That has rapidly changed, O’Brien said. Though unlike many networks of progressive institutions, the right has yet to set up a WhatsApp group for collaboration — “If there is, we’re not part of it,” said O’Brien — right-wing operatives and thinkers meet regularly at major events, like the CPAC and NatCon summit series.
They also invite one another to co-host meetings or attend events as panelists. From the U.S. side, The Heritage Foundation, which authored Trump’s Project 2025 blueprint for government, is a frequent guest of the European right.
On Tuesday, The Heritage Foundation’s McCarthy appeared on a panel in Rome co-hosted with the Fondazione Machiavelli. McCarthy said The Heritage Foundation was fostering ties with groups in Europe through joint summit hosting and research. Their aim is to push back against “European federalism” and the “green transition madness” while fostering a vision for families that excludes gay couples, trans rights and promotes higher birth rates.
Collaboration among such groups is “growing,” said Fondazione Machiavelli President Scalea. On its website, the center advertises formal partnerships or signed memoranda with a series of other right-wings groups: The Heritage Foundation, the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, Hungary’s Oeconomus Economic Research Foundation, and the Center for Fundamental Rights, which organizes CPAC.
“But it’s most like a friendship,” he said. “Since we have common missions, we have shared values and shared views of the future … We’re not formally intertwined, we have no institutional bond and link, we are not exchanging money or resources … We are just working together because this is making it more effective for everyone else.”
Scalea added that his institute had a “lot of commonality with the Trump administration.”