German conservative candidate for chancellor and Christian Democratic Union party leader Friedrich Merz attends a press conference following the German general election in Berlin, on Feb. 24.Liesa Johannssen/Reuters
During a rambling 1987 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, U.S. president Ronald Reagan dropped a well-worn trope from science fiction. “I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish,” the former movie actor said, “if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”
At that point, the unifying effect of bug-eyed monsters from outer space plotting to eat our brains unless we put our divergent ideologies aside and fight together was a purely speculative matter.
How could he have known that an alien invasion would, in fact, bring about just such a cross-party common cause in many countries – and that it would come not from outer space but from Washington, in the form of his own Republican successor as president?
In less than six weeks, Donald Trump, effective co-president Elon Musk and vice-president JD Vance have brought about a worldwide ideological transformation. By coming out of the gate threatening the economic and physical security of former allies, Trumpism has forced conservative politicians to decide whether they’re aligned with the U.S. President’s form of authoritarian-leaning populism or if they share Mr. Reagan’s berth on the rightward end of a spectrum of liberal belief.
That schism came to a head in Germany after Sunday’s election made Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union, the putative next chancellor. Mr. Merz has expressed deeply conservative beliefs on such issues as immigration and culture, climate change, homosexuality and the Mideast. He has also been the most outspokenly pro-American CDU leader since Helmut Kohl; Mr. Reagan is his major influence.
Mr. Merz marked his victory this week by, in effect, denouncing U.S. imperialism and demanding a European rejection of American ties – language usually heard only on the far left.
“I would never have thought that I would have to say something like this,” Mr. Merz said Sunday night, “after Donald Trump’s remarks last week ... my absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”
He then likened Washington’s foreign interference to Vladimir Putin’s – a response to the overt lobbying by Mr. Musk and Mr. Vance on behalf of the Alternative For Germany, an extreme-right party whose leaders have been shunned even by other European far-right parties for defending the Third Reich – and suggested that the Trump administration deserved similar shunning and sanctions, as well as the rapid creation of a European substitute for NATO.
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Other European right-wing leaders, including Finland’s Petteri Orpo and Belgium’s Bart De Wever, sided with liberal and left-leaning parties in denouncing Mr. Trump’s positions on tariffs and on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pledging an independent European approach that cuts out the United States.
Though they remain very right-wing otherwise, those politicians have decisively signalled their allegiance to the broadly liberal values that have dominated the politics of the Western world since the end of the Second World War. This was likely difficult, as it forced them to acknowledge that they have much more in common with liberal and social-democratic parties than they do with the most powerful conservative leader in the world.
“This is a particular problem for right-wing parties in Western Europe,” writes Sam Freedman of Britain’s Institute for Government, observing the divide between voters who are revolted by Trumpism and party members who have been tempted by those authoritarian ideas. “On a whole range of issues from Ukraine to tax they are getting pulled between their hardcore base, now backed by well-funded media outlets, and their wider electorates. Which in turn creates the risk of splits and infighting” of the sort we’re used to seeing on the far left.
This Trump-imposed convergence is not a new development in Canada. Our conservative parties were forced to take sides almost on day one, after Canada joined Greenland, Panama and Ukraine in having its very existence threatened, almost daily, by the President. Right-wing premiers have made immediate about-faces, with Ontario’s Doug Ford campaigning for re-election on his claim to be best at fighting Mr. Trump.
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, on the other hand, has watched his long-standing polling lead suddenly slip from a sure-fire election majority to a less certain fate. Though he denounced Mr. Trump’s tariffs and invasion threats in a high-profile Feb. 15 rally, and his parliamentary party is largely in the tradition of liberal-leaning conservatism, he has avoided a Merz-like statement of divorce. Given his history of promoting Trump-like conspiracy theories and messages, it may be hard for him to admit that the world has become a very different place since the spaceship landed.