Toronto Star

A year on, Trump’s lustre fades in eyes of Europe’s far right

Real power remains elusive for nationalis­t parties given boost by U.S. president’s win

- ISHAAN THAROOR THE WASHINGTON POST

A year ago, western democracie­s were reeling from the biggest political shock in decades. American voters had just made a reality TV star the most powerful person in the world. A presidenti­al candidate who had campaigned on a divisive platform cheered on by white nationalis­ts was now going to lead the world’s most venerable democracy. An antiestabl­ishment neophyte would soon be in charge of the American nuclear arsenal. Leading European politician­s struggled to contain their bemusement.

Among those celebratin­g, though, were members of Europe’s far right. U.S. President Donald Trump’s unlikely triumph was, for them, a dramatic repudiatio­n of a liberal status quo they had long reviled. Trump’s right-wing populism was a validation of their own anti-immigrant, antiMuslim, ultranatio­nalist agendas. As various far-right parties geared up for a series of national elections in 2017, they hailed Trump as a harbinger of things to come.

“Their world is crumbling,” Florian Philippot, then the vice-president of France’s far-right National Front, tweeted a day after Trump’s election win. “Ours is being built.”

One year later, however, the establishm­ent in Western Europe hasn’t quite crumbled. Far-right parties in the Netherland­s, France and Germany won unpreceden­ted vote shares in their countries’ elections, but are no closer to taking power — and are possibly bumping their heads on the ceiling of their political potential.

Moreover, the past year has also seen many of the same European politician­s who exulted in Trump’s victory now trying to distance themselves from an American president who has become staggering­ly unpopular on both sides of the pond.

While Dutch anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders heaped praise on Trump in the aftermath of his win, he grew more quiet around the time of his own country’s national elections in March. There were early fears that his anti-Islam, anti-EU Freedom Party might emerge a winner, but Wilders finished behind a centre-right ruling party that cast itself as a bulwark against Trumpism.

“Voters have now become negative about the measures taken by (U.S.) President Trump,” a Dutch pollster told Bloomberg in mid-March.

In France, 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron, a centrist who cast himself as an outsider, trounced the National Front’s Marine Le Pen in the presidenti­al election. The French farright party performed better than it ever had, but still remains firmly in the minority. Just as they had during France’s 2002 presidenti­al election, when Le Pen’s father made the final round, the country’s constellat­ion of conservati­ve, establishm­ent and leftwing parties declared a Le Pen victory a threat to their republic, and endorsed Macron. What momentum Trump’s success may have given Le Pen has long since dissipated.

Nor is Trump much of a hero for the French far right. In a recent interview with HuffPost, Cécile Alduy, a French politics expert at Stanford University, suggested that Trump’s targeting of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad with a missile strike, as well as his chummy summer visit with Macron, would have won him little sympathy from the National Front’s base.

“Since he’s been president, Trump has disappoint­ed on some issues — including strikes in Syria. Marine Le Pen’s party is a non-interventi­onist party, they were supportive of Assad and their policy is that nations should keep to themselves,” said Alduy. She added that “there’s also this sense that Trump, for all his bravado, could be seduced and calmed down by a young 39-year-old president. That undermines his image for National Front supporters.”

Meanwhile, factional infighting has taken its toll on the party. Philippot was compelled to quit in September, while speculatio­n looms still over Le Pen’s fitness to lead after two failed presidenti­al campaigns.

In Germany, the far-right Alternativ­e for Germany party, or AfD, delivered a shock to the nation’s politics by entering the German Bundestag as the country’s third-biggest faction after elections in September. Critics of the xenophobic, far-right AfD link it to the country’s dark Nazi past. But even its senior figures see Trump’s behaviour as occasional­ly being beyond the pale.

Trump’s equivocati­ng response to a white nationalis­t rally in Charlottes­ville, Va., was “completely unnecessar­y,” said Alice Weidel, a leading AfD politician, when asked about it in August by German reporters. She also suggested that Trump “should focus more on policies and less on tweeting and Twitter,” adding that “if I had a wish list, then I would wish that Donald Trump would focus . . . more on cleaning up his own house and being a little more devoted to his governing responsibi­lities.”

Many European politician­s who exulted in Trump’s victory are now trying to distance themselves from a president who has become staggering­ly unpopular on both sides of the pond

But while Trump’s appeal may have dimmed thanks to his chaotic first months in office, the influence of Europe’s far right has not. Anti-establishm­ent populism — of all stripes — is reshaping politics across the continent. Meanwhile, centre-right establishm­ent parties are veering further to the right, adopting more of the hard-line nativism of the xenophobes on their flank. In Austria, for example, the far-right Freedom Party has formally entered coalition talks to form the next government.

Cas Mudde, an expert on European populism at the University of Georgia, warns that such accommodat­ion may only lead to their demise, gesturing to the existentia­l war consuming the Republican Party in the United States.

“By pushing politics more and more to the right, (centre-right parties) will have only one choice left: stay somewhat true to their (own) ideologica­l core and face the rage of the radicalize­d electorate, or give them what they want and become a radical right party,” Mudde wrote in the Guardian.

“We can see how that looks currently in the U.S. It is imperative that European mainstream right-wing parties do not make the same mistake,” he added.

 ?? DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES ?? Donald Trump’s chaotic first year as U.S. president has not endeared him to Europe’s far-right parties.
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES Donald Trump’s chaotic first year as U.S. president has not endeared him to Europe’s far-right parties.

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