Včerajšnji zaplet v nemškem Bundestagu, ko predestinirani novi kancler Friedrich Merz iz zmerno desne CDU/CSU ni dobil večinske podpore za izvolitev za kanclerja v prvem krogu glasovanja, je mnoge presenetila. Kajti podpore ni dobil niti od glasov iz lastne koalicije. Toda ta zaplet ni presenečenje, pač pa je – kot je pred dvema dnevoma lepo opisal kolumnist in avtor knjige o smrti nemške industrije (“Kaput”) Wolfgang Münchau – del širšega, desetletnega trenda izgube legitimitete zmerne desnice v Evropi. Izguba legitimitete zmerne desnice se je zgodila v večini zahodne Evrope – od Nizozemske, Italije, Francije, Avstrije, … do Nemčije.

Pomembno pa je razumeti, zakaj so lolilci izgubili zaupanje v zmerno desnico, ki je vedno veljala za steber zahodne politike – glas malih podjetij, kmetov, manjših mest, vasi in premožnih predmestij. Predstavljala je motor globalizacije in zagovornico prostega pretoka kapitala, blaga in ljudi. Stala je ob boku transatlantskemu zavezništvu in v Evropi odločno podpirala evropsko integracijo. V zadnjem desetletju pa ta model razpada. Njeni tradicionalni temelji so vse bolj v medsebojnem nasprotju. Podpora globalizaciji in odprtim mejam je povzročila nezadovoljstvo volilcev zaradi povečanja neenakosti in prevelikega števila priseljencev. Podpora EU danes pomeni tudi podporo strogi regulaciji, ki pogosto duši mala podjetja in obremenjuje kmete. Podpora EU danes pomeni podporo nadaljevanju nesmiselne vojne v Ukrajini, katere ceno v obliki gospodarske stagnacije, inflacije in dragih energentov plačujejo volilci.

Problem je, da se zmerna desnica v svoji brezrezervni podpori globalizaciji in evropski integraciji nikoli ni potrudila razumeti celotnih učinkov, ki jih obe “-ciji” prinašata za “navadne ljudi”. Prvič, ni se potrudila razumeti tega, kar sva v nedavno objavljeni raziskavi pokazala s kolegico – da globalizacija in tehnološki napredek jemljeta tradicionalne službe in povečujeta neenakost in da so se zgolj države z večjo redistribucijo (progresivnimi davki in socialnimi transferji) in večjo zaščito delovnih mest izognile drastičnemu povečanju neenakosti. Namesto tega je zmerna desnica na oblasti poslušno sledila neoliberalizmu iz Bruslja in mednarodnih organizacij, ki so forsirali restriktivno fiskalno politiko (in s tem krčenje socialnih transferjev) in liberalziacijo trga dela. In drugič, zmerna desnica se ni potrudila razumeti tega, kar so pokazale raziskave od leta 2016 naprej in kar je pokazala tudi najina raziskava s kolegom – da povečana neenakost, povečana brezposelnost in povečan pritok priseljencev polnijo jadra desnim pospulističnim strankam.

In tudi danes tega zmerna desnica noče razumeti. Še naprej vztraja pri brezrezervni podpori globalizaciji in evropski integraciji, kljub temu, da ju njeni tradicionalni volilci zavračajo. Evropski tradicionalni volilci zavračajo prosto trgovino, če to pomeni zapiranje tovarn in delovnih mest. Evropski tradicionalni volilci zavračajo evropsko energetsko politiko in ogljične kupone, ker prinašata višje cene energije in zapiranje tovarn in delovnih mest in njihovo selitev v Ameriko in Kitajsko. Evropski tradicionalni volilci zavračajo skupne evropske politike – od energetske, imigracijske, pro-vojne in oboroževalne, … do fiskalne. Evropski tradicionalni volilci zavračajo agresivni kulturni liberalizem, ker je ta v nasprotju z njihovimi tradicionalnimi vrednotami. Evropski tradicionalni volilci zavračajo Ursulo von der Leyen in Bruselj kot simbola uzurpacije nacionalnih politik in kot simbola agresije na njihove tradicionalne vrednote. Evropski tradicionalni volilci zavračajo stranke, ki brezrezervno podpirajo globalizacijo in Bruselj.

Zato bo zmerno desnico odnesla populistična desnica, ki te sentimente in strahove “navadnih ljudi” ne samo dobro razume, pač pa na njih gradi svoj poslovni model. In zmerni levici se bo zgodilo enako. Pri čemer ne gre za to, da so se volilci premaknili proti ekstremom bolj, kot so jim bile pripravljene slediti njihove matične politične stranke, pač pa da se je realnost, v kateri živijo “navadni ljudje”, spremenila bolj, kot je to pripravljena sprejeti “zmerna” intelektualna in politična elita na oblasti.

Globalna liberalna ureditev volilcem večinsko ni več kul, zato iščejo stranke, ki obljubljajo, da bodo tej globalni liberalni ureditvi naredile konec.

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In Germany, the far-Right AfD has, for the first time, overtaken the CDU/CSU in some national opinion polls. Remember Forza Italia, Italy’s answer to the British Conservatives? Today, they are merely the junior partner in a coalition government headed by Giorgia Meloni and her Rightist Brothers of Italy. The French Gaullists are a small party nowadays, with ever-changing names that are difficult to remember. The Netherlands, often a bellwether of European politics, also ditched the traditional Christian Democrats for a collection of far-Right and libertarian parties.

What one might call the far Right is therefore taking over. We could invoke the image of Tolstoy’s unhappy families, each different in their own way, as a metaphor to describe this rump. But that does not quite capture it. The movements of this Right have their own national characteristics — the German version is protectionist; the French is socialist; the American libertarian. What matters more is what they have in common. Clearly, they are all anti-immigration. But they share something even more important: the desire to destroy the multilateralist liberal global order. On this, I expect them to succeed.

The mainstream media, and talking heads from the think tanks and the universities, are in denial that we are already moving in that direction. But optimism bias is the defining characteristic of the liberal establishment. The idea that the far-Right might win this epic battle offends them. It also threatens them personally. Donald Trump just cut the funds for the Voice of America, for National Public Radio and for the Public Broadcasting Service. The first action taken by Elon Musk’s DOGE was to cut funding for civil society projects in the US and abroad. Hungary and Georgia have passed laws to restrict foreign funding of think tanks and other non-governmental organisations. And, in Europe, most NGOs are at least partially state funded.

But it is this liberal blob of media, social and political action groups, and universities that pushes a country’s political narratives. It was their story-telling about national interest that lead countries, like the UK, to enter the EU, or indeed to exit it. It was their story-telling that encouraged Germany to rely on Russian gas, and not to see Vladimir Putin for who he really was. And they all keep on insisting that Ukraine will win the war against Russia — even though it has been clear for two years that this is not going to happen.

But stories serve a purpose. And the Western, bone-headed response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is, as I see it, the last hooray of the vacuous multilateralist construction called the West. Nobody supported this idea of the West more than the centre-right parties. Their fates are intertwined.

Much of what describes the centre-right also applies to the centre-left. But the centre-left has its own unique problems, like the loss of industrial workers as its traditional voters. The European centre-left has lost voters to the Green Party, or radical parties of the Left, like Germany’s Die Linke. In France and Germany, the decline of the centre-left preceded that of the centre-right. But they are both victims of the crisis of globalisation.

The end of hyper-globalisation was triggered by the financial crisis. It was not the crisis itself that did the damage, but the way governments reacted to it. They did everything they could to protect the financial sector. Central banks adopted policies of quantitative easing to protect sovereign debt markets. Governments imposed austerity to stop an otherwise inevitable rise in inflation. All the while, western companies drummed up another story: they needed to invest in China. Each was a monumental misjudgement.

But the unravelling of hyper-globalisation proceeds slowly. Five years after Brexit, the UK has still not disentangled from the EU. It still has the EU’s 10% car tariff. And it retains the General Data Protection Directive, one of the main reasons why Europe — including the UK — is falling behind the US and China in AI. Trump has just found out quite how difficult it is in practice to decouple from Chinese-dominated manufacturing supply chains. But the globalisation fanboys are quite wrong to think that it cannot happen, just because it is more difficult than Trump thinks.

The European policy establishment has persuaded itself that it can counter the rise of the anti-globalists. The Romanian constitutional court just banned a Right-wing politician who was leading in the polls; a French court banned Marine Le Pen from running for the presidency. In Germany, last week, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, its domestic secret service, declared the AfD to be a Right-wing extremist party. This declaration could trigger legal proceedings that might end with a ban. In the US, meanwhile, the establishment went after Trump through the legal system. But doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results, is Einstein’s definition of insanity. Not only are these ploys unlikely to succeed, they won’t solve the problem of providing voters with the economic security and the social stability they crave.

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Probably the single biggest big mistake made by the centre-right was the failure to address the downsides of globalisation when voters stopped believing in that win-win fairy tale.

The current system works well for those working in the service sectors of global cities, or in Silicon Valley. It also works for people who work in lithium mines or have manual skills that are currently high in demand. But it does not work for Ohio or Michigan; for Yorkshire or Lincolnshire; or Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

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It’s the same in Germany, which hasn’t reinvented its dying industrial model. France has gone way past the limit of what the state can and should do for its citizens. In all of these countries, what happened is that stable sources of income have become less stable. The German car industry, for example, was the cash cow of the economy — but now it struggles to compete.

The decline of the centre-right, and to an extent the centre-left, mirrors these dying economic models.

None of this is new. We saw it in 2016, when Americans first voted for Trump, and when the UK voted for Brexit. Terminally complacent liberals mischaracterised these events as electoral accidents, the result of biased media reporting, or worse, of Russian intervention. There is always a story that politicians can tell themselves to avoid having to solve the problem. The surest sign of political decline is an obsession with who is to blame: as opposed to what needs to be done. The centre-right was once the natural party of government. Today, it is the party of excuses.

Vir: Wolfgang Münchau, UnHerd