‘Selling the present now probably works only in Germany.

Everywhere else, you run either as the past or the future’

5 hours ago by: Simon Kuper

The easiest way to win votes these days is by selling the past. “Nostalgic nationalism”, as my FT colleague Gideon Rachman writes, unites Brexit’s “Take Back Control”, Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and Vladimir Putin’s reassertion of Russian power. There’s only one viable counter-strategy, and French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is trying it in this spring’s election: he is selling the future.

The one guaranteed losing strategy nowadays is selling the present. Hillary Clinton and the UK’s Remain campaign against Brexit went down defending the status quo.

Selling the present now probably works only in Germany, a country inoculated by its history against both nostalgic nationalism and utopianism. So Angela Merkel will run this autumn as the most reassuringly unchangeable figure imaginable: “Mutti” (Mummy). Everywhere else, you run either as the past or the future.

Selling the past is an age-old political strategy. Even in ancient Greece, radicals routinely promised a return to a golden age, the classicist Mary Beard writes in The Times Literary Supplement. Nostalgic nationalism always distorts history, but its appeal is visceral: we adults yearn to rewind the gruesome ageing process and go back in time. Nostalgic nationalism is also appealingly optimistic. Contrary to what pundits said, Trump’s campaign never lapsed into pessimism. He claimed that the present sucked but guaranteed a painless return to the good old days. Selling the past works best in the UK. Brits have an almost uniquely uncomplicated relationship with their own history, having had no revolution, civil war, dictatorship or invasion since 1660. Whereas the US had slavery at home, Brits performed their colonial atrocities far from domestic sight. Britons over 65 were raised on schoolbooks, comics and films about imperial conquest and Hitler’s Blitz; 64 per cent of them backed Brexit.

But nostalgic nationalism suits France almost as well. There, as in Britain, the present often shrinks to the size of a pinhead. Most French political discourse revolves around a superior past. There’s the lost superpower status. There’s the semi-mythical figure of the small farmer. There’s the obsession with the trente glorieuses, the 30 supposedly glorious years of economic recovery from 1945. In short, the Front National’s declinist view of France has become the non-partisan standard. Now Marine Le Pen wants to bring back the French franc, while her opponents talk about “preserving” the Republic from her.

In France, the past’s superiority is written into the political landscape. Because French leaders work in ancient Parisian palaces, they appear dwarfed by past titans. The problem afflicts all old European capitals. When Matteo Renzi worked in Florence’s Palazzo Medici as president of the province, he’d joke with tourists in his basic English: “Five hundred years ago, Lorenzo de’ Medici. Today, Matteo Renzi. This is the decadence of Florence!”

But when Renzi decided to take over Italy, he presented himself as a futurist, recounts Giuliano da Empoli in his French biography Le Florentin. As Macron will know, this entails following a fixed set of rules.

First, because a successful politician embodies his own message, a futurist has to be young. Renzi became Italy’s youngest leader ever in 2014, just as his futurist role model Tony Blair was Britain’s youngest prime minister since 1812, and 39-year-old Macron would be France’s youngest leader since Napoleon. In an era when any political experience is considered disqualifying, young candidates emphasise their youth. Renzi, writes da Empoli, wore sneakers and jeans to meetings, poured an ice bucket over himself on TV, and always went by “Matteo” — a throwback to Blair’s famous first words to his cabinet: “Just call me Tony.”

Second, the futurist runs against the past, starting with his own party. Blair, who saw history as a boring repository of failed policies, denigrated his party as “Old Labour”. Macron has started a whole new “movement” with the quintessentially futurist name En Marche! (On the march!). He has also dissed the national past by urging France to apologise for colonial crimes in Algeria.

Third, the futurist must present himself as an enemy of the status quo, and therefore the main protagonist of the election. This is a prized title, a dynamic role. Hillary Clinton handed it to Trump. In France, Le Pen assumed she would get the title part, but Macron wants it for himself. You know you’re the main protagonist when other candidates start attacking you as a danger to the country. Last, of course, the futurist offers a glorious future. The model here is John F Kennedy’s promise in 1961 to put a man on the moon.

Younger people vote less than oldies, but the target market for futurists expands every year. If you’re French or British and aged under 50, you probably aren’t a political nostalgic. The second world war, empire and even the trente glorieuses seem like ancient history. You believe you live in just another ordinary midsized country.

Macron hopes France’s presidential run-off will pit future against past. Twenty years to the week that Blair entered Downing Street on a beautiful futurist May dawn, Macron could walk into the Elysée. That instant, he downgrades from future to present.