German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote Donald Trump a public letter the day after his election. “Germany and America are connected by values of democracy, freedom and respect for the law and the dignity of man, independent of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views,” she said. “I offer the next President of the United States close cooperation on the basis of these values.” It was a restatement of ideals that many Americans regard as obvious. But the fact that she felt it necessary to return to fundamentals reveals something important about our present circumstances. A rising populism is challenging the postwar system in Europe, and perhaps in the United States, and this may threaten some deep principles.

After World War II, politics in Western Europe was rebuilt on a foundation of human dignity. A number of other countries were led by parties like Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. The goal was to restrain the power of the state and limit the political passions that had done so much damage. This established a political tradition in the West that has been oriented toward freedom and invokes human rights to support it. In Western Europe, human dignity became the watchword for the politics of Christian democracy and provided the basis for transatlantic Cold War politics in which religion was viewed as a bulwark against totalitarianism left and right. In recent decades, after the left stopped trying to build socialism, it too adopted and repurposed certain elements of this tradition, dropping the emphasis on religion while keeping the language of human dignity and human rights. The upshot was more internationalist, with strong support for pluralism and personal liberation, including sexual freedom.

A growing populism seems to be rejecting these developments, especially their internationalist dimension. Here in the United States, Donald Trump succeeded as a populist candidate who ran against the political establishment, both left and right. His campaign slogan, “Make America great again,” was explicitly nationalistic. In Europe, Trump’s election was preceded by a shocking British vote to leave the European Union, which many regard as the finest achievement of the ideals of the postwar era. A few years ago in Hungary, a demagogue championing Christian nationalism took power, while other countries—soon France and then Germany—face populist uprisings that may upset the political status quo.

Will this new nationalism go so far as to reject basic liberal principles?

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