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The period since the early 2000s has undoubtedly seen the re-emergence of nationalism and populism, most notably following the 2008 financial crisis and mass global migration. This period often coined the ‘age of populism’. With the recent elections of Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, it begs the question, how do these ideas shape the understanding and, indeed, relevance of ‘classical’ ideologies in the current political sphere? It is beneficial to construct an argument to this question around the work of political scientist Cas Mudde, specifically his classification of populism as a thin-centred ideology (Mudde 2008, 543). A label around which there is a broad scholarly consensus. The term populism itself is fraught with contention, and its definition has been the topic of great discussion. This essay seeks to understand populism as the view that society is divided into two antagonistic groups: ‘the common people’ and ‘corrupt elites’ and that the ‘common people’ are the only source of pure worth in politics. With this in mind, it is best to see populism as inherently malleable; it is an ideology that can be moulded to fit other ideologies, including nationalism. Nationalism is the idea that promotes the interests of a particular nation to gain and maintain sovereignty over outside interference by adopting self-determination (Finlayson 2014, 100-102). By examining several recent premierships, this essay will find that nationalism and populism are shaped by the political leader who adopts them and that classical ideologies provide the foundations for national-populist movements. Therefore, not rendering classical ideologies irrelevant; instead evolving and, in some cases, radicalising them, reshaping the political spectrum. There has been a temptation by those engaging in public debate to see national populism as an ideology which sits independently of others, comfortably somewhere on the far right of the political spectrum, particularly by those thinkers with a left-wing bias. This view was aided by Donald Trump's election in the US and the Brexit referendum in the UK. However, this view fails to consider that populism does not absorb nationalism (Martinelli 2018, 13). Both have left and right-wing variants active in politics today, utilising socialism and conservativism to enhance their movements. While it is imperative to see linkages between nationalism and populism in countries with national populist parties in power, it is crucial to examine how classical ideologies lie at the heart of these parties if we are to understand the rise and importance of nationalism and populism.