The Feudal Future Podcast .
Hello and welcome to another episode of .
The Feudal Future Podcast . I'm Marshall Teplansky , I'm Joel Kotkin , and today we are delighted to have with us two experts who are going to be talking about the relationship between Western Europe and the United States and things that are happening within Western Europe that may have some structural implications to how those relations go .
First is Ambassador Ron Spogli , former Ambassador to Italy and the great Republic of San Marino . Ron , ambassador Spogli , welcome Thank you . And Fraser Myers , who is the deputy editor at Spite , fraser , welcome , thanks for having me . Joel , do you want to kick us off ?
Yeah , I was just in Europe in October and got great recommendations in Italy from Ambassador Spogli , but what I was struck by was the discomfort over the massive migration that's taking place and what the political implications . I mean , this was something that came up in conversations with almost every particularly French person that we talked to .
So I mean , how is this going to affect European politics and the relationship with the US , which has some of the same issues ?
So , ron , do you want to start or Sure , I'll start off because , thank you very much , appreciate it . If Ambassador is not able to give out good recommendations for restaurants , then he has very little value . At least I was able to be helpful in that regard .
We can start with Italy , not because it is the most important for a lot of issues , but as it relates to the immigration question , it has been on the front line , and on the front line , as you know , for some time , and already the issue has affected Italian politics , and the election of the rise of Georgia Maloney , the first woman prime minister in Italy ,
is , in part , due to the fact that she took a position during her campaign to do what she could to curtail unauthorized immigration into Italy and ultimately , into the northern portions of the European Union . The issue has been longstanding in Italy .
Lampedusa , as you know , is the closest European outpost to Africa and , although the migratory patterns have changed to be coming mostly from Tunisia today , as opposed to Libya for much of the last 10 years , the actual number of people coming has never been greater than it has been in 2023 . So it is a real issue . It's an issue that affected Italian politics .
It was one of the reasons why she was successful in becoming prime minister and , as we well know , and certainly as Fraser can say much more eloquently than I can , the recent victory of builders in Holland was in no small measure due to the stance that he took on immigration , so it is already affecting in a major way politics in the EU .
Well , and Fraser , you recently wrote a great article on the victory of builders in the Netherlands . How broadly held is this growing populist view , especially around immigration , but around other things throughout the rest of Western Europe ?
Well , I think the key thing to understand is that populism is now very much a permanent part of the European landscape . There was a lot of early victory laps , I would say , in 2020 , 2021 during the pandemic , saying that populism had been put back in its box . The odd victory here and there for someone like Emmanuel Macron or the previous Dutch government .
The sense of right government did pretty well in the previous elections , so there was a sense that the genie's back in the bottle . We don't need to worry about this populist wave anymore . The first wave did have a lot to do with migration around the refugee crisis around 2014 , 2015 . That was a big early driver of some of these movements .
I think what's interesting is that fears over migration express themselves in different ways in different countries . So in France , it relates much more to questions about Islamism , islamist terrorism . In Sweden , people have a fear about crime more generally . I mean , people may have heard some shocking statistics from Sweden , where they elected last year .
They gave huge amounts of votes to the Sweden Democrats , this kind of upstart right-wing party . There , crime is just through the roof . It's gone from being a peaceful country to having some of the almost like third world levels of explosions . So there's a sense .
I think that I don't think that Europeans are becoming more racist , necessarily , or anything like that , but there is a sense that they're losing control of their society .
Often immigration is the place or the issue where people feel most acutely that they are not being listened to , and that's particularly relevant in Europe , because half of the migration to most European countries is from the EU . There is freedom of movement as a condition of EU membership .
I know that non-EU migration has risen massively and that's probably what's put a lot of things on the map . But the fact is that people don't really have control over migration or don't feel that their governments can control it , and that is a huge source of frustration . I mean , in Britain we've left the European Union .
Now our government has also let in record numbers of people and at least there is a sort of sense of accountability . We know that that's what the government believes in high levels of migration , or at least through its actions , if not through its words .
But there is a sense in Europe that governments will say we'll get down immigration and they don't do anything , and that leads to a kind of frustration .
I think that point is very well made . I think that , if anything , with the rising number of people who support some sort of immigration reform , I think clearly the notion here is there's a plenty of space between being a xenophobic , racist on the one hand and wanting some sort of reasonable playing of immigration .
As the Italian foreign minister said the other day , we want to determine who comes to Italy , as opposed to having the traffickers determine who comes to Italy and ultimately , the EU . So I think that to a significant degree , it at least opens up the debate much more significantly to a discussion on shouldn't we all think seriously about immigration reform ?
We kick this can down the road , certainly United States to a very significant degree , with consequences that I don't think have been completely realized , but I think they're potentially on the horizon . There's the threat alerts in the United States are very high currently .
It would be extremely easy for something to happen emanating from people crossing an open border effectively . So I think it opens the space to having a much more reasonable conversation , as opposed to this we talked about earlier , a Manichaean view . Black or white , either your for open immigration or your racist , xenophobic .
Well , I get thinking about it beyond the immigration issue per se , thinking about it in terms of , say , multinational cooperation across European borders . How likely is this immigration issue to erode the other areas of cooperation within Europe that have made the EU successful as a relationship ?
I think it's one of the key dividing lines in Europe . I mean , there's always going to be dividing lines within the EU . 10 years ago there was a North-South divide over public spending and the approach to the economy . Now there's a bit of an East-West divide .
Eastern Europe is very much not on board with high levels of migration , very resistant to what the EU slightly or well-earned term for you know , sort of migrant quotas . They call it mandatory solidarity . I think yeah , and that has the potential to scupper all kinds of other forms of EU cooperation . Certainly , it remains to be seen what will happen next year .
There will be European Union European Parliament elections that could have some influence on the approach . But the current I guess the current supernatural the current EU approach is take people in and share them out , and that just has completely broken down . People are just not having that . So instead of that , what you just get is poor Italy and Greece having to .
You know , take all these large numbers of people purely because they're geographically closest to Africa .
But one of the conundrums that we have in the US , but even more so with Europe , and particularly countries like Italy . On the one hand , you know , people are afraid of all this migration . On the other hand , these countries have incredibly low birth rates . You know the labor force is shrinking .
Is there any discussion about how to address that without having essentially open borders ?
Well interesting you would make that comment , joe , because , going back to the Italian example , maloney ran on a platform , as I mentioned earlier , that was clearly much harder against immigration and yet , a year into her mandate , she's been relatively soft on it versus expectations and she has indeed encouraged and Italians have indeed hired a significant number of
migrants in order to solve their labor issue , because there are significant areas where they do need labor that Italians are unwilling to do the jobs they did years ago , a phenomenon that exists in many parts of the world . So she said one thing she's acted differently , in part to address the issue that you just raised .
It's the US . My sense is that there's some benefits from a US perspective , from a foreign policy perspective , of having this multinational layer to deal with , as opposed to having to have a separate policy for every country within Europe . Is that in danger of breaking down as a result of all of this ?
Where do you think the US foreign policy is going to be going in response to what's happening on the ground in Europe ?
Ron Joe . Now what's that , fraser ? I think what we are seeing certainly is a coming split , potentially , or certainly in grassroots politics I suppose it's less relevant to the EU , but there is a kind of turn against NATO in some places .
It's a mixed picture because there are parts of Europe you think Sweden wasn't a member of NATO and is suddenly signing up thanks to the Ukraine war . Many Eastern European countries have become , and always were , kind of stalwarts for it because they have Russia on their border .
But there are other sort of populist candidates who are starting to question that , starting to question particularly in relation to Ukraine , but also they share similar that some of those might be against the war in Ukraine but they might also be in agreement with America's Israel policy , for instance .
So it's a very kind of mixed picture , I would say , in terms of foreign policy .
I think going forward . I would agree with that and I think going forward it's going to be very dependent upon who the next president is . I think we could have very significant change potentially in the approach the United States takes to these issues in Europe depending upon who is the next president . Thank you .
Another issue and , because of Fraser , raised the Israel question . One of the things that I wonder about in terms of the impact on immigration policy has been the kind of response we see on the streets , in the universities here in the US and in Europe , whether that's making people have some second thoughts .
I mean , I think , fraser I think you may have said something that a friend of yours , a Jewish friend from Manchester , canceled a trip to London because of the demonstrations . I'm having coffee tomorrow with a Chapman student who has faced some of these kinds of issues .
Is the whole Hamas thing accelerating this issue and maybe creating some other divides in Europe ?
Yeah , I think it's not the conflict itself that is causing problems , it's the demonstrations , and people are seeing maybe for the first time , or starting to see , that there are a lot of people who are not just .
You know , it'd be one thing if they're just protesting for Palestine out of sympathy for Gaza , but what people are seeing is outright anti-Semitism on the streets . They're seeing a chance for jihad , and maybe a lot of those people were less .
It just makes the issue much more visible , and a lot of people have speculated that this might have played a role in Vilders' victory the fact that this was happening in the run-up to the election . It was absolutely not an election issue there , but these protests were clearly .
Yeah , just yet another visual sign of how immigration has changed people's countries and changed the character of things .
Thinking about also a country like France where you have these significant populations , the largest Jewish population , you've got the largest Muslim population , you've got a real hotbed of potential turmoil and indeed the number of anti-Semitic events that have taken place in France since October the 7th have really been significant so much more during that period today than
in all of 22 . So you've got the conditions here for extreme behaviors and there's no doubt that that's weighing on folks , I think , in the United States and in other countries in Europe , to be sure .
It's also worth pointing out that in France and Germany at least , these pro-Palestine marches are illegal . They have been banned by the governments and they are , but they are happening anyway . So , again , on top of the issues we've just raised , it gives a sense of lawlessness , a sense that people are not playing by the rules .
If that makes sense , I mean , I don't think they should be banned . To be clear , europe should stand for free speech , but again , that adds to the angst around it .
Again , civilized parameters . Looking at the size of the Muslim population in places like France and Germany , I just wonder the degree to which , if you start thinking about the definitions of populism , how much of a threat to civil disorder these demonstrations represent . How do you think ?
I think this is becoming really difficult for these governments to maintain order in their countries , or this is just kind of a minor transitory issue ?
Yeah , it's very difficult to say . I mean I could speak mainly from the sort of London perspective where these marches haven't actually particularly led to disorder as such . But what people see is they see that so many things are illegal to say in this country it's unbelievable .
But they see the police not reacting to like quite blatant outbursts of racism or chanting for jihad or things that obviously appear threatening and violent and they see the police turn a blind eye . So there's a more sense . There's a sense that the authorities are almost appeasing it turning a blind eye .
The authorities don't want to stir up the hornet's nest of cracking down on it . Again , I don't think they should crack down on it because a lot of it is as horrible as it is . A lot of it is sort of legitimate political speech . So that again that fuels the sense of double standards .
That fuels the sense that other people are treated differently , even though they're potentially outsiders . We would not be treated in this way .
You know it's interesting , marshall , whether it's transitory or a real issue of potential disorder . What strikes me is how pervasive this populist sentiment , focused currently on the right , but certainly exists on the left .
But when you run through , obviously builders in the Netherlands , the alternative for Deutschland in Germany and its recent successes , for example , malone in Italy , le Pen and certainly in France , orban in Hungary , say nothing of Brexit which preceded it , and so on and so forth . I mean this is a continuing pattern of , yes , populism , but what does it represent ?
Disenchantment with the ability of the current political order to address some of the fundamental issues that these countries have faced for a long time .
And we see it in the United States , we've seen it for a while on both the left and the right , and we know the many issues that have not been addressed by the political order in America , and I think there's just a rising frustration .
So I would see this continuing , potentially getting more serious , slash dangerous , if these issues are not addressed and they're addressable , that's the point . They're addressable .
These are not in track , they've been intractable , but they're not problems that don't have some solution , but governments , for a variety of reasons that we know , have been unable to address them in a way that that many people a majority , hopefully find acceptable .
Yeah , you know it's interesting looking at a kind of going down the historical memory lane .
This is a little reminiscent of the 1960s and the shift between kind of what was the baby boom generation , feeling as though the ills of society were not being addressed by government , and the real struggle that happened in that generational change over , and I kind of feel as though we have this similar kind of juxtaposition of generations , value systems .
But I'd like to add something that I think is not being appreciated , and I'm not necessarily saying it's a good thing , because there's some scary aspects . What we're seeing in the United States , for instance , is young people actually are beginning to move to the right , and particularly white males .
And when I looked at the votes that Le Pen is getting in France , what's happened in Italy Maloney , the support for AFD in Germany , builders , that all it seems to me that there's also a potential in which it's not just you know the media is saying , well , young people are here and you know the older people are the ones who are holding things back .
But the reality is , I think young people , particularly if you're a young white person and particularly a male , and you know that your chances of getting into a good college have dropped dramatically , no matter what you do , that there are jobs that you cannot apply for , and if you bring that into European society , if you know , you might find that a lot of the
young people , particularly the white males , particularly the working class , and I think this group is being totally and completely ignored in the media . They are just , they simply they think the only young people in the world are , you know lunatics at Sarah Lawrence and Yale just cover two of our colleges .
And if you're dismissed as representing and have a horrid point of view , that's the other thing too you either ignored or you're dismissed .
Yeah , I think one thing to add into this , add into this calculus kind of middle class aspirations of having a family , you know , buying a house , you know , having a career that you can nurture , and to see those being jeopardized just adds fuel to the fire .
And you're right , Joel , this is , this is historically , young people have been associated with more left leaning ideas , and now we're seeing quite a shift in that .
And if I can just make one additional comment , recent opinion polls have suggested that young people are much less optimistic about their future . Right then , then their parents are much less optimistic about being able to have a standard of living that will be comparable , exceeding , but comparable to what their parents are expressing .
I think exactly what you're saying , joel , that there is a significant disaffection that exists in that particular , in that particular demographic , and in some of them are indeed migrating closer to the right , who would appear to be , rightly or wrongly , more able to address or more willing to address some of those issues .
Whether those are are good solutions being proposed or not is another question , but at least addressing the issue in a way that perhaps the left in America is not .
Yeah , I think it's really important to raise this because there is just this assumption as well in the UK that all young people are basically Greta Thunberg and that's the only way they think and all boomers are right-wing blowhards . And it's not quite correct .
If you look at the , certainly on the continent , it's actually the older people who were keeping the sort of centrist establishment parties alive , because younger people who don't have . You know , one of the main things I think is not necessarily that young people are given to left or right .
It's just they don't have the same loyalties to these old parties , these old parties that clearly not serving the public . And you can actually see this quite clearly in Germany . You know the AFD is extremely popular , much more popular in East Germany , although the West Germany is catching up . And that's not because those people are more right-wing in East Germany .
I mean , they lived under socialism , for Christ's sake . You know they were socialist country . Many people , actually many older people , they look back fondly in some ways on that period . You know , nostalgia does funny things to people , right , but it's because they don't have the same connections to the main parties .
You know they've only been voting for the mainstream parties since the 1990s . So why should they show any loyalty to them ? Why should they expect , why should they believe they're the promises that are made and they're seriously not kept ? They think so . They think well , we'll try something new , we'll bet on a new force .
And even just in the past you know sort of 10 , 20 years of this populist wave you've seen in different countries new parties rise and fall . So you know we're talking about Wilders . I mean , he's been around for , you know , 20 years or so . He's taken him this long to find some real success . But in the meantime , you know , the Dutch have been voting for .
People may have heard of Pym Fortun , but he was assassinated before he could make a real electoral impact . But even just in recent years there was the Forum for a Democracy , which is run by this guy called Thierry Baudet . That was doing well . That came top in , like the Senate elections a couple of years ago .
This year we had the Farmers Party come out nowhere to come out , come on top in the , you know , local elections . And then , and now , you know , only a few months later , wilders comes out of nowhere , and genuinely out of nowhere . You know , even he did not expect to do as well as he did .
So there is a key aspect of this is it's just the volatility of it . You know when , without the old certainties , without people having the same loyalties to the old parties , there's a lot to play for , there's a lot that you know can come up . People can rise as fall as they fall as fast as they rise . Italy is another good example .
You know , before we got to Maloney we had five star and the league we tried that out didn't work out . Off you go , we'll try someone else , yeah .
And a willingness I couldn't agree more and a willingness to at least ostensibly embrace solutions that we would find much more abhorrent , like authoritarianism . But again , what are you going to believe them ? Or your lion eyes ? It's hey , putin is Putin , but Putin is effective in carrying out certain policies .
She is an authoritarian , but China has been enormously effective in accomplishing certain goals , and I think you see it in Europe , you see it in America .
The notion is we are , for a lot of issues sort of running in place and not getting them done , so the notion that an authoritarian can come along and perhaps move things forward is less of a part to those , as you say , who don't have a strong historical affiliation , if you will , perhaps do not see the importance that we see in democratic institutions and a
democratic process , however inefficient it may be . And so that again goes back to the fundamental issues . If we're not going to solve what are perceived as the most pressing issues or at least make some reasonable progress , we're going to see more and more embracing of extremist positions .
I guess that's really . I mean , this has been a great discussion . They just sort of summing up what do you see happening in the future ? I mean Ron sort of touched on it a bit if you were to predict what the next five years in Europe are going to look like , can you make a prediction ?
I think the populist movement is definitely here to stay and there are newer all the time . There are newer issues , newer confrontations that need to be had out with the elites . So you know , as well as immigration , you now have to add green politics . The opposition to greenism is a massive driver now of populism .
So you know , holland is a great example of that , where we have just what ties the Dutch farmers together and get builders is the opposition to extreme climate policies , and they are very extreme here in Europe . It's nothing like the US . You know people are seeing in loads in so many European countries for the first time in 20 years .
A lot of , you know , mainstream leaders had to say actually we've gone a bit too far . The US and the UK has , at least rhetorically , walked back on net zero . We need a pause on all of these green targets . You know that is a get . That's just going to be a huge feature , I think , of the coming politics , especially as these policies really start to bite .
And the problem is , as with so many of these things , they are either they are complete there is complete consensus across Europe with mainstream politicians or some of these things are imposed directly from the EU , so that makes them even more ripe for it . In a sense , it can only be outsiders that can challenge them , if that makes sense .
So that is just going to fuel it further .
That's the last word .
Sorry , yeah , I betray my well . I indicate my love of history when I comment that this issue that we're summing up here where Europe will be in the next five years . I think we've seen the roadmap . We saw the rejection by the French and the Dutch in 2005 of the Constitution , a major event that stopped essentially on a political basis .
The integration we saw in 2016 , brexit , and we're seeing the next manifestation of what I would argue is that trend , which is the rise of the populism that we've been talking about . Europe either has gone , in my judgment , too far or not far enough .
It didn't go far enough to integrate and it's gone too far , if you will , past the point where it was effective for most people , which was the economic successes of the common market and a much more integrated economic program , and so it's dealing with that contradiction now . Didn't get far enough , but it went too far , and I don't see that changing materially .
I don't know what the next phase of this or the next stop on this road that we have been talking about , but I would assume it's going to be less integration than more integration .
Now I think that makes sense . Plus , when you start looking at the underlying factors that are opposing each other on each one of these issues , I don't see those being resolved anytime soon , and so the idea that there'll be kind of continued separation or nationalism or populism seems to me to make a lot of sense . Gentlemen , thank you so much .
This has been a fascinating discussion . Thank you for being guests on the Feudal Future podcast , and we look forward to having you back again to talk more about this . Thanks , very much , thank you , thank you , the Feudal Future Back again . Thank you , thank you , thank you , thank you , thank you , thank you , thank you , thank you .