None of this means European liberals can return to their pre-Brexit complacency, however. Not when 52 percent of the votes in the British referendum in June were in favor of leaving the EU. Nor can we discount Donald Trump’s victory in the United States, or the 46 percent of voters in Austria’s presidential election who cast their ballots for a right-wing extremist. The center is holding, for now. 2016, the year of populism, has been followed so far by relative sanity, but the threat has only receded, not disappeared.
Moderate leaders like Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May have been forced to tack to the right to capture ground lost to the populists. Rutte announced crackdowns on immigrant communities during his campaign for the March 15 election. May is fighting a jingoistic campaign, demonizing the EU leaders with whom she will have to negotiate a complex Brexit deal after next month’s election. Meanwhile centrist parties, particularly center-left ones, are shrinking across the continent. In Britain, Labour been taken over by Marxists and is unlikely to be a viable opposition party for at least another decade. In France, both of the parties that shared power for the last five decades failed to make it in to the second round of voting and face uncertain prospects in next month’s parliamentary election. In Sunday’s state election in Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein, the Social Democratic Party lost control of the regional parliament while Alternative for Germany passed the electoral threshold for the first time. [...]
Macron and Renzi’s challenges are similar. They must adapt the European welfare state to the globalized economy of the 21st century. They have to try to rekindle hope in a largely apathetic society. Young people fear they will not achieve the standard of living of their parents, who are reluctant to give up on a long and comfortable retirement paid for by a shrinking younger generation. There is the challenge of creating new jobs in a state where traditional industries are bleeding. Finally, both Macron and Renzi must attempt to preserve the European project of economic and political integration, which guaranteed peace and prosperity, when it is under attack from all sides. There are no easy answers. That’s why Macron’s campaign was heavy on slogans and lean on policy. And why Renzi’s first attempt ended in failure. And why after eight years of being led by the young and charismatic Barack Obama, the United States elected Trump.
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