What does the victory of the far right in the EU mean for US elections this year?

The recently concluded EU elections were another milestone for the continent’s far-right parties. They made gains in many of the EU’s 27 countries, and the surprising scale of their victory is already shaking the political class there and drawing attention in the United States.

The parties’ success embarrassed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz by outpolling his party, and forced French President Emmanuel Macron to call early legislative elections.

Although vote counting continued on Tuesday, the right-wing victory is the latest example of how discontent 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 most obvious example, but it is unclear whether the trends motivating the right in Europe will allow him to win another term in November.

This is because, alongside striking similarities, there are also important differences between the dynamics of Europe and the United States. And despite the right’s gains in the recent European elections, the political center is likely to retain control of the EU parliament.

“We’re clearly at one of those points where the wind could blow in either direction,” said Charlies A. Kupchan, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based foreign policy and international relations think tank.

What inspired the right wing in Europe?

All EU countries have different political dynamics, and EU parliamentary elections are often an opportunity for voters in each country to cast a symbolic vote against those in power in their own country, as they vote for those who will take up their positions in Brussels, not in their own capital. There has also been a global backlash against current rulers that appears to have no ideological basis.

But the resurgence of the right in Europe is more than symbolic or random. It has been fueled by frustration over the migrant crisis in the EU — frustration that is seen as greater than the desire to promote the right on online platforms — as well as climate change regulations and other issues that affect rural and less-educated residents the most. Economic growth has remained stagnant in most of Europe since the 2008 global recession, further fueling discontent with the status quo.

Far-right or populist parties now lead Italy and Slovakia and are part of ruling coalitions in other countries such as Finland, Sweden and soon, the Netherlands.

Overall, the right’s strongest support on the continent is among rural voters, who tend to have lower levels of education than urban voters – who tend to express greater comfort with the economic and social changes of globalisation. All of this probably sounds very familiar to US voters, where there have been similar divisions between Trump’s Republicans and President Joe Biden’s Democrats.

Is Trump riding the same wave?

Trump has embraced the European right, particularly Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose self-described “illiberal democracy” has made him a symbol for populist conservatives who believe in restricting immigration and the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. He has backed a number of European conservative populists in his campaigns for national leadership, and some of Trump’s key advisers maintain ties to the movement across the Atlantic Ocean.

One of those former advisers, Steve Bannon, called the EU elections “a seismic shift” on his podcast on Monday.

“It’s like America here, this is what MAGA does,” said Bannon, who used the acronym for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan. “MAGA pulls us to the right. And I think that’s not only a good thing, but it’s necessary for the country and necessary for the world.”

Trump’s victory in 2016, despite losing the popular vote, was driven by a promise to build a wall between the United States and Mexico to limit migration. This year, he has sharply criticized Biden for a surge in the number of migrants crossing the southern border seeking asylum in the United States. Recognizing the relevance of the issue, Biden has moved to the right on immigration by issuing new rules to close the border when there are too many crossings.

However, there are some key differences between Trump and European populists, most importantly their record on democracy. Trump attempted to overturn his loss to Biden in 2020, culminating in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. He has embraced that issue in his campaign to regain office and repeated the lie that he was denied re-election because of widespread fraud, and on Sunday during a campaign rally in Las Vegas called those who attacked the Capitol “warriors.”

That’s a stark contrast to European populists, said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and co-author of the book “How Democracies Die.”

“They are much less openly authoritarian than Trump,” Levitsky said. “None of those people have rejected the election results.”

This has been a political weakness for Trump, who continues his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Biden has relentlessly attacked him for the events of January 6 and has indicated he will focus his campaign on preserving democracy. Trump supporters attacking state election offices lost every swing state in the 2022 midterms, and Democrats hope the same dynamic will protect Biden this year.

Kupchan said Trump voters may be angrier and more frustrated than their European counterparts, who enjoy that continent’s strong social safety net.

“One of the reasons the center remains in Europe rather than the United States is that Americans can fall much further,” he explained. “If you’re a worker in Europe and you lose your job on a VW production line, you suffer, but not as much as someone in Michigan (who loses it).”

Trump’s strongest support is among older voters, unlike European populists, who experts say perform better than among younger voters. And in the American two-party system, the current election is akin to a clash of wills with voters having to choose between Biden or Trump. The race may depend on who is the least obnoxious to voters and whether candidates from other parties who may not gain any political power in the race will get enough votes to doom either of the two major parties’ candidates.

It is not inevitable that Trump will win. You only have to look at Europe to see that conservative populism has its limits.

Rights can only go so far

There have been some limits to the right’s advance in Europe. Last year, Poland’s conservative populist government lost power when voters chose a center-left coalition. The United Kingdom left the European Union — a victory for conservative populism — but its conservative Tory Party is expected to suffer heavy losses in the next election, even if the opposition Labor Party does not plan to reverse so-called Brexit.

Even in Hungary, a bastion of conservative populist power in Europe, discontent with the current government is growing.

In places where the right has taken power, such as Italy, where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party has doubled its membership in the EU parliament, there have been no radical changes. Meloni has kept her country part of the coalition supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Although she has banned the entry of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea into her country, she and the party she belongs to, the neo-fascist-rooted Brothers of Italy, have made no fundamental changes to the country’s political and economic structure.

Matthias Matthiesz, a professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University, said Italy could be an example of how populists would govern in Europe.

“They’re going to get stricter about Muslim prayer, and you can drive faster on the highway now,” Mathisz said. “But on the big issues — the budget, foreign policy — the only way these populists can get to power is if they stay at the center.”

This is in contrast to Trump, who has embraced notable changes to American politics and how the federal government could work if he wins. Some analysts believe a Trump victory could allow European populists like Meloni to move further to the right.

Radical change is unlikely even after the EU elections. The European People’s Party (Christian Democrats), to which EU President Ursula von der Leyen belongs, has moved to the right to counter the populist wave and remains the largest party in the 720-member body. The center is still left in Europe—it has simply moved to the right. The next question is whether the same will happen in the United States in November.