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Far-right parties are predicted to win a record number of seats in the European Parliament, a result that, if confirmed, would deliver a stinging rebuke to Brussels’ political mainstream and add uncertainty to Europe’s future direction.
After three days of voting across the European Union’s 27 member states, an exit poll showed that far-right parties were set to win around 150 of the parliament’s 720 seats, which will likely make it harder for mainstream parties to form majorities needed to pass laws.
Most of the far-right gains were concentrated in countries that elect large numbers of seats: France, Italy and Germany.
Europe’s drift to the right has been a long journey that’s seen the continent’s mainstream increasingly accommodate people with Euroskeptic views that were once fringe.
The projected gains for the hard right in the European parliamentary elections may seem modest in terms of pure numbers, but they are significant.
The results represent a major challenge to the pro-Europe mainstream officials who dominate the institutions of the European Union.
While, domestically speaking, it's easy for people to chalk it up to Trump and the GOP radicalizing the far-right part of the base and residuals of past racial attitudes, the fact that it's occurring in Europe (and in countries that have been notably more progressive than the US and don't have the same levels of ideological/racial baggage), should make people question the "conventional wisdom".
If it was merely happening only in the US and other countries were maintaining the status quo, then the theory of "if it weren't for Trump, this shift wouldn't have occurred" may have some merit.
Since it's happening in other places where there is no Trump (and for that matter, where Trump wasn't/isn't well-liked), would mean that even if Donald Trump never existed, there would merely another "outlet" people would be using as their "vessel" for propping up a bulwark against what they see as the excesses of the left.
(for instance, the rallying behind Geert Wilders that was seen late last year in the Netherlands, Milei in Argentina, etc...)
Which, if the latter is the case, then people may be focusing their efforts in the wrong areas if they're looking to stave off the far-right gaining ground. In the countries that seemed to have successfully staved off these kinds of pushes, they didn't do so by strengthening their left/far-left, they did so by having their far-left reign it in a bit and making some concessions in order to bolster the centrists.
...which makes perfect sense logically speaking. If someone is on the fence between center-right and far-right, who's more likely to be able to wrangle them back inside the overton window? Centrists, or the Left?...
IE: If you have some who's teetering on the bring of falling into the far-right trap, who's more likely to stop them from making that jump? Someone like an AOC who they have almost zero overlap with? Or someone more in the center with whom they may share positions on half the issues?
