Le Pen, Trump and liberal panic
The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House
I was at the French embassy in London on May 7 2017, the night that Emmanuel Macron won the presidency for the first time. When the screens flashed up news of his decisive victory over Marine Le Pen, there were cheers from the assembled guests.
Seven years later, Le Pen’s Rassemblement National has just won the largest share of the vote in the first round of French legislative elections and Macron’s party has been trounced. Her protégé, Jordan Bardella, may soon become prime minister and she is the bookies’ favourite for the presidency in 2027. The hope that Macron had permanently buried the threat from the far right turned out to be an illusion.
To be fair to the French, they are not the only country to have witnessed a liberal false dawn. Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election provoked all sorts of breathless commentary about the emergence of a post-racial America and a permanent Democratic party majority. Obama was cool, good-looking, a Harvard man. He delighted his fans by humiliating Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in 2011.
Thirteen years later, Trump, a man preoccupied by vengeance, is having the last laugh. Obama is sitting impotently on the sidelines as the Biden presidency falls apart and Trump closes in on a second term in office.
In the US and France, centrists and liberals are in full panic mode. Nationalist populism now looks like a permanent and even defining feature of western politics, rather than a temporary aberration. The old left-right divide of the 20th century has given way to a new cleavage between liberal internationalists and populist nationalists.
On both sides of the Atlantic, the populist nationalist forces push similar policies on immigration, trade, climate, the “war on woke” and the war in Ukraine. Opposition to immigration remains their rallying cry. Trump and Le Pen argue that elitist “globalists” are allowing their nations to be destroyed by unfettered migration. Protectionism and a demand for “national preferences” are also key demands.
The green transition has become a new target for the populist nationalists. It is portrayed as a woke, elitist preoccupation that is raising prices for ordinary people. Both Le Pen and Trump have long flirted with Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin. Many in their camp see him as a champion of traditional values and the nation-state. The western alliance’s support for Ukraine is portrayed by the national populists as dangerous and a waste of money.
The national populists also have a penchant for conspiracy theories on everything from the Covid-19 pandemic to the influence of rich men, such as George Soros or Bill Gates.
The French and American elections mean that Trump and Le Pen are now the most important standard bearers for nationalist populism in the west. But similar figures are proliferating across Europe.
Trump’s pal, Nigel Farage, and his Reform UK party, look set for a strong performance in the UK election. Geert Wilders’ Freedom party won last year’s Dutch election. The Alternative for Germany party — currently too extreme even for Le Pen — came second in the recent European parliament elections in Germany, while Austria’s Freedom party topped the polls.
The Hungarian leader, Viktor Orbán, has become a key figure in the national populist movement. His ability to entrench himself in power has attracted admiration in Trump’s inner circle and he remains close to other key European populists, such as Le Pen.
Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is an important and ambiguous figure. She has roots in the “post-fascist” right and long-standing ties to both Le Pen and Orbán. But in office, she has eschewed some parts of the nationalist populist agenda — including admiration for Putin’s Russia and hostility to the EU. If Trump wins, Meloni could become a key “whisperer” — trying to keep lines open between the EU and Trump’s America.
The resurgence of Trump — and now the RN — excites fears for the future of democracy in the west. Those concerns are legitimate, given Trump’s encouragement of an attempted coup in 2021 and the French far right’s historical links to wartime collaborationists.
But liberals should not panic. Dismantling American or French democracy would be no simple task. The hopes of a decisive victory over nationalist populism — stirred by Macron and Obama — proved to be an illusion. But the fears of a decisive defeat for the liberal, internationalist cause are also probably exaggerated.
Voters can swiftly become disenchanted with populism, once they see it in action. In the UK, a large majority now think that Brexit, the central populist project in Britain, has failed. The country is poised to elect Sir Keir Starmer, an unflashy centrist, as prime minister. National populists have lost power in Poland and Brazil and suffered electoral setbacks in Turkey and India.
American voters turned on Trump after his chaotic first term in office. His resurgence partly reflects the fact that he is running against an exceptionally weak 81-year-old incumbent in Joe Biden.
The simple solutions offered by national populists fail when put into practice. France and the US may be about to relearn this painful lesson. Sadly, the consequences of their folly will be felt around the world.
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