I first began kicking around the idea of this column on last Monday's "Five O'Clock Somewhere" VIP chat. I spent two days trying to come up with a headline — which is a frequent delay in my process — so it didn't get written in a timely fashion. My good friend and longtime colleague Stephen Green finally rescued me from whatever wordy nonsense I'd come up with and thought of something more economical.
By the time Wednesday afternoon rolled around and I hadn't gotten to it yet, I realized that it would be good Independence Day material, so I delayed it one more day.
Now you can see why I don't do any breaking news stuff here.
Democrats love to blather on and on about "inclusion." One of the dumbest watchwords of this faux virtue signaling is "othering," Leftists use it to pretend that they're opposed to people being marginalized in any way. In reality, they spend most of their energy "othering" any people who won't yield to their hive mind way of life.
A core belief in the Democrats' mythology is that they represent mainstream political hopes and dreams in America. They convince themselves of this by rarely, if ever, associating with anyone who isn't ideologically in sync.
When selling this idea to their low-info base, Dems are fond of saying that their way of thinking and doing things is what's acceptable throughout the Western world. The politics of Republicans and conservatives represent an extremist fringe that's loathed by our allies, according to the tale. You're either on board with their globalist new world order, or you're a knuckle-dragging, populist rube whose horrible parents never let you read cartoons from The New Yorker when you were growing up.
If you look at elections around the world right now, however, that's not really how things are playing out. There may not be a MAGA wave crashing on the shores of Western countries, but it is plain to see that not everyone is on board with the Left's statist fever dream.
My HotAir colleague David Strom wrote a great piece on Tuesday titled "The Establishment Is Getting Crushed" that addressed some things that have been running through my head recently. Here's an excerpt:
What seems to be going on is a universal dissatisfaction with how the ruling elite have been running things, and with good reason. Whether it is conservatives, liberals, or "moderates," the ruling elite has been committed to policies that have eroded the power of individuals and vastly increased the power of the state.
Moreover, Western governments have made abundantly clear that their commitment has been to a form of transnationalism that has grown increasingly unpopular. As borders have opened up throughout the West, citizens have grown restless as crime has skyrocketed, economic growth has slowed, and national cultures have been diluted.
As David notes, the center-left has been in power in "most places," making it seem like conservatism is on a roll. The one notable exception to that would be our British friends, where the conservatives just found another reason to hate the Fourth of July.
I agree with David that we are witnessing a repudiation of the establishment, but I also think that a lot of conservative ideas are being embraced around the world because they're — SURPRISE! — good ideas. Those ideas are far more mainstream than leftists will ever admit, which is why so many people around the world are enthusiastically opting for them. The Brits are a real outlier here and probably provide the greatest example of weariness with the establishment.
They'll also probably get a pretty quick case of buyer's remorse after Labour's landslide victory.
Mainstream media hacks here in the States lost it when Giorgia Meloni became the prime minister of Italy a couple of years ago. She was the first female to ever win the job, which is the kind of historic win for diversity that our fake journo class purports to champion. Meloni is a conservative, though, so it was nothing but prophecies of doom issuing forth from the MSMers here.
Italy is doing just fine, by the way.
In Argentina, President Javier Milei is more libertarian than anything but is having great success by doing some things that U.S. conservatives would love to see happen here. As my good friend Stephen Green wrote in early May, Milei is "absolutely killing it" by doing things like balancing the country's budget and doing an Argentinian version of draining the Swamp.
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has been elevated to near mythic status by being a stone-cold hard ass on crime and ridding his country of the gang violence that had been plaguing it for so long. Earlier this year, Bukele won reelection with almost eighty-five percent of the vote.
France will vote on Sunday in the second round of its legislative elections, facing the prospect that the right-wing National Rally party could secure the majority it needs to wrest control away from Emmanuel Macron's so-called "centrist alliance."
Spoiler alert: Macron is a lefty.
The leftist cheerleaders in the American mainstream media are in full garment-rending mode about Meloni, Milei, and Bukele, as well as the mere specter of Nation Rally's Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. Bardella will become prime minister if National Rally picks up enough seats. When writing about any of these people, the MSM bandies about "populist," "nationalist," and "authoritarian" ad nauseam.
Any political sentiment or philosophy can become dangerous in the extreme. Leftists treat any populist or nationalist sentiment as a crime against humanity, though. And in the leftists' world, "authoritarian" means any leader who won't let them be, you know, authoritarian.
As we all know, the Democrats have tried to turn "populism" into a smear in their attempts to "other" Trump supporters and convince people that we're extremists.
Nah, we're just not down with your brand of sugar-coated totalitarianism. We love our freedom.
Look around, lefties; we are not alone in feeling that way.
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