I'm surprised you didn't mention the Marine Le Pen trial. Le Pen way well be guilty; I have no idea. However, when the only penalty proposed is banning her from the ballot for 5 years, this stinks of banana-republic level, political corruption. Using the courts to eliminate the leading Presidential candidate is a significant escalation beyond the cordon-sanitaire.
In another escalation... Romania. The biggest electoral scandal that no media will talk about. When was the last time a EU state cancelled its election by judicial fiat? After voting had started? With exit polls already being reported? I can't think of one. Despite the "Russia, Russia, Russia" wailing from the ruling class, this looks like the Romanian (and EU) Left realizing they were about to get their butts handed to them and escalating as necessary to prevent it. They might believe Russia did it, but considering the trends you've identified here, no one else does.
In those 2 cases, there's nothing soft about the Left's authoritarian actions.
Finally, Georgia. Victoria Nuland may have retired, but this sure looks like Anglo-Left astroturf: Rose Revolution Part Deux. The alleged cause of the unrest is a law requiring foreign funded civil society groups (the CIA/State Dept's favorite vehicle to disrupt a country) to register as foreign agents. Hundreds of thousands of grassroots Romanians are marching on Parliament to make sure foreign governments can hide their meddling in Romanian elections. Yeah... right.
To the EU and Anglo ruling class, "un-democratic" can be translated as "not liberal". It's not democracy they object to; only electoral outcomes that are counter to rigid, Millian liberalism.
I would read the UK as supporting your thesis, not an exception from it. The left hugely underperformed their expectations. What happened on the right was that the establishment fake-right party was exposed as not representing the interests of the people. They were resoundingly punished for this, and Reform were the beneficiaries. The UK is also seeing a collapse on the left and a strong shift to the populist right.
Yes, if it wasn't for FPTP voting, the narrative of the election would be the huge gains by Reform.
I recall at some points in the past few years, the polls were indicating that the Conservative Party might more or less cease to exist, purely at the expense of Labour. In the end, that's not really what happened.
I mean, just look at the numbers on that election. Labour won 34% of the vote and 411 seats. Conservatives+Reform received 37% of the vote and 125 seats. The entire story of the election is the right fracturing and cannibalizing one another and Labour picking up the pieces.
Any other voting system besides FPTP would have reduced that effect. Proportional, ranked choice, runoffs, etc.
I am not quite clear on the 2 or 3 or 4 bodies that make up the EU polically, but I am under the impression the EU is really not a federal system as in the US. Did the heritage nations (i.e., the populations) of Europe ever really have an explicit situation or opportunity to give up a defined portion of their sovereignty to a more centralized government? If so, I missed it.
Whatever centralizing tendency they were pursuing in the past now seems to be reverting to less interest in that outcome. Do you or anyone have thoughts/ knowledge as to if the EU might retrograde away from politicl union back to only a trade or economic block?
No, EU is not a federal system, but many European leaders want it to be. And they seem to actually want a unitary European state instead of a true federalism.
In theory, the EU is more decentralized than the US, but things have changed very fast over the last 30 years. Now national governments effectively have to appeal to the EU for "exceptions," which are typically vetoed. European courts can strike down national government laws and rulings.
The EU gradually evolved from a post-WW2 quest to all of Europe under free trade, peaceful conflict resolution, and democratic governance.
It has gradually evolved into EU bureaucracy and judiciary overriding national governance in the quest for harmonization. I think that is similar to the growth of the federal bureaucracy and judiciary in the USA.
No one really voted for it. It just sort of happened. Many Europeans seem fine with it, but others are very opposed.
The cordon sanitaire probably works fine for excluding small, radical parties. An agreement to basically say, "When a center-right or center-left party comes in second but is capable of forming a majority coalition with the support of a tiny, radical party, it's better to admit defeat and let the other side govern than to try to buy the support of the radicals." I think that's reasonable enough, especially if it's symmetrical.
But it doesn't really work when the party we're talking about excluding is not some small group of radicals but in fact the largest in the country, receiving over 1/3 of the vote. At that point, the insistence on the cordon sanitaire is basically pushing the political system to its breaking point. Some of the consequences of this are easily foreseeable, like the further evisceration of the useless center-right. But I would also anticipate unforeseen consequences.
I largely agree with you, but I would draw the line at an explicitly Totalitarian party that seeks to abolish and overthrow democratic governance and eliminate fundamental individual liberties.
Obvious examples were Communists during the Cold War and National Socialists and Fascists before WW2. The former were particularly dangerous because they were allies of the Soviet Union, a hostile Great Power, and engaged in espionage and even in domestic repression of its own members.
I really do not think any parties since the 1990s fit into that category even though many Europeans disagree with me on that point. They stretch the definition of "anti-democratic" and "far right" so far as to make the concepts meaningless.
I think cordon sanitaire policies work in the short-term, but they actually undermine the democratic process in the long run. They mainly benefit the established parties by giving them a higher percentage of the seats in Parliament than they actually earned in the vote.
Grand coalition of the Right and Left only really make sense during times of national invasion. In most cases, they just punt necessary reforms for future governments and make the problem worse.
Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, and the Netherlands have done fine by abandoning cordon sanitaire policies. I am not saying that this guarantees that the right policies are implemented, but they are more likely to do so than Grand Coalitions.
Though realistically, if a totalitarian party is the largest party in your democracy, then your democracy is probably headed towards collapse in any event. If the German right, including Hindenburg, had held firm in a cordon sanitaire and refused to work with the Nazis, then no doubt after Hindenburg's death in 1934, he would have been succeeded either by the Nazis or by a military dictatorship that violently suppressed the Nazis.
In a curious parallel, the Nazis won 37% of the vote in 1932, the same as the RN's alliance in 2024 France.
Yes, I agree with that but the key problem in Germany in 1932 was that the National Socialists and Communists combined won a majority of the vote, making a democratic coalition impossible. And unemployment was around 20-30%.
In the Polish election the EU will continue to exercise maximum extortion. They withheld €169B from the previous right wing government, then awardees it to the left wing government. The public will be aware that if they vote for the “wrong” government, Auntie Ursula will punish them for it again.
Queen Ursula has gotten pretty upfront about that. Prior to Georgia Meloni's election: “If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.” Translation: vote the right way you naughty plebs or we'll have to spank you.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Marine Le Pen trial. Le Pen way well be guilty; I have no idea. However, when the only penalty proposed is banning her from the ballot for 5 years, this stinks of banana-republic level, political corruption. Using the courts to eliminate the leading Presidential candidate is a significant escalation beyond the cordon-sanitaire.
In another escalation... Romania. The biggest electoral scandal that no media will talk about. When was the last time a EU state cancelled its election by judicial fiat? After voting had started? With exit polls already being reported? I can't think of one. Despite the "Russia, Russia, Russia" wailing from the ruling class, this looks like the Romanian (and EU) Left realizing they were about to get their butts handed to them and escalating as necessary to prevent it. They might believe Russia did it, but considering the trends you've identified here, no one else does.
In those 2 cases, there's nothing soft about the Left's authoritarian actions.
Finally, Georgia. Victoria Nuland may have retired, but this sure looks like Anglo-Left astroturf: Rose Revolution Part Deux. The alleged cause of the unrest is a law requiring foreign funded civil society groups (the CIA/State Dept's favorite vehicle to disrupt a country) to register as foreign agents. Hundreds of thousands of grassroots Romanians are marching on Parliament to make sure foreign governments can hide their meddling in Romanian elections. Yeah... right.
To the EU and Anglo ruling class, "un-democratic" can be translated as "not liberal". It's not democracy they object to; only electoral outcomes that are counter to rigid, Millian liberalism.
I would read the UK as supporting your thesis, not an exception from it. The left hugely underperformed their expectations. What happened on the right was that the establishment fake-right party was exposed as not representing the interests of the people. They were resoundingly punished for this, and Reform were the beneficiaries. The UK is also seeing a collapse on the left and a strong shift to the populist right.
Yes, if it wasn't for FPTP voting, the narrative of the election would be the huge gains by Reform.
I recall at some points in the past few years, the polls were indicating that the Conservative Party might more or less cease to exist, purely at the expense of Labour. In the end, that's not really what happened.
Thomas, can you explain what you mean by FPTP voting affecting the outcome? You think Reform would have done better with a runoff system?
I mean, just look at the numbers on that election. Labour won 34% of the vote and 411 seats. Conservatives+Reform received 37% of the vote and 125 seats. The entire story of the election is the right fracturing and cannibalizing one another and Labour picking up the pieces.
Any other voting system besides FPTP would have reduced that effect. Proportional, ranked choice, runoffs, etc.
I am not quite clear on the 2 or 3 or 4 bodies that make up the EU polically, but I am under the impression the EU is really not a federal system as in the US. Did the heritage nations (i.e., the populations) of Europe ever really have an explicit situation or opportunity to give up a defined portion of their sovereignty to a more centralized government? If so, I missed it.
Whatever centralizing tendency they were pursuing in the past now seems to be reverting to less interest in that outcome. Do you or anyone have thoughts/ knowledge as to if the EU might retrograde away from politicl union back to only a trade or economic block?
This is a very complex question.
Here are the details (at least in theory):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_Union
No, EU is not a federal system, but many European leaders want it to be. And they seem to actually want a unitary European state instead of a true federalism.
In theory, the EU is more decentralized than the US, but things have changed very fast over the last 30 years. Now national governments effectively have to appeal to the EU for "exceptions," which are typically vetoed. European courts can strike down national government laws and rulings.
The EU gradually evolved from a post-WW2 quest to all of Europe under free trade, peaceful conflict resolution, and democratic governance.
It has gradually evolved into EU bureaucracy and judiciary overriding national governance in the quest for harmonization. I think that is similar to the growth of the federal bureaucracy and judiciary in the USA.
No one really voted for it. It just sort of happened. Many Europeans seem fine with it, but others are very opposed.
I go into more detail here:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-european-union-has-gone-too-far
Good thoughts.
The cordon sanitaire probably works fine for excluding small, radical parties. An agreement to basically say, "When a center-right or center-left party comes in second but is capable of forming a majority coalition with the support of a tiny, radical party, it's better to admit defeat and let the other side govern than to try to buy the support of the radicals." I think that's reasonable enough, especially if it's symmetrical.
But it doesn't really work when the party we're talking about excluding is not some small group of radicals but in fact the largest in the country, receiving over 1/3 of the vote. At that point, the insistence on the cordon sanitaire is basically pushing the political system to its breaking point. Some of the consequences of this are easily foreseeable, like the further evisceration of the useless center-right. But I would also anticipate unforeseen consequences.
Thanks for the comment.
I largely agree with you, but I would draw the line at an explicitly Totalitarian party that seeks to abolish and overthrow democratic governance and eliminate fundamental individual liberties.
Obvious examples were Communists during the Cold War and National Socialists and Fascists before WW2. The former were particularly dangerous because they were allies of the Soviet Union, a hostile Great Power, and engaged in espionage and even in domestic repression of its own members.
I really do not think any parties since the 1990s fit into that category even though many Europeans disagree with me on that point. They stretch the definition of "anti-democratic" and "far right" so far as to make the concepts meaningless.
I think cordon sanitaire policies work in the short-term, but they actually undermine the democratic process in the long run. They mainly benefit the established parties by giving them a higher percentage of the seats in Parliament than they actually earned in the vote.
Grand coalition of the Right and Left only really make sense during times of national invasion. In most cases, they just punt necessary reforms for future governments and make the problem worse.
Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, and the Netherlands have done fine by abandoning cordon sanitaire policies. I am not saying that this guarantees that the right policies are implemented, but they are more likely to do so than Grand Coalitions.
I can agree with all that.
Though realistically, if a totalitarian party is the largest party in your democracy, then your democracy is probably headed towards collapse in any event. If the German right, including Hindenburg, had held firm in a cordon sanitaire and refused to work with the Nazis, then no doubt after Hindenburg's death in 1934, he would have been succeeded either by the Nazis or by a military dictatorship that violently suppressed the Nazis.
In a curious parallel, the Nazis won 37% of the vote in 1932, the same as the RN's alliance in 2024 France.
Yes, I agree with that but the key problem in Germany in 1932 was that the National Socialists and Communists combined won a majority of the vote, making a democratic coalition impossible. And unemployment was around 20-30%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1932_German_federal_election
I am skeptical that a similar situation will happen within our lifetime.
In the Polish election the EU will continue to exercise maximum extortion. They withheld €169B from the previous right wing government, then awardees it to the left wing government. The public will be aware that if they vote for the “wrong” government, Auntie Ursula will punish them for it again.
Queen Ursula has gotten pretty upfront about that. Prior to Georgia Meloni's election: “If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.” Translation: vote the right way you naughty plebs or we'll have to spank you.