Romanians are deciding whether to burn down their house

Romanians on May 18 choose between the path of the West or the darkness of Putin-style illiberalism

My parents were born in Romania. I speak the language (see video above), lived in the country for four years, and have visited countless times. I feel deeply connected to the place — to its people, its culture, and its history. Yet I am not a Romanian citizen, and in essential ways I am not Romanian. That distance may mean I miss certain nuances. But it can also bring clarity.

In decades of leading journalistic coverage across over 100 countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for the Associated Press, I’ve seen what makes societies different – but also what is similar. And I can say this: in almost every society, 30 to 40 percent of the population feels alienated from the system and frustrated with their lives.

Some are frustrated with corruption or stagnation. Others feel alienated by modernity, multiculturalism, or just the erosion of traditional hierarchies. Many simply feel powerless in their own lives. They are angry — sometimes with convincing cause, sometimes without — and they seek refuge in ultranationalism, conspiracies, and tribal belonging. It’s a chaos of grievances and misanthropy, united not by a coherent ideology but by shared bitterness.

When a single political force manages to consolidate that vote — as George Simion’s far-right juggernaut seems to be doing with Romanians — it can win a plurality in an open field. In the May 4 first round of the country’s rerun presidential election, Simion maxed out the disaffected. But what matters now is not that he won the first round. That is noise. The only thing that matters is whether everyone else — who should, in any version of a logical world, be the majority — can unite against him in the second round on May 18. Because if they do not, Romania will follow a path trodden by some other countries in recent years — into illiberalism, isolation, and the level of national disgrace that brings horrifying divisions of the kind being experienced by Americans right now.

This is not just about one candidate.