Romania’s hard right looks strong in a year of four elections

It is not clear that most populist nationalists think Europe was ever great. But “Make Europe Great Again” was the slogan on the baseball caps at an international hard-right conference in Bucharest at the end of April sponsored by the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), the country’s nationalist anti-immigration party. Speakers denounced the “invasion” of Europe by Muslims, and of America by illegal migrants. There was lusty applause when Donald Trump’s name was mentioned, and when speakers denounced gay and trans “ideology” and the “godless” bureaucrats of Brussels.