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| President-elect Donald Trump addresses supporters at a rally on Nov. 6. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) |
| When Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the shock was palpable. A political maverick who had more in common with the continent’s largely-fringe far right than its conservative establishment was now in charge of the most powerful nation on the planet. U.S. allies wondered about Trump’s commitments to the transatlantic ties. Washington wonks fretted over Trump’s lack of interest in human rights. Some analysts even suggested the mantle of leadership of the “free world” had passed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, then the West’s most widely respected leader. When Trump won this week’s election, there was less shock than dismay. U.S. allies and Washington wonks still fear what may come if Trump doubles down on the disruption of his first term — weakening NATO, slapping tariffs on the exports of traditional partners, cuddling up to foreign despots and demagogues — but they have had months to prepare for a Trump victory and puzzle over how to cope. More tellingly, there’s nowhere else to look for the reeling liberal establishment: Not only has Merkel departed the scene, but her legacy is in tatters. The center-right politico’s move to welcome asylum-seeking migrants in 2015 is reviled by many, even among her own Christian Democrats, and seen as one of the triggers for the ascent of far-right populists across the continent. And Germany in 2024 is in no state to serve as any sort of bulwark against Trump: Its unpopular government, composed of three flagging parties led by the center-left Social Democrats, collapsed Wednesday. The far right in Europe, meanwhile, has seen notable gains since Trump’s last win. Far-right parties comprise the biggest parliamentary factions in the Netherlands, France, Austria and Italy; they are ascendant in Germany and Portugal, kingmakers in Sweden and Finland. Further to the east, in countries like Slovakia and Hungary, right-wing nationalism fuels the governments in power.
Trump’s latest victory was hailed by his ideological counterparts elsewhere as the capstone of a new political age. “I think that this will embolden them; they will now have a sense that they are in the march of history,” said Catherine Fieschi, a political analyst and fellow at the Robert Schuman Center of the European University Institute in Florence, to my colleagues. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, long admired by the American right, saw in Trump’s “shining victory” a pathway to advance a more illiberal agenda in the West. “We have several plans that we can achieve in the coming years with President Donald Trump,” he said on the eve of a European summit held in Budapest. Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, cast Trump’s success as the victory of “working American people” who opposed “mass migration,” climate and gender “ideology,” and are skeptical of further funding the war in Ukraine. As my colleagues reported, Kyiv is scrambling to shore up what assistance it can in anticipation of a major policy shift under Trump, who has indicated a desire to cut off military aid and compel Ukraine into making concessions. An emboldened Trump administration may also see in itself in league with (and giving inspiration to) far-right allies in Italy, where the government has taken measures to block same-sex couples from raising families, and the Netherlands, where the parliament is weighing new anti-migrant laws that could return asylum seekers to Syria. The Kremlin and its propagandists were also thrilled with the U.S. election result, seeing in Trump’s win a repudiation of the entire Western political project arrayed against Russia. “The victory of the right in the so-called ‘free world’ will be a blow to the left-liberal forces that dominate it,” deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament Konstantin Kosachev wrote on his Telegram channel, mocking a European establishment he said was “rooting” for Vice President Kamala Harris. “We have won,” said Alexander Dugin, an influential Russian ideologue credited with helping articulate the imperialist agenda underscoring Russia’s war in Ukraine and for having supported disinformation efforts against Harris’s campaign. “The world will be never ever like before. Globalists have lost their final combat.” Such crowing may obscure other reasons for the political shift. The election in the United States is only one of many votes in the developed world in 2024 that saw incumbent parties lose vote share. This wave of anti-incumbency reflects voter frustration over the tail-end effects of the pandemic, chiefly with inflation. Though the Democrats preside over a strengthened American economy — certainly when compared to other Western countries — public disquiet over rising prices was widespread. Trump harnessed that unease into the relentless grievance politics that fuel his movement, linking economic concerns to a grab-bag of other right-wing hobby horses, from immigration to the Democrats’ efforts to fight climate change. The whipped-up rage of the base paid dividends on Election Day. “This has corrosive consequences that go way beyond election outcomes,” wrote Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times, referring to the “anger carousel” spinning through Western politics. “In opposition it is easy. The enemy is the incumbent. But even in power the ecosystem must be fed enemies who provide alibis for failure. You need malign bureaucrats, woke elites, globalist financiers, partisan judges. Ultimately, this erodes belief in the entire system.” For Trump and his fellow travelers, that ’s arguably the goal. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), has made no secret of his interest in “dismantling the administrative state.” Rumored plans to purge the federal government of non-loyalists swirl. In these efforts, they may already have a guide in the form of radical libertarian Argentine President Javier Milei, who has set up about dramatically slashing public spending since taking office — cutting investments in education and universities, laying off tens of thousands of public employees, and scrapping whole ministries dedicated to women, gender rights and diversity. “I love being the mole inside the state,” Milei said in a June interview. “I’m the one destroying the state from within.” Tellingly, next week, Trump is scheduled to meet with Milei. | ||||||||