Over the last decade, the global stage has become crowded with rightwing populist politicians seeking attention. It’s a development that has been subject to economic, social and historical analyses, but one aspect of this phenomenon has been neglected: the critical role of the haircut. The former Tory minister Rory Stewart acknowledged this fact last week on The Rest is Politics podcast when he declared: “Populism is all about hair.”
Look at 53-year-old Javier Milei, the soi-disant anarcho-capitalist who last month was voted president of Argentina, or 60-year-old Geert Wilders, the anti-immigrant leader of Holland’s Party for Freedom, which recently won the most votes in the Dutch general election. What immediately strikes the observer is the abundance of hair possessed by these two middle-aged men of the radical right.
