Germany
At the heart of the identity crisis is a harsh reality: working class voters have been abandoning the very parties whose raison d’etre was to protect them. Blue collar workers are switching sides. Today there are not only fewer of them—as economies have evolved to more high-skilled labor—but those left are more socially conservative and opposed to immigration.

Like its counterparts elsewhere in Europe, Germany’s Social Democratic Party has struggled to find the antidote for a tidal wave of anti-immigration sentiment and to stop the Greens sopping young environmentally-conscious voters.

The SPD is now pinning its hopes on a pair of unknowns to lead it out of an existential funk after governing with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives damaged the brand. Today, the SPD, the country’s oldest party, polls in fourth place with less than 15%. The Greens could potentially displace the SPD in the coalition down the line.

Proposals like a tax on the wealthy and an increase of the minimum wage were dismissed by one SPD critic as a “warmed-up box of socialist moth balls.” “If they move further to the left, the SPD will stop being a people’s party,” warned Andrea Roemmele, professor of political communication at the Berlin-based Hertie School.

France
When it comes to a plunge in popularity, few leaders can better Francois Hollande, the country’s most reviled president. His socialists are on life support and his former prime minister pronounced the party “dead and gone.”

For sure, the French socialists were always prone to infighting. In 2002, their failure to unite behind their candidate for president allowed far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen to make the run off against incumbent Jacques Chirac. But this time the way back seems much longer. 

President Emmanuel Macron was the beneficiary more recently, creating a centrist party that triumphed in 2017. He has since emerged as the strongest voice in the European Union.

Italy
Political fluidity is another challenge, especially in parts of southern Europe without a two-party system or where the political landscape has fragmented beyond recognition. Gone are the days when you stuck to your tribe for life.

Voters are willing to get experimental and there is no better political laboratory than Italy where parties surge and disappear in the blink of an eye. There, the strangest alliances are forged, such as that between rival populists.

It explains how the center-left has changed its name countless times. Its latest incarnation as the Democratic Party is trying to rebuild its support base and is in government with the populist Five Star Movement. But together they poll about the same as Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration League, which is itching for an election and will eventually get one.