In Europe today, the most viable traditional parties are often mainstream right-wing parties that have sought to coopt the nationalist right's issues — most notably Boris Johnson's Tory Party, which eclipsed UKIP by adopting Brexit for itself — or parties self-consciously constituted around the technocratic center so as to unite the mainstream against the far right. True left-wing parties like Jean-Luc Mélenchon's in France or Jeremy Corbyn's Labour have largely fizzled. Meanwhile, the far right continues to produce new phenomena, most recently France's Eric Zemmour, who has outflanked Le Pen on the right by being even more nationalist than she is.
If the result of all this ferment is a European political realignment that contains the far right by reviving a more inward-focused traditional conservatism, that would be good for Europe and, ultimately, for European relations with America. A Europe that was more oriented around national solidarity than global humanitarianism, open immigration, or free markets is a Europe America could readily live, work, and trade with. If by that means the continent achieved greater political stability and democratic accountability, most observers would consider it far preferable to either a lurch to the far right or a descent into civil strife.
But it might be startling for the American left to hear even centrist European politicians like Emmanuel Macron blame them for undermining national solidarity with their "woke" leftism. They might have to get used to it, though. Nothing is more useful for promoting national unity than a foreign threat.
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