European establishment won’t listen to voters, so national populists will keep winning

Last Sunday’s Romanian elections, in which a populist-right candidate, Călin Georgescu, defied the opinion polls and jumped into top place in the first round of the presidential elections, elicited much teeth-gnashing across Europe. Politico Europe called the vote a “far-right, pro-Russian lurch,” and a Romanian MEP called it a “part of Russia’s hybrid war against European democracy.” That the vote came on the same day as Austria’s regional Styria elections, which saw the populist-right Freedom Party come in first place there for the first time ever — guaranteeing that they will oversee one of Austria’s most populous states – was surely a one-two punch for defenders of the liberal international order.

These stories, however, are not new. If anything, at this point, after nearly ten years of continuous populist-right victories, you could write-up the results ahead of time in a Mad Libs-type format for almost every single election. You could fill in the blanks after the fact: “________ just had elections for _________ in which the populist-right shockingly did better than expected/won outright” (circle whichever applies). It is just a constant story of success.

But the same is true for the other side of the coin: it is also a constant story of Western establishments (as America is included here as well) refusing to accept why they are losing. Some, in observing the aforementioned Romanian MEP, blame Russia. That is a common response. It was how the Democrats responded to now-President-elect Donald Trump’s win in 2016, even though there was no evidence that exposure to Russia’s propaganda changed the result. Central Europe is being particular bitten by the populist bug – Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, and now Romania have all had populist candidates in first place or governing outright. This has elicited fear that Russia’s influence is spreading.

But others still blame alternative media, like Elon Musk’s X and television channels which do not walk the establishmentarian line for the losses. Which is an ahistorical complaint: are we to believe that all the past occurrences of populist fury – say, the revolutions of 1848 – were legitimate, whereas the one which is occurring in our time just so happens to be the only one caused by “fake news”? It belies belief. People like Joe Rogan are not alternative media; earlier this year, Spotify revealed that his podcast has around 15 million listeners, 10 million more than the second place. This is millions more than cable television. People like Joe Rogan are the media. If anything, traditional media is now the alternative, akin to using a rotary phone instead of a cell phone.

No, it is not Russia causing the surge, and it is not alternative media. Everyone knows what the issue is: it is migration and an inability for liberal internationalist establishmentarians to break out of their Cold War mindset.

Let’s take them one by one.

Firstly, migration. It is somewhat maddening even to have to be pointing this out after nearly ten years of voters essentially screaming about how they do not want mass migration, but alas, here we are. Polling consistently shows that this is a major issue. Earlier this year, a Euronews survey found that 51 per cent had a negative view of Europe’s migration policies, whereas only 16 per cent had a positive one. In the US, it was migration – Trump’s 2016 promise to build a wall and his 2024 promise to begin mass deportations on day one of his second term – which helped propel Trump to the White House. People have a negative view of mass migration because illegal migrants commit crimes at higher rates than people who have come legally; there have been repeated stabbings in Vienna, and 100 per cent of “serious sexual” crimes in Frankfurt are committed by foreigners. One establishment-friendly “fact-check” site tried to push back on migrant crime statistics by saying it was false to say that foreigners commit 60 per cent of all violent crimes in Germany; the real number is only 40 per cent!

When voters decided to join the European Union, they did so because they thought they would be able to have more economic opportunity. They would be able to work in Germany, or they would be able to vacation in Italy. They did not think it meant that the moment an illegal migrant set foot in Greece, that they could travel wherever they wanted.

Secondly, Brussels is stuck in a Cold War-era thinking. As a result, any time someone breaks from this paradigm – be it a populist-right party winning in Austria or Donald Trump going back to the White House – they oftentimes panic. Why this happens is tragically obvious. The Cold War, and especially the post-Cold War era, was great for the European liberal internationalists. They got to have America defend them from Russia while buying cheap Russian oil and spending huge amounts of money on social spending.

But the 21st century, and the coming multipolar world, is shattering that idyll. Now America no longer wants to defend freeloaders, they cannot (officially) buy Russian oil, and the bill on all that social spending is coming due.

This, in turn, is obvious to populist-right voters. These old ways are simply not working. Perpetual conflict with Russia, when America is no longer going to be willing to defend Europe, is simply not conducive to long-term survival. Romania may soon have a major NATO critic as president for just this reason.

For reasons which are unclear – perhaps they desire cheap migrant labour? Perhaps they have an absurd level of guilt over colonialism? – establishmentarians are insisting upon mass migration and Cold War-era thinking. In terms of actually stopping the populist-right, they’ve tried nothing, and they are all out of ideas.

As long as they continue to do this, the populists will keep winning.

So how can national capitals stop this? They could simply listen to their voters. They could adopt Hungary’s position of building a fence and immediately rejecting asylum seekers.
The European Commission may threaten sanctions, but they cannot sanction the whole union. The establishment could actually include the populists in government, instead of trying to build coalitions of losers which are destined ultimately to fail. If courts like the European Court of Justice rule that deportations of violent criminals are illegal if their home countries are unsafe – as they did in 2019 – national capitals can, and should, ignore such rulings and deport away.

The establishmentarians in Brussels will again gnash their teeth at such suggestions. They will make points about the liberal international order.

But that international order is dead. The intransigence of the establishmentarians killed it. National governments should not attach themselves to something which no longer exists.