Everything Must Stay the Same

Last November 24, independent candidate Călin Georgescu topped the first-round vote in Romania’s presidential election. A no-name mere weeks before the results, he rose to first place — and claimed that his victory was a sign from God.

The Constitutional Court later annulled the elections because of a supposed Russian covert intervention to support him — a quite plausible, even probable, claim, but not one entirely proven at the date of the court’s decision. Georgescu had indeed benefitted from a well-organized social media campaign on TikTok, with a good understanding on how to manipulate the algorithm. So much so that while millions were targeted on TikTok by his campaign, the whole phenomenon went unnoticed by mainstream media and state institutions.

It was also proven that millions of euros were poured into this campaign through backdoor channels, while he officially declared zero expenses. After the court’s decision, reports from the secret services were made public, in which they stated that a foreign state had intervened in the elections. Many criticized these reports for their superficiality, as they only summed up what was already known by the public and did not point out how exactly Russia was involved and whom it collaborated with.

Although Georgescu was also an open admirer of Russia, it was actually found later that the two main Romanian political parties secretly helped him in the hopes that he would steal votes from other candidates. The full story of how he succeeded and who supported him remains concealed to this day.

People often forget that it wasn’t only TikTok that made voters rally behind him. Some voted for him precisely for his ultranationalism, religious fervor, and open admiration for fascists. However, we shouldn’t overlook his economic agenda either: Georgescu claimed that he would nationalize agricultural land and redistribute it, put the natural resources back in the hands of Romanians, and support a sovereign-distributist economy. He even openly criticized corporations and blamed them for being exploitative — something unimaginable in a system where candidates declare entrepreneurs to be national heroes.

It’s not that Latin American-style left-populism has made it to Romania. As with other fascists in the past, Georgescu’s criticism of capitalism and corporations is made through a nationalist lens, not one based on working-class solidarity. It is a petty–bourgeois utopia, as it has been called, that favors local capitalists with low taxes and wants to fire public sector employees in order to cut budgets. He makes clear that redistribution ”will not be based on a socialist model,” and neither will there be a nanny state. If departing from the European Union (EU) norm, even his foreign policy amounts to continued sycophancy toward the Trump administration.

Much of his success is owed to the simple fact that he speaks of social issues that otherwise go ignored. When people feel that the establishment has abandoned them, the far right comes in to harvest public discontent. It is a model successfully followed throughout the world by the far right. Nostalgia for the stability of the former socialist regime, the return to an idyllic village and to a deeper relation with nature, also struck a chord with alienated voters, both in Romania and among the millions of Romanians living abroad. That should have been a wake-up call for the status quo parties, but it was grossly misinterpreted.

So what’s Georgescu’s long-term goal? To replace Romania’s already frail democracy with a nationalist hybrid regime. He has previously stated that there would be no more political parties after he comes to power — and proceeded to surround himself with war mercenaries and openly fascist admirers.

But Georgescu also recognized that he needs to win the “powers that be” — or at least avoid their strong opposition. This meant building ties with local capital, the secret services, and Washington, which all hold a significant influence on Romania’s politics. Georgescu’s revolutionary tone about radical change turned out to have been nothing more than empty rhetoric.

Hence why Georgescu promised lower taxes, surrounded himself with former high-ranking army and intelligence officers, and immediately declared himself a staunch supporter of Donald Trump. In several respects, he followed in the footsteps of the establishment. So, to turn around Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s line from The Leopard, for things to change, everything must stay the same. In order to erode democracy and change the strategy toward Russia and Ukraine, you have to keep vital parts of the establishment happy.

As we know, it didn’t work out in the end. Georgescu’s first-round success was canceled, and he wasn’t able to stand in the rerun contest. But what did the establishment parties learn from all this?

Unlearned Lessons

Georgescu’s attempt, although it failed, galvanized the far right and radicalized a significant number of voters. Combat-hardened Romanian mercenaries coming back from Africa with an arsenal of weapons hidden in their houses, teenagers joining extremist underground organizations, public ceremonies at the graves of fascists — these are the kinds of news that have dominated media since Georgescu’s bid.

In such a critical moment for Romanian society, we might expect that mainstream parties would seriously consider a renegotiation of the social contract. In an almost comedic moment, when asked about this, one presidential candidate thought this meant signing a literal contract. It summed up quite well how oblivious the establishment is.

What some mainstream parties did instead was to double down on their right-wing populism. Thinking that they could win voters by copying Georgescu’s agenda, they moved the Overton window further to the right. Both the Social Democrats’ leader, Marcel Ciolacu, and the ruling coalition’s candidate, Crin Antonescu, have focused on promoting the traditional family: a man and a woman only. Antonescu also said that all drug dealers should be rounded up in a stadium and shot, before retracting his declaration. When being compared to Georgescu, Crin Antonescu replied that ”it’s not me who talks like Georgescu. It’s he who copied my talking points from 2012.”

The ruling coalition has adopted the far-right narrative that Romania is a society whose traditional values are under siege by ”aggressive progressivism” and globalism. This strategy has been tried in Western countries as well, with the same result: normalizing and strengthening far-right candidates. Why would people vote for a diluted version when they can vote for the original?

This is not to say that the far right and the so-called centrists are the exact same thing. But it is worrying to see how many talking points they share. Let’s take economics, for example. Romania has a deep problem with the public budget deficit — running at 9 percent of GDP last year. This year could be even worse. When asked how they would solve it, all candidates agreed: no increase in taxes!

Even the idea of taxing the rich or capital is seen as blasphemy. Instead, they all want to cut spending, improve tax collection, and fire public sector employees. They all agree that the state is too big, taxes are too high, free markets are the answer, and entrepreneurs are national heroes — all this while Romanian taxes for the rich and capital are some of the lowest in the EU.

No matter which candidate you vote for, the outcome will be the same: austerity. Nor do any of the candidates have a serious plan on how to fight the secret services’ grip on politics, business, and the justice system. Many claim to be fighting against ”the system” — the entire society is talking about ”the system” — but it’s rather vague what “the system” really is. Who could ask for a better political punching bag?

There are, however, a few areas in which the candidates differ. What flavor of conservatism would you like? Nobody expects progressive leaps forward, but the three self-declared pro-European candidates show a degree of openness. Elena Lasconi and Crin Anonescu declared that they are in favor of introducing same-sex civil partnership and making abortion a constitutional right. Nicușor Dan, the independent mayor of Bucharest, was rather ambiguous on the subject — saying that “this is a matter that should be settled by society.”

The two national-sovereigntist candidates are instead trying to ramp up support from the conservative part of society. Victor Ponta, an independent, is a former Social Democratic prime minister who once wore Che Guevara T-shirts. Yet he has now turned into a Trump rip-off, wearing MAGA hats and mentioning god at the end of every TikTok.

Leading polls is George Simion, president of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party, who brands himself as the anointed heir of Georgescu. So much so that Simion’s message is that if he wins, he will step down in order to redo the presidential elections so that Georgescu can participate again. Last November, his strategy was to mellow down his tone and agenda, so that he could win over moderate conservatives. This only brought him fourth place, but seeing Georgescu win with a radical discourse, Simion’s has pushed further to the far right.

Not all far-right voters support Simion; indeed, many Georgescu voters consider him just another pawn of the system or as simply not radical enough. That is why, after the state denied Georgescu the right to run again, Simion stated in a live TikTok that ”the ones responsible for this decision should be skinned alive.” His objective is to galvanize Georgescu’s supporters behind him, but thus far he has avoided debates, preferring to avoid the spotlight until the second round.

When it comes to foreign policy, all candidates agree on continuing the strategic partnership with the United States. Even with J. D. Vance and Elon Musk openly showing their support for Georgescu, or with the US threatening to annex territory from Denmark, none of the candidates have even dared make any critical comment on the subject.

Still, there are differences to their approach. Centrist-liberal candidates mostly lean toward stronger ties with the EU and a coordinated response to Trump’s aggressive policies. Paradoxically, the far-right candidates show a much more servile attitude: Simion leaves flattering comments on Musk’s X account, and Ponta wears a spin-off MAGA red hat with the message “Romania First.” Even Georgescu — the so-called champion of sovereigntism — asked Trump to intervene in Romania’s internal affairs to save democracy. The far right also shows a more hostile attitude toward Ukrainians and more leniency toward Russia.

Reclaiming Power

While Georgescu was eliminated from the presidential race, his ideas now dominate the political landscape. Mainstream parties see him as a model for winning as well as a danger at the same time. Similarly, in France, Emmanuel Macron tried to do the same by incorporating the far-right agenda into his own. This didn’t weaken Marine Le Pen but normalized her party and helped it grow.

On the other hand, politicians who refused to emulate Georgescu, although admirable, seem oblivious about how to tackle the situation. The fact that times of economic hardship strongly favor the rise of the far right is a historical lesson that many seem yet to learn. If they do acknowledge that the underlying cause is the public’s frustration with the status quo, their proposal for change is bringing “honest people” into public office and punishing the “corrupt.” It’s as if we’re still stuck in Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history,” where every economic dilemma has been sorted out and we just need the right people to fine-tune the capitalist machine.

So does this post-politics era mean that politics is dead, that we’re at the end of a road and nothing is going to change? No, politics is very much alive and the fight for demolishing or keeping what’s left of democracy is only going to get fiercer in the coming years. Even the victory of the more moderate center right could win us a few essential years to regroup.

The move toward the neoliberal consensus started in the 1980s, but now we’re seeing it trying to devour democracy altogether. It’s not a sporadic or isolated phenomenon but an international one. Poland is going through an almost identical process in its presidential elections. While a few battered, leftish strongholds persist in some Western countries, much of Eastern Europe has erased the Left from the map completely.

Today’s post-politics is not a Fukuyaman utopia but a mood: the feeling that the world is inevitably sinking into climate disaster and fascism. The feeling that even if we do vote for the lesser evil, it is more like a postponement rather than a different path. This kind of doomerism seems ever more mainstream.

As long as political parties are in the pockets of the rich, they would rather lose everything to fascists than concede some of their power to working people. If we want to avoid this, we have to bring back politics in public life, to bring the things that truly matter back to the center of the debate. The first step in creating a better world is regaining the ability to imagine it.