Many in America and in Europe say the centre has only itself to blame.
“The first steps into the Unrest seem straightforward enough—anger at the fall of real wages.
George Dangerfield wrote about “the strange death of liberal England” in the years before the first world war. Some predict a similarly grim fate for liberal Europe today.
Those on the MAGA right, such as Elon Musk, say growing Muslim populations pose the greatest threat. Some talk, apocalyptically and absurdly, of “civilisational erasure” or civil war.
Even in Germany the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said this week that high rates of migration and a failure to integrate the foreign-born are partly behind the sudden, violent upheaval. So has Hungary’s newish prime minister, Peter Magyar.
Even if some young protesters in France wear Algerian football shirts or chant pro-Palestinian slogans, the upheaval in Europe today is not about race or religion.
Over 500,000 people marched in France on Saturday and they were largely unmasked and white.
Although the critics are wrong, Europe’s centrists do face real problems—and France shows how serious they are. The first is the fiscal bind that makes effective political action so hard.
Instead of rising to this challenge, the centrists seem out of ideas. The Economist once cheered Mr Macron as a bold new standard-bearer for radical centrism.
Dangerfield was writing about a time when most people were ignorant of the catastrophe that lay ahead. Today’s liberals have no such excuse
The Economist 22 October 2026
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/10/22/the-agony-of-liberal-europe
The wealthiest 10% of American households—those making more than $250,000 a year, roughly—are now responsible for half of all US consumer spending and at least a third of the country’s gross domestic product.
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/10/how-to-spend-it.html
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