Last week the world moved another inch close to chaos. In the first US presidential debate, President Biden and Donald Trump staged one of the worst performances in American political history, with allegations and counter-allegations on personal matters and little space for policy discussion.
Joe Biden looked confused and weak, and even the press that is closer to the Democrats could not defend his appearance. Many voices emerged asking him to step down from the race, or else for the Democratic Convention, which is scheduled to take place in Chicago on 19-22 August, to replace him. Biden responded that he will carry on with the race. Donald Trump, who on stage performed better than Biden, still did not have much more substance to add to his usual rhetoric. The vast majority of polled people thought that Trump won the debate, and his chances of being re-elected have meaningfully increased since the debate.
In Europe, the EU sped up the process of appointing its top representatives on Thursday, with an agreement being reached on Ursula von der Leyen getting a second mandate as Commission president, Antonio Costa, the former Portuguese prime minister, being the next EU Council president, and Kaja Kallas, former prime minister of Estonia, becoming the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Maltese Roberta Metsola is confirmed as President of the EU Parliament. The Council, with the opposition of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Victor Orban, wanted to make sure that all these appointments were made before the first round of the French legislative election, which took place during the weekend. This is because the Council did not want to negotiate these matters with Marine Le Pen calling the shots from the heavy chair of France.
In France, as discussed in our trip report, Le Pen’s party, Ressemblement National, is set to gain power for its first time in history, either with an absolute majority in parliament or a plurality just shy of a majority which can be reached with the addition of 10-20 MPs from other right-wing parties. In our opinion this will set the scene for her victory in the presidential election of April 2027, or earlier than that in the event that Emmanuel Macron resigns.
This turn of events could effectively lead to a situation in which Trump returns as US president and Le Pen controls the French political system until her ascent to power in 2027. Two right-wing populist leaders at the helm of two of the oldest liberal democracies in the world, at the same time as Putin, Xi, and a series of other autocratic leaders are already in power. Even the “moderate” Giorgia Meloni, who already displays autocratic tendencies, would likely show her true colours in such a mutated international context, likely returning to her radical right-wing ideas of the past. And we need to wait to see what happens in Germany, where the neo-nazi party AfD is already second behind the CDU, and first in many Eastern states.
Needless to say, a world in which Trump, Le Pen, Meloni, possibly the AfD in some form, plus Xi, Putin and many other autocrats are all in power at the same time, does not look terribly good in terms of international security and domestic defense of liberal democratic values, including the independence of the judiciary and the freedom of the press.
