Romanian elections & European democracy

I was a guest on the Mathias Corvinus Collegium podcast Votes & Seats, discussing the elections in Romania, as well as the broader context—the wave of populist elections that show great popular unhappiness.

The period of post-Cold War democratic expansion in Eastern Europe ended some 20 years ago (as also around the world). Attempts at further democratic regime change on the shores of the Black Sea in the 21st c. have been strategic failures—Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia… The Eastern NATO flank therefore remains Romania, opening up to the Black Sea, close to Russia, but with Ukraine as a buffer. In strategic terms, this failure to expand American influence is connected to the great failure to come up with a reasonable arrangement with Turkey, the major NATO member state in the area, which nevertheless is neither part of Europe (despite endless talks about joining going back half a century) nor a reliable American ally.

In economic terms, the problems go back to the 2008 financial crisis, but became acute recently with the COVID pandemic / Ukraine War—Europe is doing very badly compared to America, so the old alliances are fraying. With Germany in or near recession, the rest of Europe is in a state of near-paralysis.

In political terms, the advanced democracies are all going through regime-level crises: America, UK, France, Germany. Hardly governable, full of internal disputes, unclear about their foreign affairs posture.

Now, democracy is less attractive than ever, & especially the identification of democracy with elite efforts through international organizations has lost all plausibility. Various countries in Central Europe now want peace, rather than war, & some distance from the American empire rather than ever closer integration. In this context, the goings on in a small country like Romania actually matter both to the Ukraine War & the broader political arrangement that makes Europe a useful dependent of American power.

I also wrote about the political problem in Romania for First Things, looking at the remarkable rise of a new kind of politics, recognizably Trumpian, in Europe. I’ll start you off:

On November 24, the first round of voting in the Romanian presidential elections yielded the unforeseen victory of Călin Georgescu, a populist outsider who, ignored by legacy media & excluded from debates, campaigned on social media & podcasts. In his policies, campaign strategy, & class traitor status, his resemblance to Donald Trump is striking. His performance in the election even had some commenters worried about a “Trump effect” sweeping Europe.

But on December 6, two days before the runoff that seemed sure to make Georgescu president, the election was canceled by the Constitutional Court of Romania. The Court justified its unprecedented action on the grounds that Russia may have meddled in the election by amplifying Georgescu’s reach on TikTok, as alleged in a document released by the Romanian gov’t on December 4. The U.S. State Department quickly issued a statement supporting the judicial coup.

TikTok released its own statement contradicting the Romanian government: “The networks we have detected specifically targeting the Romanian elections have so far been small scale operations coordinated on TikTok that operated domestically.” The one network specifically boosting Georgescu comprised only seventy-eight accounts with a mere 1,781 followers.