The optimists argue that “the centre” will hold in Europe because proportional representation and the separation of powers, together with EU constraints on national policies, mean that far-right parties will never be able to exercise absolute power or will eventually be voted out of office, as happened to Orbán in Hungary.
They also argue that European democracy has survived even worse times, when several countries were plagued by terrorist groups such as the Red Brigades, Baader–Meinhof and ETA, all of which have fortunately disappeared or ceased their campaigns of violence. These groups committed horrendous atrocities.
All these arguments have some merit, but they are not enough to let us sleep soundly. They do little to counter the influence in Europe of Trump and his Dark International, on the one hand, or the threat posed by Putin, on the other. Europe faces dangers even if “the centre” holds.
The geopolitical threats and the dangers to our democracies would become even more serious if more far-right parties entered government. They would weaken the EU even without taking their countries out of it, and weakening the EU means weakening democracy, human rights, the rule of law and individual freedoms.
Of course, the answer to the optimists should not be pessimism, but a realism that leaves room for hope. The dangers are very real: if the far right makes further progress, the threats facing our societies will be more serious than those they faced in the first half of the twentieth century, given the state of technology and the climate crisis. The book by Klein and Taylor explaining this phenomenon, End Times Fascism, was not given advance coverage in the Financial Times by accident. Very serious people believe that safeguarding democracy, shared prosperity and our ability to confront global challenges requires stopping the far right.
To move beyond isolated victories against far-right populism, such as those seen in Poland, Hungary and Brazil, as well as Biden’s and Starmer’s electoral victories, it is crucial to break the vicious cycles that populism creates. As the Italian economist and political scientist Morelli explains, these cycles arise because populist governments impose economic costs that fuel discontent and distrust in institutions, or because their nationalism prevents problems from being addressed at the appropriate level. Both mechanisms feed renewed demand for populism: seemingly easy solutions that ultimately generate further economic costs and further erode democratic institutions.
Morelli argues that some may believe it necessary to fight populists on their own turf—for instance, by outdoing them on social media. But competing with them on that terrain will only produce new, and perhaps “better”, populist leaders. There are no shortcuts. Although effective communication and the skilful management of political cycles should not be dismissed as short-term priorities, the only sustainable long-term strategy is to restore trust in democratic institutions by ensuring that they once again deliver shared prosperity, while exposing the anti-democratic and socially costly agendas of reactionary forces.
In terms of Morelli’s model, action is required on three fronts: first, generating prosperity and ensuring that it is broadly shared, thereby increasing the number of “winners”; second, strengthening the credibility of institutions and redistributive policies so that they can deliver on their promises; and third, developing narratives and movements that challenge the moral legitimacy of populism and expose the ineffectiveness of its solutions, particularly those rooted in conservative, racist and reactionary ideologies—which are often the easiest to put into practice.
