Why has what's happening in Europe and the U.S. come as such a shock to the elites?
The populist right is ascendant all across the European continent and in America as well. The fact that this should be a mystery to the liberal media and leftist commentariat only shows how out of touch they are with the masses.
AfD in Germany, National Rally in France, Freedom Party in the Netherlands, and Brothers of Italy are not right-wing fringe parties. The Brothers of Italy took power in a stunning election victory last year. Its leader, Giorgia Meloni, serves as Italy's prime minister.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally in France, is more popular than French President Emanuel Macron. The AfD (Alternative for Germany), Germany's populist party, now polls higher than each of the three parties currently governing Germany. And the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) cemented the rise of the right in Europe with a smashing victory at the polls last week.
Wilders's victory left the elites and left-wing commentators gasping for air. How could this happen? How could these troglodytes win in civilized nations of old Europe?
Oliver Wiseman writing in the Free Press noticed the lack of serious commentary as well.
And yet serious, good-faith examinations of why outsider parties are faring so well are hard to come by. Instead, we must wade through unhelpful, knee-jerk descriptions of everyone from an Argentine libertarian to an Italian Catholic national-conservative to a Dutch agnostic nativist as “Trump-like.” The comparison usually prefaces a shallow, parochial analysis.
In a post on the recent string of victories for radical right-wingers, the economist and blogger Tyler Cowen noted that “if you can’t talk about/think about/write about these developments without perpetually moralizing, it is hard to be an intelligent commentator today,” adding that “if your main theory here is ‘racism,’ your contribution to the discourse probably is negative.”
"Racism," "nativism," or thinly veiled references to Hitler and fascism are substitutes for serious analysis. We see this phenomenon repeating itself over and over. Le Pen is often connected to her radical right father who was a noted anti-Semite. In Germany, the media and opposition don't even have to try very hard to portray AfD as the second coming of you know who, and his initials are AH. Or rather, the media doesn't make any effort to not make the comparison to fascists.
As for Wilders, his advocacy for Dutch culture and demands that Muslims assimilate into Dutch society used to be fringe positions. They're fully mainstream now.
In Europe, where the population is aging and starting to shrink, fears of the demographic future are influencing politics today. Many anti-immigrant positions excoriated as “far right” are becoming mainstream, or, as some say, “the new normal.”
During his 25 years in the Dutch Parliament, Mr. Wilders, with his peroxide blond hair and calls to close mosques and Islamic schools, was long seen as a fringe figure. But last year, another 400,000 asylum seekers entered Holland, squeezing an already tight housing market in a nation of 18 million. This fall, Wilders, the longest-serving member of parliament, campaigned against the “asylum tsunami.” Last week in his victory speech, he promised to end the “immigration tsunami.” “The Dutch will be Number 1 again,” said the man sometimes called “the Dutch Donald Trump.” “The people must get their nation back.”
Joe Biden has been turning backward handsprings trying to hide the crisis at the border. He refuses to recognize the plight of his fellow liberal Democrats running big cities because to do so would mean he would have to declare a national emergency at the border. Meanwhile, women and children are being forced to sleep outside in Chicago, New York, Boston, and other big Northern cities because the federal government refuses to give the mayors the resources they need to deal with the crisis.
Biden is trying to avoid the fate of leaders in Europe who also refused to acknowledge the crisis and suffered ignominious defeats at the polls. But with the number of border crossers rising, it's getting harder and harder for the president to disguise the flood of humanity that's washing over our shores.
