> Not by Western European enlightenment values. Interesting that you bring that up in this context, because Enlightenment thought advocated fewer checks and ba

> Not by Western European enlightenment values. Interesting that you bring that up in this context, because Enlightenment thought advocated fewer checks and balances on centralized power. Enlightenment thinkers admired Socrates' philosopher kings, who had pretty much absolute power. Think about the problems they faced at the time though: the French revolution was largely caused by the king not having the ability to balance his budget. The French revolution solved this by giving much more power to the national government. > The governments that Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella openly admire, such as that of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, give us an idea of their project: an authoritarian populism, where checks and balances are weakened, opposition muzzled and the freedom of the press restricted. So in one of the most important ways, according to this article, the far right are closer to the enlightenment ideal than the current system. Now I don't know if that's actually the case--this is a hit piece after all. It's hard to sift through and know which parts of the article are merely complaining about losing popularity vs. genuine concerns.