United States Capitol in Washington DC (Shutterstock/Orhan Cam)
Expect plenty of coverage between now and the 2020 election about how Democrats in the United States have moved to the left.
This isn’t wrong. On everything from health care to transgender rights, Democrats have become more left-wing.
But they’re still more centrist than most center-left parties in Europe while Republicans have moved so far to the right that they now have more in common with Austria’s Freedom Party and the Alternative for Germany than they do with Britain’s Conservative Party and Germany’s Christian Democrats. (more…)
Russian president Vladimir Putin looks out a window in Budapest, Hungary, February 17, 2015 (Facebook/Viktor Orbán)
In an interview with the Financial Times, Vladimir Putin claims “the liberal idea” has “outlived its purpose” and puts himself at the head of a global reactionary movement against immigration, open borders and multiculturalism.
The Financial Times knows that Putin’s evisceration of liberalism chimes with anti-establishment leaders like Donald Trump in America, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Matteo Salvini in Italy and even the Brexit insurgency in the UK.
But true believes ought to take a closer look at the Russian leader. He may sound like an ally, but he’s not really interested in your cause. (more…)
Estonian prime minister Jüri Ratas listens to Spanish Citizens party leader Albert Rivera during a meeting of European liberal party leaders in Brussels, December 13, 2018 (ALDE)
Spain’s center-right parties are having second thoughts about cozying up to the far right.
Before the general election in April, the liberal Citizens and the conservative People’s Party ruled out a deal with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ Socialists. That meant the only alternative to his pact with the far-left Podemos was a right-wing coalition with the support of the nativist Vox. Voters preferred the former.
They once again gave the Socialists a plurality in European and local elections last month.
The Citizens now say they are willing to consider coalitions with the Socialists at the regional level under “exceptional” circumstances. They also reject more deals with Vox such as the one they struck in Andalusia last year.
The People’s Party, which as recently as eight years ago won 45 percent of the votes, has also repudiated its Vox-friendly strategy after falling to 17-20 percent support in the last two elections. (more…)
Laurent Wauquiez and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the conservative party leaders of France and Greece, attend a meeting in Brussels, October 17, 2018 (EPP)
France’s center-right Republicans will be looking for a new leader after Laurent Wauquiez stepped down in the wake of a disappointing European election result.
His party got just 8.5 percent support, placing fourth behind President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and the Greens.
Wauquiez had been at 8 to 10 percent support in polls for the next presidential election, which is due in 2022.
But the party needs more than a fresh face. It needs a better strategy. (more…)
Paolo Gentiloni, Mariano Rajoy, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Mark Rutte, the leaders of Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the Netherlands, deliver a joint news conference in Berlin, June 29, 2017 (La Moncloa)
Mark Rutte has suffered the same fate as his closest ally in Europe, Angela Merkel. Both center-right leaders moved to the middle in a bid for centrist voters only to leave a gap on the right that the far right has filled.
In midterm elections on Wednesday, the Dutch Freedom Party and Forum for Democracy won a combined 21 percent of the votes, their best result to date.
In Germany, support for the Alternative is down a few points in the polls but still at 11-14 percent. Merkel’s Christian Democrats fell from 41.5 to 33 percent between the 2013 and 2017 elections. (more…)
Prime Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer of Saarland answers questions from reporters in Berlin, Germany, September 19, 2014 (Bundesrat/Henning Schacht)
It was supposed to be a subtle shift to the right.
In anointing the socially conservative former prime minister of Saarland, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, as her successor, Angela Merkel signaled to Germany’s Christian Democrats that after fourteen years of her consensus politics — which even inspired a verb: merkeln — they would return to their right-wing, Christian roots, but without altogether repudiating the centrist strategy that has made the CDU so successful.
The last few weeks have called that balancing act into question. (more…)
Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz meets with French Republican party leaders Laurent Wauquiez and Michel Barnier in Salzburg, September 19, 2018 (EPP)
The Financial Times wonders if Austria’s Sebastian Kurz is the savior of Europe’s center-right or an enabler of the far right.
His supporters, including the liberal-minded former prime minister of Finland, Alexander Stubb, see the Austrian as the antidote to Orbanism:
He talks about an open world, internationalism and is pro-European. But he is pragmatic about solving issues. And one of the big issues is immigration.
Critics argue that by taking a hard line on immigration, Kurz is legitimizing the far right. “You don’t fight fire with kerosene,” according to former chancellor and former Social Democratic Party leader Christian Kern. (more…)
European commissioner Jyrki Katainen listens to Spanish People’s Party leader Pablo Casado during a congress of the European People’s Party in Helsinki, Finland, November 8 (EPP)
Pablo Casado has pulled Spain’s conservative People’s Party to the right, taking a harder line on everything from abortion to Catalonia to Gibraltar to immigration.
So far, it has neither helped nor hurt his party in the polls. (more…)
Minister Presidents Horst Seehofer of Bavaria and Winfried Kretschmann of Baden-Württemberg speak in the Federal Council in Berlin, October 10, 2014 (Bundesrat/Henning Schacht)
How much of a cautionary tale is the center-right’s collapse in Bavaria?
The Christian Social Union (CSU), which allies with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats nationally, is down from nearly 48 percent support in the last state election to 35-37 percent in recent polls. The far-right Alternative for Germany is up from 4 to 11-13 percent. (more…)
Six years ago, citing Kimberley Strassel in The Wall Street Journal, I called America’s Republican governors the “vanguard” of a conservative reform movement.
What disappointments they have turned out to be. (more…)
Pablo Casado greets members of the executive committee of Spain’s People’s Party in Barcelona, July 26 (PP)
The new Spanish conservative party leader, Pablo Casado, is making good on his promise to move the People’s Party to the right.
In talks with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who leads a minority left-wing government, Casado refused to support dialogue with Catalan parties that want to break away from Spain.
Separately, he argued Spain cannot “absorb millions of Africans who want to come to Europe in search of a better future.”
Both positions mark a hardening from those of Casado’s predecessor, and the previous prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. (more…)
American president Donald Trump and Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte arrive to a NATO summit in Brussels, July 12 (NATO)
Janan Ganesh argues in the Financial Times that, after Donald Trump, America’s Republicans must become more like the European center-right: shed their small-government, low-tax, free-trade ideology in favor of a pragmatism statism. The state can be an instrument of national togetherness.
Perhaps. But what of the Republicans who still believe in small government, low taxes and free trade? (more…)
Pablo Casado has won the leadership of Spain’s conservative People’s Party with 57 to 42 percent support from party delegates.
Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the former deputy prime minister, was considered the establishment favorite. Her defeat signals a desire for a more right-wing program. Casado’s economic policy is more liberal and he takes a hard line against the Catalan independence movement. (more…)
German chancellor Angela Merkel answers questions from reporters in Berlin, November 9, 2016 (Bundesregierung)
Germany’s Christian Democrats and Social Democrats are both fending off grassroots rebellions against their decision to form another grand coalition government.
On the right, there is dismay that Angela Merkel gave away the powerful Finance Ministry. Der Spiegel reports that the decision has stirred her erstwhile catatonic party into a potentially revolutionary fury. The liberal Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung can already see the “twilight” of the Merkel era.
On the left, there is disappointment that Martin Schulz broke his word not to team up with Merkel and fear that the party will be punished at the next election. Wolfgang Münchau — prone to exaggeration, but maybe not far off this time — writes that we may be in for a Brexit-style surprise on March 4, when Social Democratic Party members vote on the coalition deal. (more…)
Donald Trump gives a speech in Derry, New Hampshire, August 19, 2015 (Michael Vadon)
Damon Linker wonders what’s worse: that Republicans believe the FBI was doing the bidding of the Democratic Party by using opposition research funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign to get a court order to approve surveillance of a Donald Trump campaign advisor, Carter Page — or that they are only pretending to believe it in order to whip the Republican electorate into a conspiracy-addled froth of indignation against the legitimacy of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation? (more…)
