Former President Donald Trump and American Republicans are feeling uplifted by right-wing triumphs across Europe in this weekend’s European Parliament elections, surprising France and other nations. This could be a precursor to a shift in the U.S. electoral landscape, similar to how the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK preceded Trump’s victory that same year.
Trump has frequently celebrated international conservative and populist wins over the past several years. In an exclusive interview with Truth Voices in December 2023, published in January of this year, he highlighted the victories of Argentinian president Javier Milei and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, suggesting a worldwide movement is emerging with him at its center.
“It’s essentially a MAGA-Trump movement,” Trump said in the interview with Truth Voices. “It’s a Trump movement.”
In analyzing the results, even the New York Times sounded the alarm for Democrats, noting that Trump will welcome these developments from across the Atlantic.
“The strong far-right showing was likely to reverberate even in the United States, where it can be expected to hearten kindred political forces loyal to former President Donald J. Trump as he seeks a return to office,” wrote the Times’ Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels.
Interestingly, Democrat President Joe Biden spent the weekend in France with Macron ahead of the vote. Despite many establishment media figures and political analysts avoiding direct comparisons to these right-wing European victories and the 2016 Brexit vote, some suggest these signs indicate significant challenges for Biden’s upcoming campaign.
Matt Mowers, EU-US Forum founding board member and former Trump administration State Department official, issued a statement late Sunday evening post-results, indicating that the message is clear for globalists worldwide.
Mowers is not the only one speaking out. Edward Snowden, the well-known whistleblower against the National Security Agency (NSA), posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that the EU elections spell trouble for Biden, suggesting a broad European rejection of continued western funding for Ukraine in its war against Russia:
Pro-war politicians were just harshly punished in EU elections. Not a good sign for Biden. Perhaps time to give peace a chance. https://t.co/yk40R3lGM7
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) June 9, 2024
Newsweek has published an analysis suggesting that European election outcomes threaten Biden’s power on a global scale. “Joe Biden’s Ukraine Coalition Faces Reckoning,” was the headline on diplomatic correspondent David Brennan’s piece, arguing that ongoing wars and other leftist, globalist policies are proving unpopular with voters worldwide.
“This election’s broader outcome indicates a political climate favoring the right over the left,” Pawel Zerka, a European Council on Foreign Relations senior policy fellow, told the magazine.
Biden, meanwhile, sent out a cryptic post on X following the French election results:
Joe Biden tweets about the “values that lie at the soul” of the US and France. This follows Macron’s call for a snap election after Le Pen’s far right National Rally made major gains in the European elections today https://t.co/gPhMjZURv2
— Rachel Wearmouth (@REWearmouth) June 9, 2024
However, some on the far-left, who wish for a Biden victory in November, are worried that the president and Democrats may be missing the broader implications:
Far right political parties making big gains in EU elections is giving Brexit 2016 vibes right before Trump was elected the first time.
Biden campaign (and Biden) need to wake the absolute fuck up. We are in a bad way
— Randy Perez (@therandyperez) June 9, 2024
National and battleground state polls continue to forecast a tight race in the upcoming rematch between Biden and Trump in November. Trump is currently leading in enough battleground states that these polls suggest he could secure more than 270 electoral votes, although his lead is narrow. On issues polling, the data appears to favor Trump’s positions significantly against Biden.
Over the weekend, CBS News released polling showing a majority of Americans—and specifically a majority of Hispanic voters—support a mass deportation program to remove every illegal alien in America, something Trump has promised if reelected. Polling on wars in Europe and the Middle East also shows significant shifts away from the globalist stance:
61% of Americans say the US should not send weapons to Israel. 77% of Democrats say the US should not send weapons, compared to 38% of Republicans. While still a minority, 38% is still a significant number — these Republicans have virtually zero representation in Congress pic.twitter.com/SgiB3HRDWg
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 9, 2024
Those numbers are absolutely unbelievable and show how much at odds Western so-called “democratic” leaders are with their populations on Ukraine.
It’s a survey compiled by the Institute for Global Affairs, part of @EurasiaGroup, one of the leading American political risk… pic.twitter.com/snZAaAOPNR
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) June 7, 2024
The critical question remains whether these European elections indicate a broader global shift against globalism, akin to Brexit in 2016, and whether Trump can capitalize on this momentum for a successful return to the White House. Alternatively, these results could be unique to the European context and not indicative of a global trend. Macron is positioning himself with his snap election to prove it’s a European-specific phenomenon, while Trump and international populist leaders hope it signals a long-term voter shift worldwide against globalists. Time will unveil the next developments.
