meltdown was under way, so that dealing
with it dominated his first term in office.
He used up all his political capital on
healthcare reform, and especially once
his party lost control of Congress he had
little chance of achieving much else. This
meant that when Trump ran he was able
to win support from a surprising number
of people who had voted for Obama eight
years earlier, but were frustrated that
little had happened to improve their lives.
Emmanuel Macron is rarely included in
the list of political shocks, mainly because
he is a centrist and so less shocking than
Trump. But his election was the result of
the same forces that produced President
Trump: the failure of both mainstream
French political parties, which created the
opening for a complete newcomer and a
new party, now called Republique En
Marche. The party dominated France’s
Parliament but Macron himself is
vulnerable because a large part of his
vote came from people simply rejecting
the far-right alternative of Marine Le Pen
rather than voting out of enthusiasm for
him.
And then there is Brexit, the issue that
will dominate British politics for at least
the next decade. The actual Brexit
referendum in June 2016 was not truly a
shock: it should be seen as an accident
waiting to happen, given British voters’
indifference about the European Union
over many decades, which has often
shaded into hostility. The real shocks
came in 2015, when David Cameron
decided to promise an EU referendum in
order to fight off the insurgent UK
Independence Party, and then in 2017
when Theresa May’s 20-percentage-point
lead in the opinion polls was wiped away
by a left-wing populist, Jeremy Corbyn,
leading to the loss of her working
majority.
What we should conclude from all
these political earthquakes is two things.
First, that unless conventional parties
prove able to deliver a return to rising
living standards, to a sense of security,
and to a much greater sense of equality,
there will be more such shocks in western
elections. Western countries’ success has
depended upon a balance between the
openness that has brought prosperity and
the sense of equality that has brought
social stability and consensus. It is the
belief among too many citizens that they
have been “left behind” and have lost
their equal political voice, especially in
comparison with billionaire political
donors and powerful bankers, that has
produced these shocks.
Secondly, we must conclude that
western countries stand at a potential
historical turning point. The populist
forces that have come into power in the
United States, that could arrive in power
in Britain after another general election,
and that stand ready to exploit any failure
by President Macron in France, are all
opposed to the openness that through
trade, competition, the flow of ideas,
people and technology has in the
post-1945 decades made the West so rich
and strong. If they succeed in closing
borders and minds on a significant scale,
then the West could pass through new
periods of turbulence and would risk a
protracted period of decline and division.
The Fate of the West, and thus our
liberal democracies, is at stake.
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