with varied targets (Muslims, Turks, South Slavs, Gypsies, and sometimes Jews)—a dislike of minorities, especially immigrants, European rightist parties, he argues, share little. They are relatively strong at the ballot in countries—like Sweden and Switzerland, noted for their liberal, multicultural politics—but weak in Spain despite terrible economic conditions, high levels of anti-Semitism (although he doesn’t point this out), and a history of fascism. Ethnically homogeneous Hungary leads the continent in strong right-wing parties, yet ethnically homogeneous Poland shows no such tendency. The UK he classifies as an increasingly diverse country without a strong right-wing party or leaders, while France has strong personalities—father Jean-Marie Le Pen and daughter Marine Le Pen—but hardly any “National Front” seats in the French Parliament. The strength of Greece’s Neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn” Party, Mayfield doesn’t really try to explain, though he could have mentioned the worst economic collapse suffered by any European country. Mayfield’s view of the European Right reminds me of Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between “hedgehogs” who “know one big thing” and “foxes” who “know many little things.” Hedgehogs see only the forest, foxes see the multiplicity of trees. Mayfield is certainly “a fox” with a particularist vision of the extreme European Right. I would offer these comments, mostly cautionary, about Mayfield’s thesis: • Many of Europe’s current extreme right-wing parties are relatively young. Some may not have yet had sufficient time to find their charismatic leader in the mold of Mussolini or Hitler or even Franco. • Extremist ideologies, according to poll data, are often more popular in European countries than extreme Right parties. This should give us pause. • Though there are anomalies—like high levels of anti-Semitism in both Spain and Hungary but only strong Right parties in the latter—I would still argue that Jew hatred—and its new cover, Israel bashing—are a good proxy for the strength of extreme right-wing politics across the continent. • Mayfield’s approach treats right-wing extremism in isolation from left-wing extremism. He misses the most significant political forms of new anti-Semitism: Right-Left alliances around a shared anti-Semitic agenda under an anti-Israel banner. Some German observers have coined a new term—“Querfront”—for this political “crossover” phenomenon. Viewed in this perspective, European extremism is much more significant than one would judge merely from counting the votes won by right-wing parties. In Spain, there is no need for right-wing parties to provide an outlet for rabid anti-Jewish, anti-Israel attitudes; left-wing parties provide such an outlet. • Mayfield is skeptical that problems of “political transition”—for example, of East Germany from a communist to a democratic system—can explain much about the European Right’s appeal. Yet perhaps he should give more weight to the affects of historical continuity—for example, in Hungary, which had weak democratic traditions before, during, and after World War II; or Greece which, for complicated reasons, never fully worked through its internal fascination with fascism the way that Spaniards did under Franco’s long rule. Finally, extremist politics isn’t likely to go away as long as often arrogant European elites, out of touch with popular opinion, fail to offer plausible solutions to the challenge of immigrant assimilation. We don’t yet know whether the U.S. in this regard with continue to be a study in “exceptionalism”—or, instead, will repeat Europe’s vexatious problems with perhaps a generation lag.