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During his seven years leading Sweden\u2019s government from 2014 to 2021, Stefan L\xf6fven had a front row seat to observe the rise of right-wing and neo-fascist political parties both at home and around Europe. A former welder, and union leader from working class roots, L\xf6fven earned the nickname \u201cthe escape artist\u201d during his years as prime minister for his knack for holding together governments despite his country\u2019s increasingly fractious and polarized politics. But this year the Sweden Democrats\u2014a party with its roots in fascist and white nationalist ideology\u2014became the second leading vote-getter and were embraced as part of a ruling coalition government by other conservative and centrist parties. L\xf6fven says the Sweden Democrats, who were once politically radioactive, are now the tail wagging the dog of Sweden\u2019s new government. And he says the rise of far-right parties is a trend all over Europe, most recently in Italy, but also in Poland and Hungary, where they have fanned fears of economic insecurity, cultural displacement, and crime to scapegoat immigrants and offer authoritarianism as a cure-all, which has enabled them to steal followers from more mainstream parties and take power. L\xf6fven says Europe\u2019s democratic multilateralists are now on the back foot, trying to sell democracy and tolerance in a social-media-driven communications culture that favors the simplistic slogans and memes favored by the right. In this tumultuous era in European politics, he says only time will tell whether the rapid pace of societal change will keep driving voters into the arms of extremist parties, or whether the unpopular Russian war on Ukraine being prosecuted by the Godfather of the continent\u2019s strongmen, Vladimir Putin, will take some the shine off authoritarianism\u2019s allure.