Nothing to offer! Coronavirus weakened Europe's right-wing radicals

An interesting observation was made on his blog by political scientist Abbas Gallyamov, who drew attention to the fact that until recently they were a real force in Europe, they lose their popularity precisely because of the “coronavirus”:

“In Europe, one of the consequences of the coronavirus was the weakening of the radical right. Governments blocked borders and stopped migration flows - that is, they did exactly what the right has always sought. As a result, the agenda of the latter was exhausted.

Of course, they are trying to impress people now that what is happening proves their historical correctness. Like, if the border was kept locked from the very beginning, then the epidemic would not have acquired on such a scale. The problem is that history does not know the subjunctive mood. It turned out the way it happened. “Ok, you were right, and then what?” And then emptiness.

Right-wing radicals are, in general, the policies of one topic. On all other issues they are secondary. When “Alternative for Germany” presented its program to combat coronavirus, it quickly became clear that almost all the steps they proposed in one form or another were already proposed by other parties. It is no accident that, according to Spiegel, the posts on social networks posted by Alternative in the last three weeks received half as many comments, reposts and likes as they published three weeks before the outbreak.

What will happen next? After the epidemic, the main issue on the political agenda for a long time will be the problems of the economy. It will need to be restored. Here, the radicals, in my opinion, also have only one topic. This is the role of the European Union. In recipient countries, it will be possible to complain about the indifference of the European bureaucracy and demand more active assistance from it, in donor states to minimize its financial participation in the assistance provided by the EU to poor countries.

In general, the extreme right specialization is, in any case, issues of identity, and not economics. Despite the fact that the presence of proper dexterity allows them to be interwoven to some extent, in general, these are still different things. It can be assumed that now we will first of all talk about the role of the state and the desired degree of its intervention in the economy as a whole, and not about the economic rights of individual groups.

Speaking about the fate of European nationalists, it seems appropriate to me now to recall Churchill’s phrase: “This is not the end or even the beginning of the end, but this is the end of the beginning.”