Russia and America Have Made Nationalism Scary Again

Bloomberg

20-05-2025

Thanks are owed to Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and - in a special mention — JD Vance: The aggressive nationalism and chaos these three men promote have made far-right populism scary again, swinging several recent elections, including Romania's presidential vote on Sunday.
That should be welcome news for anyone who recognizes the potential damage a nationalist free-for-all can inflict. But make no mistake, without a radical transformation in their approach, this reprieve for traditional parties of the center right and left will be short-lived.
First there was Canada, where Trump's trade wars and talk of turning the country into a 51st US state helped erase a commanding opinion poll lead for the country's MAGA-look-alike Conservative party. Then, on Sunday, Bucharest's mayor and math nerd Nicusor Dan scored an equally dramatic, come-from-behind victory to win Romania's presidency. He ran as a moderate independent against George Simion, a nationalist who also had nailed his colors to Trump's mast.
Vance ruffled feathers in Romania earlier this year, when he used the country's annulment of a first-round presidential vote in November to accuse Europe of abandoning democracy. Vance dismissed the basis for that court decision – intelligence findings of a massive TikTok campaign organized and paid for by Russia — as 'flimsy.' But as I wrote shortly before the May 4 rerun of the first round vote, a raft of evidence has emerged to support the ruling.
In Romania's case, the biggest shift driving Sunday's result was Putin's act of hybrid warfare. Russia's Manchurian candidate was banned from standing again. But when Simion won this month's first round rerun even more convincingly, his success prompted a backlash. Turnout soared for the runoff. Bucharest crowds willing Dan to his 54% to 46% victory chanted: 'Russia don't forget, Romania is not yours.'
In fact, the vote may well have been swung by the huge increase in participation by voters in neighboring Moldova, where more than 1 million people have dual Romanian citizenship. Simion and his Alliance for the Union of Romanians party cried foul, but so far without providing evidence. It's explanation enough that they were pledging to reunify Moldova with Romania and halt military aid to Ukraine. Both proposals pose existential threats to the small ex-Soviet state, one from the west and the other from the east.
These are skin-of-the-teeth escapes for political elites who seem yet to have grasped the scale of the anger felt by voters who want genuine change. Warning lights were flashing this weekend, too, in Portugal, where the ruling center-right coalition increased the number of seats it controls in parliament in Sunday's snap election. Yet it still failed to gain a majority and the day's bigger story was that the far-right Chega party surged to 23% of the vote, mainly at the expense of the center-left socialists. The country's traditional two-party system now looks broken.
There is a lesson here for all centrist parties, especially those on the left that have lost the trust of their traditional bedrock support among blue-collar workers. If they're to survive, these politicians must now be seen to deliver the fundamental change and economic improvement so many voters want. Managing and tinkering won't cut it.
Poland shows the challenge. Former European Council President Donald Tusk and his Civic Platform party won back power from the populist Law & Justice Party in late 2023. But delivering on reform promises has proved tough, especially with a Law & Justice president still in office to block legislative change. On Sunday, Warsaw mayor and Tusk ally Rafal Trzaskowski emerged from a first-round presidential vote with a slender lead over his Law & Justice rival, according to exit polls. Strong showings from two other far right candidates suggest an uphill struggle to win the runoff. Trzaskowski pledged to 'speed up changes.'
There's a similar dynamic at play across Western democracies. It doesn't matter that Brexit has clearly failed to deliver on any of its promises in the UK, or that Trump and his administration at times resemble an out-of-control clown car as much as a government in office. The point is they're breaking things, which is what many voters want to see. And so long as MAGA-like populists are the only ones offering radical change, they'll probably be able to ride a growing tide of voter frustration.
So yes, Trump and Putin's clumsy aggression are for now undercutting the credibility of their populist acolytes in Western democracies. Yet this respite will count for little if moderates can't find ways to show they recognize the need for change, and effect it.
That's admittedly a tall order. Improving productivity and health care, while still tackling climate change and halting Russian aggression in Europe is infinitely harder than feeding anti-vax conspiracy theories and culture wars, or promising unaffordable handouts. But leaders who recognize the vast damage populist chaos can cause will have to be more bold. They need to pick fights, take risks and break some taboos of their own.
Romania's new president, to name just one example, should use his meaningful, if limited, powers to launch a high-profile assault on corruption, forcing him into open warfare with the traditional parties that not only run the government and legislature, but also helped him win the runoff.