Through a populist uprising that occurred in June 2016, the United Kingdom chose to withdraw from the European Union. This event served as a precursor to Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in the election a few months later.
Now, in June 2024, politicians on the extreme right have recently won massive victory in European Union elections. Many of these candidates share Trump’s populist nationalism, hatred to immigration, scorching economic message, and scorn for ruling elites and globalist institutions.
Will there be a second lightning bolt in the political arena?
Despite the fact that the far right is gaining ground in European Parliament elections, the center is still in control. Voters in the United States do not follow the lead of foreigners, and the presidential elections in the United States, which are held on a state-by-state basis, are quite different from those in the European Union. To add insult to injury, the failures of the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign were a greater factor in Trump’s victory eight years ago than Brexit was.
However, President Joe Biden ought to be worried about this. The most recent campaign in Europe was effective in road testing a message that combines a strong political cocktail. This message combines public fury over what is considered to be out-of-control migration, the anguish of voters confronting high prices, and the cost to people of battling climate change. In battleground states that will determine who wins the campaign for the White House, Trump is focusing a lot of his attention on these topics.
The European elections taught us a number of important lessons, one of which is that incumbents are susceptible to the influence of a dissatisfied populace in a period of inflation. It is expected that Vice President Biden will join a group of four other Western leaders who are politically reduced when he comes to the G7 conference in Italy this week. Both the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, and the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, are reeling from the embarrassing defeat they suffered in European elections, which favored far-right groups that are reminiscent of the continent’s tragic history.
As a result of his poor popularity ratings, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may not even be able to lead his Liberal Party into elections that are scheduled to take place by the end of the next year. It is anticipated that the Conservative Party, which has ruled the United Kingdom for the last 14 years, would be defeated in the general election that will take place the following month.
Giorgia Meloni, the right-wing prime minister of Italy, will be the most secure European leader at the G7. Italy is notorious for its rapid succession of leaders, so it is ironic that Meloni will be the most secure European leader at the party. Meloni is now considered to be one of the most prominent leaders on the other side of the Atlantic as a result of the successful victory of her party over the weekend.
It is possible that the fact that the election in the United States is not a classic confrontation between an unpopular incumbent president and an insurgent outsider might be a savior for Vice President Joe Biden. Trump is, in many respects, an incumbent himself.
He has a record of controversy in the White House and carries a significant amount of political baggage as a former president who has been impeached twice and convicted the second time. However, populist nationalism is not growing in every region of the world. During the midterm elections in 2022, Biden spearheaded a campaign that was remarkably effective in combating the influence of “Make America Great Again” inside the Republican Party. It is anticipated that the Labour Party would return to power in Britain the following month, which would be a departure from the pattern of increasing right-wing parties. In addition, Poland has just recently rejected eight years of populist governance that was modeled after Trump’s administration.
Macron of France makes a large wager and looks down on the extreme right.
Macron’s audacious gamble, which startled pundits watching his post-election address in TV studios, was a reaction to the ascent of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party, which is a far-right political party. He terminated the Parliamentary session and called for fresh elections.
The National Front, which is an ultra-right-wing anti-immigrant organization, has never been able to successfully traverse the country’s two-round election system in order to win the president. The National Rally is an outgrowth of this organization. Some of Le Pen’s proposals have been modified in order to make them more appealing to a wider range of people.
In light of the fact that Macron is the leader of a centrist party that was defeated in the European elections, it is possible that he is wagering that the increased voter participation in parliamentary elections might reverse the trend. In addition, a coalition of anti-far-right politicians might form in Parliament after the elections.
It is possible that President Macron may be compelled to nominate Jordan Bardella, a prominent figure on the extreme right who is 28 years old, as Prime Minister in an embarrassing cohabitation pact if the National Rally is victorious in the two-part elections that climax in the weeks leading up to the Paris Olympics. A few of cynics are curious about whether or whether Macron secretly harbors the dream that a government led by the extreme right may be so terrible that it would undermine Le Pen’s chances of replacing him in 2027.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said to the French people that his risk was founded on faith “in the capacity of the French people to make the most just choice for themselves and for future generations.” By presenting his statement as an act of “trust in our democracy,” he is insinuating that he is pleading with people who are feeling down about the state of the economy to maintain the fundamental principles that comprise their nation.
A warning that American democracy is in grave danger and has to be preserved by voters was issued by Vice President Joe Biden at the side of French President Emmanuel Macron last week at the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy landings. This warning is very similar to the one that Biden issued.
As a consequence, the White House will be paying much closer attention to the results of the French election on July 7 than it would to the results of the EU elections on Sunday.
