David Leonhardt: In Europe, The Political Center Collapses

. Tuesday, May 28, 2019 NYTimes.com/David-Leonhardt »

Op-Ed Columnist The shrinking of Europe’s traditional political parties continues. In Britain, the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, finished in third place and fifth place in this weekend’s European Parliament elections. The populist right-wing Brexit Party finished first, with close to 32 percent of votes. In Germany, the two establishment parties — one center-right and one center-left — lost more than quarter of their combined seats. The biggest gainers were the left-leaning Greens. In France, the Greens gained as well, although the right-wing National Rally (known until recently as the National Front) finished first. The two traditional parties finished fourth and sixth. Many people felt relief that far-right parties — which traffic in xenophobia — didn’t do better in this weekend’s elections. Instead, candidates who support the idea of the European Union combined to win a majority of seats. I share that relief. But I think it’s important not to lose sight of the main story line. Across much of Europe and the United States, dissatisfaction with the status quo remains the dominant political mood. That’s why so many European parties that were powerful only a few years ago now finish well outside the top two spots. It’s also why Donald Trump was able to take over the Republican Party and win the presidency — and why control of Congress has flipped back and forth in recent years. In the 2020 presidential campaign, Trump will no doubt attempt to tap into this anti-establishment mood once again. He will be the incumbent, which will make that strategy trickier for him. But he will be an incumbent like no other, one who constantly shows his disdain for the status quo. Democrats will need their own plan for speaking to this desire for change, especially if they nominate the decidedly establishment Joe Biden.

For more … Extremist right-wing parties did especially well in countries where they’ve become more politically established, including France, Italy, Britain and Poland, notes Johns Hopkins political scientist Yascha Mounk. “Far-right populists are now established as a major force in virtually all European countries,” he tweeted. My colleague Ross Douthat thinks those gains are proof that “the global fade of liberalism” may be a longer-lasting phenomenon than many liberals believe. “A liberalism that remains inflexible in the face of variegated resistance is the ideology more likely to be crushed,” he writes. The Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum sees a re-emergence of political debate in Europe, as the center collapses and the right and left grow. “The European Parliament will now be a place where real politics happen. There will be deals to do, arguments to have,” she writes. “Despite itself, the continent is becoming a single political space.” In The Atlantic, Yasmeen Serhan articulates the flip side: “The results foreshadow a European future increasingly influenced by diametrically opposing forces, and the divisions that come with them,” she writes. In The Times, Jochen Bittner, a German political writer, calls for the abolition of the European Parliament. It should be replaced, he writes, with a body more closely tied to domestic politics in each European country — and thus more accountable to voters.