In Europe, democratic parties maintain their majority in slow decline and national-populist parties advance.
The immediate consequence of the European elections is known. We are facing the growth of what commentators and specialists call the extreme right, an appellation that rather fulfills the function of preserving the geometry of the political order of industrial modernity, which has evidently already lost validity during the era of digital modernity.
The term extreme right—already imposed in the media—is still problematic. According to its literal meaning, “extreme right” (as well as “extreme left”) designates an edge where we see one foot inside and one foot outside the political system. But it’s not like that. It probably was like that at some point. But not in countries where the so-called extreme right has become the first or second electoral force. This has happened in France, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Germany, Portugal. Without being centrist, the extreme right has already invaded the center.
Said more conventionally: with the entry of national-populism into the system we find ourselves facing a new political order, one that integrates into its interior not only an opposition but also radical deniers of liberal democracy. We are talking about a new European political formation crossed by an also new demarcation line. On one side the traditional political bloc of modernity (conservatives, liberal social democrats, plus some environmentalist representations); on the other, the so-called parties of the extreme right (plus some fragments of the extreme left), emerging and insurgent at the same time.
Extremists are here to stay
The June election result, from a mathematical point of view, can be read as a success for the bloc formed by the traditional parties. In Germany 65% voted center with a large majority of Christian Socials. In Spain 70% voted center or center right. Even in Italy (38:48) and France (37:47) the extreme right remained in the minority. At the European level we see a coalition of center-right, center-left and greens with 453 of the 720 deputies against 272 of the center-right. From a mathematical point of view, the European political center seems to be out of danger. However, from a political point of view, this is not the case.
Two reasons allow us to speak of a political triumph of national-populism. The first is its tendency force. The growth of the so-called extreme right compared to that obtained in previous elections is simply dizzying; that is indisputable. We don’t know if this trend will continue. It will probably be like this; There is nothing more contagious than a rising electoral trend. But, even if this were not the case, and even assuming that the growth of the national populist extreme had reached its ceiling, the result leaves it in a position to negotiate alliances, mainly with the centrist right, in such a way that the national-populists can access regional governments. and even national if the classic right allows itself to be seduced by the handfuls of votes that they sometimes require to surpass the centrist left. In fact, at the communal and regional level, this has happened in various countries and is now happening at the national level in Holland, Austria and, more recently, France.
Whether we are facing an irreversible trend, no one can know yet. For now we find ourselves facing a scenario where the democratic parties maintain their majority in slow decline and the national-populist parties advance, forcing the former to assume defensive positions, that is, to resist. European politics has become, at least for the “traditional” bloc, existential. The antagonistic relationships—which are the essence of politics—have become more acute than ever.
“The center resists” was precisely the headline of one of the many articles that appeared the day after the European elections. This means that the line that separates the left from the right, although it has not been replaced with the entry on the scene of the national populist parties, must coexist with another parallel dividing line: the one that separates the traditional democratic center from the extreme right. (or national-populist).
True, reality is more complex than its schemes. It is known, for example, that the extreme right, in order to access government positions, can smooth out some overly radical edges of their speeches, opening wings of convergence with the traditional right. This has been the example given by Le Pen’s National Regroupment and the Meloni Brothers. The fact that Le Pen has distanced herself from the Nazi positions held by her German counterpart, AfD, was a message evidently directed at French democratic conservatism, something like saying: “guys, we are extremists but not Nazis.”
Whether the political alliances that the extreme right parties will have to make will tame the political savagery that prevails among many of their contingents, or if they will subtly cosmeticize their intentions to impose them when the precise moment arrives, remains to be seen. After all, this would not be the first time that politics civilizes angry parties, many will think, recalling the social democracies of their original times, or the green parties when, abandoning the extra-parliamentary scene, they entered the electoral arena. But there are also examples to the contrary. Hitler yesterday, and more recently Putin, managed to impose their extremism by simulating moderate positions, deceiving their national and international adversaries.
The truth is that in one way or another a tense cohabitation is emerging between the centrist parties and today’s extremists. I mean, we are not facing a sporadic phenomenon. Extremists are here to stay and, whether we like it or not, we will have to count on their active presence in the arid landscapes of European politics for many years.
The threatening presence of extremism has forced the European political center to go on the defensive. Converting the defensive position into a fight of democratic resistance will be the difficult task that the center parties have ahead of them. But that will never be possible if these parties fail to find the reasons that explain why the extremes advance towards the political center.
To put it more clearly: it is not enough to denounce the national populists for their excesses, nor to classify them as neo-fascists and Putinists (although in many cases they are) if we do not understand that, if these parties are growing, it is because they have occupied spaces and issues that traditional parties have not known or been able to address, issues that are seen by large sectors of citizens as real or true.
The immigration issue
The first of these issues is the most decisive. I am referring, as is possible, to that of migrations. Without that issue, far-right parties would not exist. A topic, if you will, overdetermining. At the same time, an issue that traditional parties are afraid to mention with the deluded objective of not creating more social tensions than there already are.
For national-populist parties, stopping migration, especially those coming from Islamic countries, is a national, patriotic and cultural imperative. From that premise they have begun their campaign against the prevailing political order. However, it is precisely in relation to the issue of migration where they show their political misery. All of these parties, in fact, speak out against migration, just as we are all against hunger and wars, but so far there is no national-populist party—apart from the madness of the German extreme right, AfD, when speaks of re-emigration or repatriation—that presents us with a serious program against the migratory phenomenon. Through mass deportations, as the ultra-extremist AfD has suggested? Surrounding nations with walls and electric fences? There’s no answer. The problem is that this silence is shared by the traditional parties, which also do not know how to confront those migratory masses that, in columns and canoes, advance from Africa and Asia towards Europe.
With very few exceptions, no one wants to name the “true truth” about migrations. A truth that must someday be said bravely, without fear of losing votes. I am referring to that truth that tells us that in life, whether individual, national or international, there are problems that have no solution.
Almost every human being, as if by design or curse, is condemned to drag and live with problems that have no solution or at least, no immediate solution. The same thing happens in the life of nations. Where are the politicians who dare to say that the migrations of our time are the largest in all of universal history and that, for the same reason, it is definitively impossible to contain them and, consequently, the only alternative that remains will not be to suppress them? but, as far as possible, regulate them? Where are the political philosophers who teach us that migrations are the price that the West has to pay for being free, democratic, prosperous and plural, since the migratory masses will never head towards China, Iran or Russia? Where are the economists who demonstrate how globalization belongs not only to finance, goods and trade, but also – and above all – the human workforce? Not even the extreme left, so similar in many points to the extreme right, dares to formulate the thesis that globalization has fulfilled a prophecy of Marx, the internationalization of the workforce, but, and this would be the novelty, it has not in favor of labor but in favor of capital.
Democracy leads to prosperity and prosperity attracts the poor of the earth. Faced with this truth, national populists, without saying it clearly, offer a tacit solution: end liberal democracy, establish authoritarian governments, and turn Europe into a continent closed to the outside world. That is the proposal of a Viktor Orban, and beyond Europe, of a Donald Trump.
Climate changes, energy changes
With a second hot topic—that of climate change and the parallel energy crisis—something similar happens. I am referring to changes recognized by a large part of the official scientific institutions. However, compared to the issue of migrations, we observe an inverse relationship here. While the issue of migration tries to be hidden by traditional parties, climate and energy changes have been overpoliticized by radical left-wing groups, provoking precisely an opposite position on the part of the extreme right: that of denialism.
Probably, as is the case with migration, climate change cannot be avoided in the short or medium term (long terms do not belong to politics). Much less will it be at national levels, but rather through intense cooperation that can only occur at supranational levels such as the EU, whose existence is questioned from extremist corners.
It is no coincidence that national-populist movements, parties and governments adhere to a denialist ideology. Denying the causes and reasons for fear (they already did so during the pandemic period), national-populists unleash hatred against “those causing” fear, among them, liberal and left-wing parties.
Naturally, the parties and governments of the democratic center are not in a position to lower the level of collective fear. But they are obliged to place this fear in viable political frameworks, acting in accordance with reality as it presents itself and not in a shareholder manner in favor of utopias that, without solving problems, add political catastrophes to them.
One of these catastrophes was recently experienced by the German Green Party, until now considered a pioneer on the continental eco-political scene. The Greens lost more than half of their electorate in the European elections. The reason, there is no debate, was the policy imposed in Germany by the Minister of Economy, Robert Habeck, to face the energy crisis increased by the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Minister Habeck will probably go down in history as a promoter of wind and solar energy; that is, as a promoter of a national energy revolution. But it will also leave the memory of a politician unable to graduate the energy change with the economic and political time of his country. Was it necessary, for example, to close all nuclear power plants at once knowing that they were still active in neighboring countries? Is it possible, parodying Stalin, an (energy) “revolution” in a single country? Wouldn’t it have been better to keep some nuclear power plants as a reserve? Many citizens still ask themselves.
As expected, the energy revolution was paid for by consumers, that is, by those people who every time they get their gas and electricity bill, regardless of which party they belong to, curse Habeck and the Greens. Well then; Many of these curses have been converted into votes in favor of right-wing extremism. The rise of AfD extremism can be considered, at least in Germany, as a vote of punishment for the utopian extremism of the Greens.
The hasty German energy revolution has been paid for first by Habeck’s party, second by the government coalition. The next German government—the polls don’t lie—will be from the traditional right. That Government will be forced to deactivate part of the eco-ideological measures imposed by the Greens. But the worst thing about this story is that the greens, by taking advantage of the war to impose the energy revolution, have accelerated the times for the political counterrevolution of the extreme right. The lesson here is clear: either you carry out a national energy revolution, or you participate (for now with weapons and financing) in a war implementing, as would be necessary, a war economy. Doing both things at the same time is impossible.
War and politics
The third issue that explains the rise of national populism is war.
It is still a cruel paradox that European political parties that openly collaborate with Russian imperialism, such as the AfD and National Reunification, try to present themselves as champions of peace against the “warmongering” parties of the democratic center. At this point, not only the hypocrisy of the extremists has become clear (I include those on the left, among them the Spanish Podemos) but also the inability of the democratic parties to confront the imperialist discourse of Putin and his European allies with a coherent political discourse. .
Naturally all democratic parties and governments desperately desire peace and none attempt to endanger the geographical integrity of their nations. But, at the same time, only few have been able to explain, without hesitation and firmly, the reasons why they support Ukraine against the Russian invader.
Ukraine, what we are not always told, is a member of political Europe. Accepting an armed invasion of Ukraine means returning to 19th century Europe when there was no international legislation to protect weaker nations from imperial nations. Helping Ukraine defend itself, Zelensky never tires of saying, is defending the integrity of Europe.
It is not, as extremists accuse, of raising a discourse of war, much less falling into militaristic nationalism. Rather, it is the opposite: assuming constitutional patriotism (Habermas) against a tyrant who destroys all the laws and conventions created by post-war democratic Europe.
The weapons that are sent to Ukraine, often with irritating delay, are to defend democracy against an extracontinental aggressor. Scholz and Macron have often said this, but not firmly and, much less, cementing support for Ukraine with actions. Not infrequently the impression arises that under the social democratic slogan of “cooling down” the war they are trying to expect Putin to settle for a piece of Ukraine, something he will never do since the Russian dictator constantly repeats that the war is not against Ukraine but against the West. The extremists in turn, as if Putin were imploring negotiations, attack the democratic parties for not wanting to negotiate, naturally without saying a word about the objects that should be put on the negotiating tables.
The rulers of the European democratic center have shown an inability to provide aid to Ukraine with a feeling of national defense in their own countries. Ironically, those who call themselves nationalists, the national-populists, are the same ones who, in the name of the nation, are willing to cede national spaces (territories, zones of influence) to Russian imperialism. What prevents Scholz or Macron from designating them as what they are: traitors to the country, a political rabble that has not hesitated to put itself at the service of a dictatorial government precisely at the moment when the line that separates the world between democracies and autocracies appears? Politics lives on antagonisms, but antagonisms, to be seen, must be drawn.
The absence of a defined policy regarding the war in Ukraine is about to demolish the Franco-German alliance itself until now considered the political axis of Europe. The rulers of both countries, Scholz for his inability to exercise leadership in times of war, and Macron for his changing anti-Atlantic ideas that lead him to erode the inalienable alliance of Europe and the United States, have been prey to their internal contradictions and They are about to be overtaken by facts. Scholz’s Government, fortunately, will be succeeded by the democratic right (CDU/CSU). Macron’s, most likely, will be by the authoritarian and Russian right represented by Le Pen.
The truth is that circumstances will force the political conduct of the war to be assumed by nations that feel Putin’s imperialist breath much closer. England must be added to these countries, a country that, after the failure of Brexit, will surely try to re-enter the EU to defend democracy not only from outside but also from within its institutions. It is nevertheless interesting to note that, precisely in the European countries that most decisively support Ukraine, the extreme right obtained fewer votes. Scholz and Macron could have learned from that lesson. But it’s already too late.
In defense of tradition
In summary, we could say that national-populist parties are a consequence of a structural disintegration that emerged in the passage from the industrial order to the digital order. In this passage, the democratic bloc that emerged in post-war Europe has lost much of its representative capacity. This means that traditional political parties no longer reflect ideals and interests of social sectors that we previously called “classes.”
According to Hannah Arendt, the dissolution of classes does not lead to a democratic order, but generally to a mass society which in turn precedes the establishment of authoritarian, autocratic and dictatorial governments. However, the masses of today are not the street and unrepentant crowds of Arendt’s time. Occasional workers who change profession and location according to market trends, individual micro-entrepreneurs, flash companies that respond to an ever-changing demand, all of this lack a defined political profile. The era of political clientelism and party loyalties is behind us.
The so-called Smartphone generation lacks political loyalties in the same way that many today lack hard definitions to designate their sex or gender. Political parties are no longer associations arising from a supposed social base but the other way around, they are rather companies of experts who work on issues and offer them as merchandise to the political market.
The national-populist offer has proven to be successful for the moment. The winds blow in your favor. However, today’s far-right parties do not have much to do with the right of the past. Ultra-rightism is a concept that emerged from the corner of the traditional left and its objective is to designate an enemy in the making. It is important to note that no far-right leader proudly declares that he is far-right. In fact they are right: they are something else.
Those on the extreme right are parties that emerged from social disintegration, but at the same time they play an apparently integrative role. To millions of individualized beings, locked in their microworlds, national populists offer a collective belonging: an ideal of a nation, but not a historical nation defined in front of itself, but an imaginary nation that arises from supposed threats that come from outside.
Rather than occupying the empty space of the traditional right of the past, the national populists occupy the empty spaces that the crisis of the left has left behind. Today the so-called far-right, and not the left, are the forces that raise discourses against “those at the top,” meaning “above” the current political class. In return, they offer something that many human beings crave: authority, in this case the authority of their mass leaders. These are probably the reasons that help explain why large sectors of youth who until recently voted left or green, today give their vote to the national-populists. Being anti-system, this is the point, no longer means being leftist. It means being far-right, that is, anti-liberal, that is, anti-democratic, that is, authoritarian.
By the way, being far-right does not have much to do with the old right of clerical, agrarian, patriarchal and tradition-devoted origin. In a way, what we call extreme right is anti-right. Precisely at that point we observed a very interesting translocation. The extreme right, unlike the right, is not traditionalist. Like ancient fascisms, today’s national-populists steal pieces of identity from the traditional right, but they also steal economic neoliberalism from liberals, just as they steal from the left their anti-Westernism disguised as anti-Americanism.
Various social groups vote for the extreme right, but few do so in defense of a tradition, among other things because the extreme right lacks tradition. Traditionalists have become, on the contrary, defenders of a history that begins with secularization, continues with the legacy of the Enlightenment, integrates conservatism and liberalism, and defends the dictation of human rights in its American and French versions. , that is, all that historical context that its enemies have baptized as the West.
It may be that over time various parties belonging to the Western political tradition are replaced by other political formations. Parties, like everything in this world, are born and die. But the results of the European elections in June at least show that there is still a long way to go for that to happen. The left and right of yesterday, constituted in today’s political center, resist the onslaught of national-populism just as those of fascism and communism resisted yesterday. And to some extent, by defending themselves, they defend the tradition to which they belong.
Times have changed: yesterday’s insurgents are today’s traditionalists. The defense of tradition has become the defense of democracy. Perhaps the destiny accorded to the democrats of the present, whether they are from the right or the left, is only this: knowing how to resist while waiting for moments that allow a new beginning to be restarted in a story that always begins and never ends.
*Article originally published on the POLIS blog: Politics and culture.