Political choices in Europe may impact U.S. vote

“A reflection of current trends is that there are more racist politicians among the current 785 MEPs (Members of European Parliament) than members representing the 15 million ethnic minorities and third-country nationals living in European Union (EU) countries, making them the Union’s eighth largest country out of 27.”
—from a recent article “In the Wake of Xenophobia: The New Racism in Europe,” by Glyn Ford in the UN Chronicle.
Comparing the inner workings of individual countries may be as futile as accessing the personalities of individuals, since each individual is unique unto itself, with histories and quirks dissimilar to any other. Yet and still, recent events in the political cauldron of Europe might be seen as a precursor of things to come in the United States Presidential Election a few months away.
The recent rise of far-right extremism in the past few years in the wake of the Cold War collapse may be the result of many extenuating factors. Of these, the EU bears close scrutiny. Conceived to integrate its 27 members into a single cohesive monolith, it was preceded by other attempts at integrating member nations since as the Council of Europe after World War ll. Among its goals are the stimulation of economic growth through the reduction of trade barriers within the union, fostering security through its participation with the North Atlantic Peace Treaty (NATO), and maintaining its global influence as a political entity on the world stage.
The current surge of extremist populism on the continent is akin to that of American politics in that vast portions of its citizenry perceive that they have been left out or ignored by the elitist establishment. Charismatic individuals who exploit these fears can capitalize on fears of their livelihoods being taken away or reduced, and threats to their sovereignty or being outright replaced totally. Perhaps the most polarizing politician of the present millennium has consolidated this into a catchphrase borrowed into the American psyche: Make America Great Again.
European figures of this ink include Italian Prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Slovakian Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, and key figures in the governments of Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Curiously, the trend towards this extremist mindset was reversed with recent elections in the United Kingdom and France. Against pre-election predictions, the left-leaning New Popular Front blocked the far-right National Rally from taking control of the French government by winning a majority of seats in the parliamentary elections at the end of June. Immediately following this in the first week of July, the center-left Labour Party scored a landslide victory over the Tory Party, ending 14 years of Conservative-dominated government.
While America has its own Social Security system, it is nowhere near as comprehensive as those in place of its European counterparts. The lack of a dependable “safety net” naturally evokes unease and foreboding, leading to xenophobia (the fear or dislike of anything foreign or strange, in this case people from other countries), a primary motivation for people who embrace the populist bastion.
The closest to an impartial voice in contemporary society, Pope Francis said as much in this excerpt from his 2020 book “Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Life.”
“The often cruel rhetoric of populist leaders denigrating the ‘other’ in order to defend a national or group identity reveals its spirit. It is a means by which ambitious politicians attain power.”
This may be a partial explanation for the paranoia which drives mass droves of populists to the MAGA extremists, a trend witnessed globally in the 1930s with the advent of the Great Depression. This event caused widespread unemployment and hardship among the working class in varying degrees around the world, especially in Germany and Italy. These conditions facilitated the rise of fascists Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. This state of affairs was replicated, albeit to a lesser degree, in the United States. Notable figures from this era included U.S. Senator Robert R. Reynolds (D-NC), Rep. Robert E. Rankin (D-MS), and especially Father Charles E. Coughlin, a Catholic priest who used the age old sentiment of antisemitism to explain away the grievances of his flock via the new and novel medium of radio.
Presently the so-called developed countries of the West are still reacting to stagnant economic growth in the wake of the depression in 2008. Although there are parallels between the U.S. and Europe, fundamental differences between these geographic locales compound the odds of accurate predictions.
As Georgetown University professor Charles A. Kupchan notes, “…we’re clearly at one of those points where the wind can blow in either direction.”