Days after JD Vance’s ideological savaging of European ideals at the Munich Security Conference, where he alleged Europe’s greatest threat came “from within” and accused it – without irony – of illiberalism and anti-democratic tendencies, Arc 2025 celebrated a new kind of American export: ideological finger-wagging.
“If we can reclaim our country, if we can reclaim our institutions, including the bloated, ridiculous overreach of the federal government, you can do what is necessary in your country,” Kevin Roberts, the president of the US Heritage Foundation, which was behind the radical-right Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump presidency, reportedly said at one of a number of lavish events on the sidelines of the conference, according to DeSmog.
Over three days, at an event interspersed with classical music and other cultural flourishes, attenders who had paid hundreds of pounds for tickets listened to a succession of conservative thinkers ranging from the British historian Niall Ferguson to the self-styled Danish “sceptical environmentalist” Bjørn Lomborg take to a stage inside London’s giant Excel conference centre.
Kemi Badenoch, the relatively new leader of Britain’s opposition Conservative party, paid homage on Arc’s first day to the US president’s leadership and repeated a series of Trumpian attack priorities, castigating “pronouns, or DEI, or climate activism”.
Both interventions came after explicit support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world who has become Trump’s government-slashing consigliere, and whose appearances on screen at AfD rallies caused shock in Germany and throughout Europe.
