Bannon-Soros: Why Americans choose Europe as a new ideological battleground

Atlantico.fr: Steve Bannon claimed to launch his research and communication platform "The Movement" to lead the "revolt of the right-wing European populists". He poses as an anti-Soros, American billionaire known for his unwavering support to migrants and the head of Open Society, a very influential think tank in European circles. What is driving these Americans to make Europe their priority battleground in defending their ideals? Why is Europe becoming the battlefield for those Americans who want to impose their worldview?

Edouard Husson: De Gaulle liked to talk about "Europe and his daughter America."

The Americans know that Europe remains an ideological laboratory, which comes regularly to feed American politics. Think of the influence – harmful from my point of view – of the French theory on American universities. Or the way in which Britain hit, in 2016 as in 1979, the three strokes of a big political change: the neoliberalism of Margaret Thatcher or Brexit. Georges Soros' commitment to multicultural neo-liberalism (unlike Margaret Thatcher's, which remained in the national framework) dates back to the 1990s. It's an old story. Let us beware of the focus on Soros alone, which makes too many observers fall into more or less conscious conspiracy. Soros has no doubt become the most emblematic promoter of the "open society". He is also, without a doubt, one of the Liberals who soon realized that Brexit or Trump was not for fun. Western Europe has been much more open to immigration and multicultural society than the United States in the last twenty years. Soros therefore hopes to be able to install, despite the switchover from Central Europe and the Russian counter-example, defense posts from which to recapture the United States. Steve Bannon, the opposite: media boss and political strategist who played a key role in the Trump campaign – with whom he is scrambled today – he hopes to tilt Europe into what he calls "populism of right ".

Is this paradoxically a sign of the importance they attach to the "Old Continent"?

The "Old Continent" has become a battlefield. And interestingly, it is not Russia that has the hand, contrary to what is repeated in length of statements in the mainstream media. You identify two Americans, a liberal and a populist conservative, who are engaged in a struggle for influence in Europe. The fight between liberals and populists is likely to be fierce because the conquest of Europe by conservatism will seal the defeat of liberalism. From this point of view, Asia counts less than Europe for Americans. Germany is one of the five largest economies in the world. But his Chancellor made a major choice in the fall of 2015 for the multicultural society, opening the borders of his country to hundreds of thousands of refugees and immigrants from the Middle East and Africa. By reaction, Europe split between countries following Germany (like Sweden) and countries increasingly hostile to German politics (Central Europe, Italy). In fact, liberals and populists clash, the first to maintain the principle of opening national borders and free movement, the latter to impose the end of the Schengen Area and the return to national borders. It is here that we must insist on the multiplicity of nations in Europe: each of our countries is crossed by the clash between liberals and populists. Instead of a decisive battle, like the one that Donald Trump and the American liberals have been fighting since 2015, we have a multitude of battles: every European nation is an issue. Obviously, the victory will return to the one who will rock the great nations.

"Italy is the beating heart of modern politics, and if it works, it can work everywhere," Steve Bannon told The Daily Beast. He also said he intends to rely on all populist forces in the next European elections. Is Italy and these next elections the two battlegrounds between progressives and populists? What real strike force could these two camps have in these two arenas?

Italy is the first big country to switch to the populist side – according to a more complicated scheme than Bannon argues since it has secreted an alliance of right-wing populists (in the North) and left-wing populists (in the South). Italy counts more, in the spirit of Bannon, than Hungary, already acquired, or Austria, a small country. His next target is France. But Bannon may be in trouble because France will never bring a populist government to power: it is in our country that will play the ability of right-wing populism to succeed with the right-wing establishment a conservative synthesis. This is the future: on the right is the success or otherwise of the compromise theorized by David Goodhart between the "nomads" and the "sedentary", between the globalized ruling clbades and the "peripheral nations" to adapt the Christophe Guilluy's expression. . The European elections of the spring of 2019 will make it possible to measure the degree of advancement of the metamorphosis of right-wing populism into conservatism. It is very likely that there will be a rout of the Liberals. However, we will probably face a heterogeneous coalition of nationalists, populists and conservatives. And we must not forget that there will also be a populism push on the left.