To understand the results of the European elections, we have to realize one basic thing: the most important, polarizing conflict in the politics of the 2010s is the one between (racist, climate-denying, sexist) nationalism and (open, at least nominally anti-racist and anti-sexist) internationalism. Those parties that have a clear position in this fight won, those that don’t lost.
There are three groups of parties that gained votes and seats: far-right nativists; internationalist liberals (ALDE); Greens. There are three groups of parties that lost heavily: Conservatives; Social Democrats; the Left (GUE/NGL). Why has the left (Social Democrats and GUE/NGL) not profited from increasing polarization? Because we still have not realized that the kind of polarization we experience requires us to have a clear, substantive position on whether or not we are internationalists.
The truth of this proposition can be gauged by looking at the apparent exceptions: the Danish Social Democrats have (like the Austrian Conservatives, who also won) adopted racist nationalism almost wholesale, thereby positioning themselves clearly and performing well electorally. The opposite case are the Dutch Social Democrats, who profited from the strong Europe-wide campaign of Frans Timmermans (common lead candidate of the Party of European Socialists). Timmermans, despite his apparent baggage of being part of the European establishment, made a substantive progressive internationalist case for a social Europe, thereby positioning the Dutch Social Democrats clearly as internationalists, and winning the elections
