Ok hear an European federalist’s (me) take on this:
Yes, ID and ECR are set to gain a pretty substantial amount of seats, especially compared to the results of the previous election, as the Guardian’s infographic clearly highlights:
However, their conclusion:
As a result, the far-right ID group is projected to gain up to 40 more seats, for a total of 98, potentially making it the third political force and opening up the possibility of a “populist right” coalition (EPP, ECR, and ID) with 49% of MEPs in the new parliament
seems a bit of a stretch. While ID is firmly eurosceptic and ECR is… undecisive, EPP is firmly pro Europe. EPP has been the largest party in the European Parliament for over 20 years, and they are the ones who elected names like von der Leyen and Metsola. I wouldn’t call either “Anti-European”.
As the POLITICO “Poll of Polls” clearly highlights, the top groups aren’t set to change all that much. The most notable changes are Renew losing quite a lot of seats and ID replacing it as the 3rd political force, but EPP and S&D mantain a significant lead.
If ECR and ID ever came to building a “populist right coalition”, I doubt EPP would be on their side. I think it’s way more likely that they’d side with other forces like S&D or RE and try to stop them.
In conclusion: yeah it sucks that Renew has lost so many seats, and it also sucks that far right voters seem to prefer the way more extreme ID to the comparatively more sane ECR, but things aren’t nearly as tragic as the media is portraying them to be.
His work in eradicating gang violence was impressive, I get why the few Salvadorians who aren’t behind bars would vote for him. Although I can’t help but wonder about how many people might have gotten unjustly incarcerated because of how much power he’s given to the police.