How much does Europe’s future resemble its gruesome past? That question was already pressing before Donald Trump retook the White House, and turned support for the European far-right “patriotic” parties into US policy. That is, of course, what his newly published National Security Strategy means, committing the US to “cultivating resistance” in European nations against the supposed “civilisational erasure” represented by immigration.

With or without US interference, far-right authoritarianism is now an entirely plausible European future, unless there is drastic change. After all, it is already the US’s present reality. American exceptionalism once held that such an outcome was impossible in the world’s oldest continuous constitutional republic, with its system of separation of powers and no history of despotism. Yet the country is now ruled by a self-styled king, centralising executive power, weaponising the justice system, attacking civil society and neutralising the media.

The advance of the far right rests on a simple, corrosive premise. Since the financial crash, western publics have been encouraged to believe they are trapped in a zero-sum game, forced to compete for ever-diminishing resources. The far right’s message is brutally straightforward: if there is not enough to go around, why are “our” scarce resources being handed to migrants? Remove the undeserving competition, it argues, and the “indigenous” population will flourish once more.

The facts say otherwise. On average, foreign arrivals are net contributors to European economies. Between 2014 and 2018, for instance, migrants contributed about €1,500 more per capita than European-born citizens. In Germany, without migrants the labour force would shrink, condemning the country to an even deeper economic malaise.

Facts, alas, mean little in the so-called immigration debate, particularly when mainstream politicians respond to far-right advances by echoing their language and demonising migrants – assisted by inflammatory and often deceitful media coverage. Economic pain provides rich fodder for demagogues, especially when people struggling to get by are persuaded that there is no alternative to the system producing that pain.

After the cold war ended, the public was told that all plausible alternatives to neoliberal economics had vanished. Rolling back the state, cutting taxes on the wealthy, deregulation and weak unions were presented as unavoidable facts of life. Politicians insisted that globalisation had stripped them of agency: the markets now ruled supreme. Following the financial crash, the German-led eurozone imposed crippling austerity across the continent. When Greece’s Syriza government dared to rebel against this disastrous experiment, it was subjected to a bruising punishment – designed to deter others from following the same path.

In France, voters hear President Macron insist that they must work longer to preserve their social entitlements. Little wonder, then, that some are drawn to the far-right National Rally’s promise to “reserve social assistance for French citizens”, or to “make all French citizens privileged in their own country”. In Austria, as unemployment rises, claims that migrants steal jobs and drain social security echo ever more loudly. In Britain, a Labour government argues that support for pensioners and disabled people can no longer be afforded. No wonder Nigel Farage’s claim that “[Keir] Starmer is choosing migrant benefits over winter fuel for pensioners” finds a receptive audience.

The German elite long saw the economic travails of other Europeans as evidence of their fecklessness and irresponsibility. Yet Germany itself pursued a model built on wage suppression in the name of competitiveness, an almost religious devotion to balanced budgets, and chronic underinvestment. Add the shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the results are stark: growth has evaporated, living standards are under strain and the far-right AfD is surging, finding eager listeners for its message of prioritising struggling “natives”.

Europe is a continent soaked in pessimism. Nearly two-thirds of German consumers feel negative about the national economic situation. As political elites fail to deliver sustained improvements in living standards, security or the public realm, faith in democracy collapses. Just a quarter of voters in Britain are satisfied with how democracy works; in France, fewer than one in five feels the same.

Across the continent, both the centre right and the centre left have left voters feeling trapped in a zero-sum world. Yet the reality is starkly different. The EU’s nearly 500 billionaires alone control €2.3 trillion in wealth. In the first six months of this year, their combined fortunes grew by more than €2bn a day. That the wealth created by millions of European workers is siphoned off into the assets and bank accounts of a tiny elite is not a law of nature; it is a political choice. But when it is treated as unavoidable, ordinary people understandably conclude that their survival depends on reducing competition for scarce resources – fuel for the far right’s rise.

The stigma once attached to the far right, born of Europe’s nightmarish experience with fascism, has largely evaporated. The so-called cordon sanitaire – the idea that forces beyond the centre right are illegitimate – has been incinerated.

The comforting belief that western democratic institutions, culture and history automatically offer a bulwark against authoritarianism should be buried. It is tempting to think that Hungary’s descent – its hollowing-out of democracy, the slow strangulation of independent media and civil society – could only occur in countries with a history of dictatorship. Trumpism bulldozes that illusion. It now seeks to use the power of a flailing hegemon to export the same fate across Europe.

We face a stark choice. Either we end an economic model that condemns millions to insecurity and stagnation – or we risk losing democracy itself. The warnings could hardly be more explicit. Our failure to heed them may leave generations to regret the consequences.