The just-concluded European Union elections marked a new milestone for the continent’s far-right parties. They have amassed victories in many of the EU’s 27 countries, a victory of astonishing scale that has shaken the EU’s political system and has drawn attention in the United States.
The parties’ success embarrassed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and called on French President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the parliamentary elections.
Vote counts are still being counted on Tuesday, but the right-wing victory is just the latest example of how dissatisfaction with globalization and immigration has fueled a conservative and populist backlash in wealthy Western democracies. . Former President Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 was the strongest example, but the trends that have empowered the European right make it unclear whether he will be able to win re-election in November.
That’s because, in addition to striking similarities, there are also important differences between the power dynamics of Europe and the United States. And even if the right wins in the recent European elections, the political center is likely to still maintain control of the EU parliament.
“We’re clearly at one of those points where the wind could blow either way,” said Charlies A. Kapchan, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
What motivated the right wing in Europe?
EU member states all have different political dynamics, and EU parliamentary elections are often an opportunity for national voters to cast a symbolic vote against those in power in their country. Brussels, not my capital. There is also a global backlash against incumbent companies that appears to have no ideological basis.
But the resurgence of the right in Europe is not merely symbolic or incidental. This is due to dissatisfaction with the EU’s migration crisis (which the right is trying to amplify on online platforms), as well as climate change and other concerns that are seen to be hitting rural, less-educated populations even harder. The driving force is regulation on issues such as Since the global recession in 2008, economic growth has stagnated in many parts of Europe, further increasing dissatisfaction with the current situation.
Far-right or populist parties currently lead Italy and Slovakia, and are part of ruling coalitions in other countries such as Finland, Sweden, and soon the Netherlands.
In general, the strongest support for the right on the continent is among rural voters, who are less educated than urban voters and who express greater comfort with the economic and social changes brought about by globalization. All of this will probably sound very familiar to voters in the United States, where there has been a similar divide between President Trump’s Republicans and President Joe Biden’s Democrats.
Is Trump riding the same wave?
President Trump has embraced the European right, particularly Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose self-proclaimed “illiberal democracy” has made him a symbol of conservative populists who believe in restricting immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. . Mr. Trump has supported several European conservative populists seeking national leadership, and some of his key advisers maintain ties to the transatlantic movement.
One of his former advisers, Steve Bannon, called the EU election a “tectonic shift” on his podcast on Monday.
“This is what MAGA is doing here in the United States,” Bannon said, using the acronym for President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. “MAGA is pulling us further to the right, and I think that’s not just a good thing, but a necessary thing for the country and for the world.”
Trump’s victory in 2016, despite losing the popular vote, was secured in part by his promise to build a wall between the United States and Mexico to limit immigration. Earlier this year, he slammed Biden for the surge in migrants crossing the southern border seeking asylum in the United States. Recognizing the gravity of the issue, Biden has pushed immigration to the right by issuing new regulations that would close the border if crossings become too expensive.
But there are some important differences between Trump and European populists, the most important of which is their record on democracy. Trump sought to overturn his loss to Biden in 2020, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He has championed that cause in his campaign to take back the presidency, repeating lies that he lost reelection due to widespread fraud and continuing to call those who stormed the Capitol during Sunday’s rally in Las Vegas “warriors.”
Stephen Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University and co-author of “How Democracies Die,” said this is in stark contrast to European populists.
“They’re not as openly authoritarian as Trump,” Levitsky said. “None of these people are denying the election results.”
This has become a political weakness for President Trump, who continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen. Mr. Biden has relentlessly attacked Mr. Biden over January 6, demonstrating his stance that preserving democracy will be at the heart of his campaign. Trump supporters who targeted state election offices lost every battleground state in 2022, and Democrats hope the same dynamics will protect Biden this year.
Kapchan said Trump’s voters may be angrier and more hopeless than their European counterparts because of the continent’s strong social safety net.
“One of the reasons this center remains in Europe and not in the United States is that the downfall of Americans is still a long way off,” he said. “If you’re a worker in Europe and you lose your job on a Volkswagen production line, you’re hurting, but you’re not hurting as much as someone in Michigan.”
Trump’s strongest support was among older voters, in contrast to European populists who experts say have better support among younger voters. And in America’s two-party system, this election amounts to a game of chicken with voters, who must choose between Biden and Trump. Elections ultimately boil down to who is the least repugnant to voters, and how a third-party candidate who fails to gain political power in a campaign is enough to destroy one of the two major party candidates. It may depend on whether they separate the votes.
Trump’s victory is by no means inevitable. A look at Europe shows that conservative populism has its limits.
The right wing can only go so far
There were limits to the advancement of the right in Europe. Poland’s conservative populist government lost power last year after voters opted for a centre-left coalition. Britain left the EU in a victory for conservative populism, but even if the opposition Labor Party has no intention of withdrawing from the EU, the Conservative Party is expected to suffer a crushing defeat in the upcoming elections.
Dissatisfaction with the current government is also growing in Hungary, the center of conservative populist forces in Europe.
In regions where right-wingers have taken power, such as Italy, where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party has doubled the number of members in the EU parliament, no fundamental breakthrough has been achieved. Meloni continues to keep his country part of a coalition supporting Ukraine and Russia in their fight. She has cracked down on immigration from across the Mediterranean, but she and her neo-fascist Italian Brotherhood party have not made any fundamental changes to the country’s political and economic structure.
Matthias Matigi, a professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University, said Italy could be an example of how populists govern in Europe.
“Muslim prayers have become more strict and we can now drive faster on the highway,” Matiszi said. “But when it comes to big issues like the budget and foreign policy, the only way these populists can stay in power is if they stay in the middle.”
This is in contrast to Trump, who has embraced major changes in U.S. policy and how the federal government would be run if he were to win. Some analysts believe a Trump victory could give European populists like Meloni permission to move further to the right.
Even after the EU elections, fundamental changes are unlikely. President Ursula von der Leyen of the EU’s Christian Democrats, which has moved to the right to counter the rise of populists, remains by far the largest party in the 720-member bloc. Its center is still in Europe, but it has just moved to the right. The next question is whether that will happen in the US in November.
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Ali Swenson of New York contributed to this report, the Associated Press wrote.
