Immigration Fatigue Defines Dutch Elections

This is a great piece!

From Andrew Michta, at the American Interest:

A predictor for Europe: Immigration Fatigue Defines Dutch Elections @aminterest @RealClearWorld @Marshall_Center https://t.co/a5PdOqX0z1

— Andrew A. Michta (@andrewmichta) March 14, 2017

No matter the outcome, tomorrow’s parliamentary elections in the Netherlands will widen the divisions between European elites and publics.

As the Netherlands enters the final stretch in its 2017 election campaign, all eyes have turned to watch the political churning in this small but potentially significant EU member state. The intense interest by the international media is warranted; the Dutch election is the first of the “decisive three of 2017” (followed by elections in France and Germany) that many analysts believe will be leading indicators of the evolution of European politics in coming years. This has made the Dutch balloting in effect the first major European referendum on the past three decades’ immigration policy not only for Holland but also for the largest European countries.

Across Europe there has been a lot of polling, theorizing, opining, and (quite frankly) reading of tea leaves about the outcome of this vote. Paradoxically, the actual numbers of this election matter less than the political undercurrents it has brought to the surface. Geert Wilders’s anti-establishment, anti-immigration Party of Freedom (PVV) may still be positioned to deliver a stunning upset, though newer polling suggests a much tighter race. Still, the recent collapse of popular support for the social-democratic Labor Party (PvdA), a coalition partner of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) since 2012, has made any firm predictions about the outcome a mug’s game. Regardless of whether Geert Wilders’s PVV overtakes or comes a few seats short of current Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD, election day will permanently alter Dutch politics—and the politics of Europe.

The consensus seems to be that, even if Wilders delivers an upset, it is unlikely that his party will be able to enter into a coalition government, and so it will most likely become an opposition party in Parliament. Still, even if the PVV is not able to enter into a coalition, much less form a government, its gains will shrink the center of Dutch politics, making the building of a workable coalition much more difficult. Most importantly, the Dutch election is likely to herald a broader European trend of the center losing more and more ground to extreme left and right political parties. As in the United Kingdom and the United States, the perception that elite policies have failed has spread throughout Dutch society. Wilders’s anti-immigrant message has resonated especially in the aftermath of the 2015-16 wave of migration from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA); the Netherlands has been a prime destination for migrants on account of its generous immigration and welfare policies.

Will the past three decades of multiculturalism and institutionalism continue to define the Continent’s future? This is precisely the question at issue in Europe today. The idea that Europe can in fact become a tapestry of comingling ethnicities and cultures has in only the past couple of years met with hardening resistance, not just in smaller countries like the Netherlands and Sweden but also, and perhaps more importantly, in the largest EU countries, including Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain. The gathering anti-immigrant rebellion in Europe has fueled a resurgent nationalism that cannot simply be dismissed as “populism” or “Islamophobia”—the default position of most media commentary. The predominantly Muslim wave of the current migration—including, for instance, the nearly one million MENA migrants that are estimated to have entered Germany in 2015–16—has contributed to the largest mass migration in Europe since the end of the Second World War (and furthermore, for the first time ever, members of the migrant wave predominantly hail from outside of Europe). At the same time, because of low levels of acculturation among these immigrants, citizenship in Europe is not generally seen as the primary identity marker. Public perceptions and differentiation in Europe increasingly focus on ethnic origin and religion. Hence, unlike in the United States, it matters less and less whether the Muslim population is first, second, or even third generation. One in five people living in the Netherlands is an immigrant or a child of immigrants. This is especially important in larger Dutch cities; for instance, in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, close to half of the population has a first- or second-generation immigrant background. For young people, the numbers are even higher, approaching two-thirds of school age children in those two cities. The high concentration of immigrant populations in Europe’s large cities is a pattern repeated across the Continent, from Paris and Copenhagen through Stockholm and Frankfurt to London and Brussels. The progressive balkanization of neighborhoods in these large cities of Western Europe is polarizing politics and raising tensions between the indigenous European population and immigrants and their descendants...

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Left-Leaning Parties Falter in Europe

Via Memeorandum and Protein Wisdom, "Labour Suffers Wipeout in its Worst Local Election Results."

It turns out the Gordon Brown's party lost 300 local council seats in Labour's worst electoral blowout in thirty years.

But its not just Labour Party corruption in Britain that explains the wipeout. Social Democrat parties in Europe are facing rejection by voters. And this is counterintuitive. Marxist scholars have argued that the current economic crisis makes socialist policies more vital than ever. But perhaps not, actually. Take a look at today's Wall Street Journal, "Across Europe, Left-Leaning Parties See Clout Faltering":

The economic recession should have meant easy votes for Europe's left-wing movements, longtime critics of unchecked capitalism.

Yet as Europe goes to the polls, left-leaning parties across the continent are looking likely to falter. That's true both for those in government, such as in the U.K. and Spain, and in the opposition -- such as France, Germany and Italy.

France's Socialist Party is trying hard to rally voters ahead of Sunday's European parliamentary elections. "Let's unite with all the French who contest free market, unfair policies that aim at deregulating everything," party leader Martine Aubry urged at a pre-election rally.

Yet less than 20% of voters say they plan to cast their ballot for the Socialist Party, according to recent surveys. That would be a weak performance considering France's main opposition party got 29% of the votes in the last European parliamentary elections.

In Germany, the Social Democrats are expected to get only around 26% on Sunday, consistent with their low opinion-poll ratings ahead of Germany's national elections in September. Italy's center-left Partito Democratico is expected to get a similar percentage.

One reason is that as Europe tipped into recession, the right moved left -- appropriating some of the left's long-standing economic policies, including nationalizations and bailouts.

French conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, helped recapitalize French banks, earmarked six billion euros for the auto sector and lashed out at "rascal bosses" with huge pay packages.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has planted her conservative camp firmly in the political center. Ms. Merkel has largely given up her former program of market-oriented reforms, and has gradually approved various kinds of state intervention to protect workers during the current recession, from bailing out carmaker Opel to subsidizing payrolls at companies whose export orders have collapsed.

Even before that, right-wing parties across the continent began offering more pragmatic approaches to policy than they had traditionally done. In the past decade, conservative parties introduced competition or privatized some public services in France, Germany and Italy -- but they refrained from dismantling the health-care and public transport services cherished by voters.

In the past, there was a clear fault line between Europe's left-wing and right-wing parties. The left called for more social welfare programs and public spending. The right wanted the state not to interfere in market forces.

Read the whole thing, here. More commentary at Memeorandum.

What does this mean for the U.S.?

See Charlie Cook's analysis, "A Split Decision In 2010 Races?"

What #PresidentTrump Gets Right About #NATO

This is great!

From Professor Michael Mandelbaum, at Foreign Affairs, "Pay Up, Europe":

Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, has a point about Europe and NATO. In May, in a speech at the alliance’s headquarters, in Brussels, he told his fellow leaders that “NATO members must finally contribute their fair share.” In July, he repeated the warning in Warsaw. “Europe must do more,” he said.

European leaders may find these demands grating, especially given Trump’s unpopularity among their constituents, but they should heed them. In recent years, Europe has become a dangerous place. In search of domestic support, Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned to aggression abroad, invading Ukraine and intervening in Syria. Since any one military adventure can provide only a temporary popularity boost, Putin will always need new victims. That makes him an ongoing threat. Just when NATO has once again become necessary for Europe’s security, however, Trump’s election has thrown the future of the U.S. role in the alliance into doubt.

For these reasons, Trump is right: to strengthen NATO and encourage the United States to continue its commitment to European security, the alliance’s European members should contribute more. Just as important for European and Western security, however, is for the United States to lead other multilateral initiatives to defend the interests and values that North America and Europe have in common. Without that leadership, Europe—and the rest of the world—will be a harsher place.

OLD MISTAKES

For the two and a half decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the word that candidate Trump used to describe NATO—“obsolete”—was largely accurate. It no longer is. In 2014, Russia put an end to the post–Cold War European peace. It invaded Ukraine, backed pro-Russian politicians in eastern European countries, and has since meddled in elections in the United States and France. This renewed aggression stems from Putin’s need for public support to sustain the kleptocracy over which he presides. During his first two terms as president, from 2000 to 2008, the skyrocketing price of oil, Russia’s largest export, allowed Putin to buy popularity. But in 2014, two years after he returned to the presidency, the price of oil collapsed. He was forced to turn to the only other reliable source of support at his disposal: aggressive nationalism. That year, in response to a popular uprising in Ukraine, known as the Euromaidan revolution, that deposed the corrupt, pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, Putin launched an invasion, initially disguised as a spontaneous reaction by local forces. Russian troops seized the Crimean Peninsula and began a campaign to support pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s eastern provinces.

Putin claimed that Russia’s actions were necessary because the Euromaidan revolution stemmed from a Western plot to isolate, humiliate, and ultimately destroy Russia. The Russian public largely believed him. His approval ratings rose sharply, and then got a further boost from his intervention in the Syrian civil war on the side of the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Although Putin and his regime bear the primary responsibility for the return of war to Europe, the West, particularly the United States, has unintentionally helped bring about this dangerous state of affairs. In the 1990s, NATO expanded eastward, against the wishes of Russians across the political spectrum, even those favorably disposed to the West, and in spite of earlier assurances by Western leaders to their Soviet and, later, Russian counterparts that no such expansion would occur.

The West also pursued other policies to which Russia objected in vain, including the U.S.-led wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq and the unilateral U.S. withdrawal in 2002 from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement that had restricted the number of missile defense systems the Soviet Union and the United States could build. Together, these initiatives created a constituency for Putin’s claim, used to justify his aggressive foreign policies, that the West was pursuing an anti-Russian campaign that he was acting to thwart.

Whereas NATO expansion mobilized Russia, it tranquilized the West. To gain domestic acceptance of the policy, Western governments portrayed it as a harmless gesture of goodwill made by an organization that was transforming itself from a defensive multinational army into a benign club of democracies. Expansion, its sponsors claimed, would require no exertion or expense on the part of current NATO members. Nor would Russia object to it, they added, in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary. These false claims have left the ultimate arbiters of NATO’s fate—the voters of the alliance’s member countries—unprepared for the renewed threat in Europe and the need for increased efforts to meet it...

Keep reading.

National Front Smashes French Establishment in European Parliament Elections

At the Guardian UK, "Front National wins European parliament elections in France."

And at Telegraph UK, "EU elections 2014: France's Hollande holds crisis talks on record far-Right win":

President François Hollande staged a crisis cabinet meeting at the Elysée Palace this morning as France reeled from the “earthquake” of seeing the far-Right Front National come first in European elections.

The deeply unpopular Mr Hollande scrambled his government to find ways to parry what is the French Socialist Party’s worst score since European elections were first held in 1979.

The president may make a televised statement reacting to the rout that saw Marine Le Pen’s FN come top in a nationwide vote for the first time in its 40-year history. Sunday’s election saw FN clinch almost 25 per cent of the vote, according to IFOP, quadrupling its 2009 score.

Miss Le Pen said it constituted a "massive rejection of the European Union" and a desire for “politics by the French, for the with the French". “They don’t want to be led anymore from outside, to submit to laws,” she insisted.

The FN finished well ahead of the opposition centre-Right UMP of Nicolas Sarkozy, on 20.8 per cent, and which remains deeply split over Europe and appears on course for another bloody leadership battle.

The ruling Socialists mustered less than 14 per cent with the centrist UDI-Modem on 9.9 per cent and the Greens on 8.9 per cent.

This suggests the FN will now have 24 seats in the European Parliament of the 74 allotted to France – up from three in 2009 – leaving the UMP with 20, the Socialists with 13, the centrists with seven and the Greens with six.

While other parties’ main message on Europe appeared ill-defined or even divided, "the Front National was able to mobilise the electorate thanks to a clear line on Europe and immigration”, Joël Gombin, an FN expert, told Le Nouvel Observateur.

Hmm, I wonder if these result have implication for the 2014 midterms back in the states? Perhaps there's a desire for "politics by the Americans, for the with the Americans."

PREVIOUSLY: "UKIP's Political Earthquake."

Conservative Amnesia

Center-right parties in Europe have forgotten how to be conservative, argues Jan-Werner Mueller, at Foreign Policy, "Europe Forgot What ‘Conservative’ Means":

Whether or not to adapt to right-wing populism constitutes the major strategic dilemma for Europe’s center-right today, writes Jan-Werner Mueller. https://t.co/2hYxTYgKKd

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) March 21, 2018

Conventional wisdom has it that Europe’s social democrats are in terminal decline. In recent elections in Italy, Germany, and France, once proud left-wing mass parties have been reduced to at best getting a fifth of the vote. The obvious flip side of the mainstream left’s decline seems to be that populists but also the center-right are faring well. In fact, this picture is highly misleading. Center-right parties — European Christian democrats above all — face a real crisis. It is increasingly unclear what they stand for, and, unlike social democrats, they are in real danger of being replaced by the populist right.

Social democrats have been struggling because the “Third Way” pursued by leaders such as Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder during the late 1990s left them with an enormous credibility problem. They had not just tolerated but actively furthered finance capitalism; deregulation and increasing inequality happened under the watch of nominally left-wing governments, which today are perceived as having betrayed socialist ideals. But, importantly, it is not really in doubt what these ideals are. As the surprise success of Jeremy Corbyn in last year’s British general elections demonstrated, the left can still do remarkably well, under two conditions: Social democrats have to restore their credibility and reorient public attention away from the one issue that is most likely to split its core constituency — immigration. Whether one likes Corbyn’s ideas or not, it is remarkable that a grassroots movement, Momentum, largely captured the Labour Party and effectively erased its toxic association with the widely discredited Blairism.

In somewhat similar fashion, Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) has been trying to assert an agenda offering better protection for workers and more accessible health care. While this month’s decision to re-enter a grand coalition with the Christian Democrats has temporarily obscured this reorientation, the SPD will likely continue to sharpen its profile as a distinctively left-wing party in government.

If one asks, by contrast, what exactly Europe’s center-right stands for today, most citizens will be unable to articulate an answer. This has partly to do with historical amnesia — including forgetfulness on the part of center-right leaders themselves. After World War II, Christian democrats dominated politics in Germany, Italy, and, to a lesser extent, France. The circumstances were uniquely favorable for such moderate center-right parties, which claimed a religious, though nonsectarian, inspiration. Fascism had discredited the nationalist right; the horrors of the midcentury made many Europeans look for moral certainty in religion; and in the context of the Cold War, Christian democrats presented themselves as quintessentially anti-communist actors. Not least, they suggested that there was an affinity between the materialism of classical liberalism on the one hand and communism on the other — and that they were the only parties that clearly rejected both in favor of communitarian values. It is virtually forgotten today that Christian democratic parties had strong progressive elements — even if one occasionally gets a glimpse of that past: Matteo Renzi, who resigned as leader of Italy’s major left-wing party this month, had actually started his political life as a Christian Democrat.

Above all, Christian democrats were the original architects of European integration. They deeply distrusted the nation-state; the fact that, in the 19th century, both the newly unified Italy and the Germany united by Otto von Bismarck had waged prolonged culture wars against Catholics was seared in their collective memory. European integration also chimed with a distinct Christian democratic approach to politics in general: the imperative to mediate among distinct identities and interests. Ultimately, this quest for compromise among different groups (and, in Europe, states) went back to Pope Leo XIII’s idea — directed against rising socialist parties — that capital and labor could work together for the benefit of all in a harmonious society. Christian democracy had been a creation to avoid both culture war and class conflict.

Little is left of these legacies today. Christian democrats and other center-right parties continue to be pragmatists, but it is often unclear what, other than the imperative to preserve power, animates them in the first place. The European Union’s three main presidents — of the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council — are all Christian democrats. Yet none of them has advanced a bold vision for the union as a whole. All seem to take it for granted that citizens are wary of further integration. To be sure, this is the narrative right-wing populists push, but evidence from surveys is far more ambiguous.

Whether or not to adapt to right-wing populism constitutes the major strategic dilemma for Europe’s center-right today...

Actually, Christian Democrats today --- think Angela Merkel --- are basically leftists. Yeah, they better learn how to be conservative again, or be relegated to the dustbin of history. They need to conserve their own societies, for one thing. Sheesh.

But keep reading.

Greeks Expect Little from Latest Elections (VIDEO)

Greek voters go to the polls -- again!

At WSJ, "Disillusioned Greeks Hope for Stability, and Little Else, From Sunday’s Elections":

NAOUSA, Greece—Greeks are going to the polls for the third time this year on Sunday, but fewer of them than ever believe their politicians will end the country’s long economic crisis.

After a turbulent year including elections in January, a referendum in July, a showdown with Europe and the imposition of crippling capital controls, the only thing many Greeks hope for from Sunday’s new parliamentary elections is some calm that would allow them to get on with their lives and searches for prosperity.

“These constant elections bring everything to a halt in business. Nobody is hiring, everyone is waiting to see what will happen,” says Panagiotis Fountoulakis, a former information-technology manager who says he needs to find work again by this winter before his family’s savings run out. “Political stability is my big wish, but I’m not confident we will get it.”

Disaffection with politics and a potentially low turnout could decide who wins Sunday’s contest: Syriza and its leader, Alexis Tsipras—who stepped down as premier last month to trigger snap elections—or their conservative challengers New Democracy under Vagelis Meimarakis. The two parties are neck and neck, according to most opinion polls.

The victor will probably have to form a coalition government. In Greece such pacts are usually fractious and short-lived. Policies will be heavily constrained by the bailout agreement with Europe that Mr. Tsipras signed this summer, which imposes further fiscal retrenchment after five years of unpopular austerity...

Keep reading.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi Announces Resignation (VIDEO)

That's major!

At WSJ, "Italy Rejects Reforms, Matteo Renzi Announces Resignation":

ROME—Italian voters on Sunday rejected constitutional changes backed by the government, prompting Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to announce his resignation and handing populists a victory in the heartland of Europe.

With 91% of votes counted, 59.7% of voters delivered a stinging rebuke to Mr. Renzi’s plan to overhaul Italy’s legislature to make it easier to pass laws, including measures meant to make the country more competitive.

Mr. Renzi said he would go to Italian President Sergio Mattarella Monday afternoon to tender his resignation.

“I take full responsibility for the defeat,” Mr. Renzi said in an address from Palazzo Chigi, the premier’s residence. The Italian people “have spoken in a clear and unequivocal way...we leave with no regrets,” he added.

The result means uncertainty in Italy, the European Union’s fourth-largest economy, as the bloc struggles to revive growth and define its future. Mr. Renzi’s resignation could clear the way for the formation of a caretaker government and, possibly, new parliamentary elections next year.

Among the biggest winners from Italy’s vote is the antiestablishment 5 Star Movement, which campaigned against Mr. Renzi and his agenda, saying more radical change is needed. The party has called for a nonbinding referendum on Italy’s euro membership. It also wants to abandon EU budget strictures and has said it might favor printing a parallel currency.

Public-opinion surveys indicate that roughly 30% of Italians would back 5 Star candidates if parliamentary elections were held now. That puts it neck-and-neck with Mr. Renzi’s Democratic Party and means it will have an influential voice and could even end up in power—an outcome that could ultimately threaten the integrity of the eurozone and its common currency.

Giampaolo Brunelli, a 43-year-old supporter of the 5 Star Movement, voted against the reform Sunday morning. “Renzi hasn’t done much to change this country—just like all the other politicians before him,” he said after voting in Rome.

Europe is facing a prolonged period of political upheaval, with elections also slated for 2017 in Germany, France and the Netherlands, all countries where economic anxiety, opposition to the EU and a surge in migration have fed growing support for populist parties.

Such sentiments were also at play in Austria on Sunday, when center-left candidate Alexander Van der Bellen defeated Norbert Hofer in Austria’s presidential race by 53.3% to 46.7%, according to a final count of votes case on Sunday and a projection of mail-in ballot results.

The vote ended Mr. Hofer’s bid to become the first right-wing populist president in postwar Western Europe, but the election brought to light widespread discontent with the country’s political establishment. Like the other populists across the continent, Mr. Hofer wanted to roll back the power of the European Union, toughen border controls, crack down on the flow of refugees and migrants to Europe and improve relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin...

More.

I like how WSJ identifies Hofer's party as "right-wing populist" and not "far-right" like almost all of the pathetic leftist outlets always do.

More at Telegraph U.K., "Live — Matteo Renzi concedes defeat in Italian referendum and steps down as prime minister."

Is the West Disintegrating?

From Pat Buchanan, at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Is the West done?":

On Jan. 1, 2002, the day that euro coins and bank notes entered into circulation, my column “Say goodbye to the mother continent” contained this pessimistic prognosis: “This European superstate will not endure but break apart on the barrier reef of nationalism. For when the hard times come, patriots will recapture control of their national destinies from Brussels bureaucrats to whom no one will ever give loyalty or love.”

The column described what was already happening.

“Europe is dying. There is not a single nation in all of Europe with a birth rate sufficient to keep its population alive except Muslim Albania.”

What was predicted 14 years ago has come to pass.

Migrants into Germany from the Middle and Near East reached 1 million in 2015. EU bribes to the Turks to keep Muslim migrants from crossing over to the Greek islands, thence into the Balkans and Central Europe, are unlikely to stop the flood.

My prediction that European “patriots will recapture control of their national destinies” looks even more probable today.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who almost lost a referendum on Scottish secession, is demanding a return of British sovereignty from the EU sufficient to satisfy his countrymen, who have been promised a vote on whether to abandon the European Union altogether.

Marine Le Pen's anti-EU National Front ran first in the first round of the 2015 French elections. Many Europeans believe she will make it into the final round of the next presidential election in 2017.

Anti-immigrant right-wing parties are making strides all across Europe, as the EU is bedeviled by a host of crises.

Mass migration into the EU is causing member nations to put up checkpoints and close borders. The Schengen Agreement on the free movement of goods and people is being ignored or openly violated.

Then there is the surge of sub-nationalism, as in Scotland, Catalonia, Flanders and Veneto, where people seek to disconnect from distant capitals that no longer speak for them and reconnect with languages, traditions and cultures that give more meaning to their lives.

Moreover, the migrants entering Europe, predominantly Islamic and Third World, are not assimilating as did the European and largely Christian immigrants to America of a century ago. The enclaves of Asians in Britain, Africans and Arabs around Paris, and Turks in and around Berlin seem to be British, French and German in name only. And some of their children are now heeding the call to jihad against the crusaders invading Muslim lands.

If these trends continue, and they seem to have accelerated in 2015, the idea of a United States of Europe dies, and with it, the EU...

Still more.

French Far Right Challenges Both Europe and Sarkozy

At the New York Times, "French Far Right a Challenge for Europe and Sarkozy":

PARIS — To win re-election in the runoff on May 6 against the Socialist François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy will need the support of right-wing voters who have turned their backs on him, disappointed with his presidency.

But there are serious questions as to whether he can win them over, and even if he does, a strong shift to the right would make his European partners uneasy. The next two weeks of the campaign are likely to put a united Europe even more in the cross hairs, with Mr. Sarkozy calling for more protectionism and Mr. Hollande for more growth and easier money, challenging the German calls for austerity.

Already on Monday, major European leaders from Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, to Sweden’s foreign minister, Carl Bildt, said they were disturbed by the level of support for the far right in France, and the markets are worried that the elections may disrupt efforts to solve the region’s debt and banking crisis.

Mr. Sarkozy won the presidency five years ago by attracting many supporters of the far-right National Front, but in Sunday’s first round, they deserted him, voting instead for the party’s own candidate, Marine Le Pen, who won about 18 percent of the ballots cast, a record for her party. Mr. Sarkozy won 1.6 million votes fewer than he did in the first round of 2007, when he got about 31 percent of the vote, compared with about 27 percent on Sunday.

Ms. Le Pen got twice as many votes as her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, did in 2007. She called it a fundamental change in French politics. “We have exploded the monopoly of the two parties,” she said. “Whatever might happen in the 15 days to come, the battle for France is only beginning. Nothing will ever be the same again.”

Still, France will have to choose between “the two parties” — Mr. Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement and Mr. Hollande’s Socialists — and which way the angry voters of France turn, from both the far left and far right, will decide the election. There are more right-leaning voters than left-leaning voters in France, but polls show that there is a significant group of right-wing voters who have apparently had enough of Mr. Sarkozy, even if the alternative is Mr. Hollande.

Ms. Le Pen and her officials called on her supporters to abstain on May 6 and instead concentrate on the legislative elections in June, and Ms. Le Pen’s father, the party’s founder, said bluntly that Mr. Sarkozy had lost.

Opinion polls are notoriously inaccurate when it comes to the National Front, since its supporters sometimes lie to pollsters about their intentions. But numerous Le Pen supporters share their leaders’ distaste for Mr. Sarkozy and the establishment of whatever stripe, and some youthful supporters of the National Front, jobless and angry about the European Union and globalization, are likely to find the social policies of Mr. Hollande more attractive than a continued dose of austerity. Despite her stands against immigration and radical Islam, Ms. Le Pen’s economic positions — including more state spending on jobs and benefits — were to the left.

Sylvain Crépon, a sociologist of extremist political movements at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, said that Ms. Le Pen had skillfully democratized xenophobia by “tying it in republicanism,” the values of secular France. That is a Sarkozy theme as well, as he has railed against unlabeled halal meat and full-face veils. Just last week, Mr. Sarkozy joined with Berlin in calling formally for a radical restructuring of the Schengen agreement that provides for visa-free travel in Europe and proposing that governments be allowed to re-establish national borders temporarily in the face of poorly controlled immigration on Europe’s borders.

And see Der Spiegel, "Le Pen's Result 'Is a Blemish on French Democracy'."

Greece Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Resigns! Snap Elections Called! (VIDEO)

I saw something about new elections in Greece last night, but nothing about the prime ministers resignation.

But it's official.

At WSJ, "Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Resigns, Clearing Way for Elections in Bid to Uphold Bailout Deal":

ATHENS—Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned in a bid to trigger snap elections and return to power stronger, plunging his country into weeks of political paralysis just as it seemed to have scraped through a summer of fraught bailout talks and near-bankruptcy.

Mr. Tsipras’s gambit, announced in a short televised address late on Thursday, is expected to lead to his re-election in September, thanks to his popularity and the absence of strong challengers. But whether elections bolster his grip on Parliament, as he hopes, hinges on his ability to persuade Greeks that the €86 billion ($96 billion) bailout he negotiated with Europe is the only path out of the country’s long crisis.

Greece’s head of state, President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, was expected to accept Mr. Tsipras’s proposal to hold the vote on Sept. 20.

The election will effectively be a referendum on the 41-year-old Mr. Tsipras and his bailout agreement with the rest of the eurozone.

The deal commits Greece to further years of stringent economic retrenchment, including tax increases and cuts to pension entitlements. Greeks elected Mr. Tsipras and his left-wing Syriza party only in January this year to put an end to five years of unpopular austerity measures, which the country’s creditors demanded in exchange for bailout loans.

Mr. Tsipras’s acceptance in July of creditors’ policy demands followed months of diplomatic confrontation. The standoff ultimately led to Greece defaulting on its debts to the International Monetary Fund and imposing capital controls, further battering Greece’s depressed economy.

The premier’s U-turn has split Syriza. Dozens of his lawmakers have withheld support for legislation needed to clinch the bailout package. Mr. Tsipras has had to rely on the votes of opposition parties, but they have warned they won’t prop him up for long...

More.

Der Spiegel: An Atmosphere of Suspicion in Europe

See, "European Right Under Pressure in Wake of Attacks":

Europe's right-wing populists are not used to being on the defensive. But the perpetrator of last Friday's horrific attacks in Norway was steeped in their anti-immigration, Muslim-skeptical ideology. They now find themselves in an uncomfortable position.

It was a somber gathering on the street out in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin on Monday. Several people filed by throughout the morning to lay flowers in front of the embassy gates and Social Democrat leader Sigmar Gabriel also came to show his respect and sympathy in the wake of the Friday attacks which killed 76 people in Oslo and on the island of Utøya.

Just over a dozen of those standing in front of the embassy were holding signs: "The Capital of Fear? Not with Us!" they read, beneath the image of an ominous-looking figure wearing a black balaclava. The group belonged to the small right-wing populist group Pro-Deutschland. "Solidarity with Oslo!" the group chanted.

"When something so terrible happens in Europe, we felt that we needed to express our sympathy," Manfred Rouhs, the small party's lead candidate in upcoming Berlin city-state elections, told SPIEGEL ONLINE on Tuesday. "We also saw it as an opportunity to clearly distance ourselves from the terrible deed."

That, it would seem, has been tops on the priority list for right-wing populist groups around Europe so far this week. Muslim-skeptic, anti-immigration populist groups across Europe have rushed to condemn the attacks perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik and to portray him as a disturbed loner. The English Defense League, for example, referred to him as a "murderous creature," the Freedom Party of Austria called it a "psychopathic crime."

RTWT.

Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban Rejects Angela Merkel's 'Welcoming' Ideology of Unchecked Immigration Suicide

Well a right-wing party, and apparently anti-immigrant, just won the majority in Poland's parliamentary elections this week, so perhaps we're witnessing a major shift in European politics. Or at least, in East European politics.

From James Traub, at Foreign Policy, "The Fearmonger of Budapest":

BUDAPEST, Hungary — The European response to the refugee crisis that escalated this August has two poles: Germany’s Angela Merkel and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Merkel has consistently maintained that the immense flow of refugees from Middle Eastern war zones constitutes a collective moral obligation for Europe; Orban has called this view a species of madness. Orban is as powerful a spokesman for nativism and xenophobia as Merkel is for universalism.

And Orban got there first. In mid-January, after attending a mass rally in Paris honoring the victims of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and at a kosher supermarket, Orban said in an interview, “We should not look at economic immigration as if it had any use, because it only brings trouble and threats to European people. Therefore, immigration must be stopped.” Orban was quite explicit about the kind of immigration he especially opposed. “We do not want to see a significant minority among ourselves that has different cultural characteristics and background,” he said. “We would like to keep Hungary as Hungary.” That was the lesson he took from Charlie Hebdo.

Orban is fully prepared to wade into the darkest pools of the Hungarian psyche. In April, still well before the refugee flood, Orban’s government distributed a questionnaire to all adult Hungarians which stated, among other things, “Some people believe that the mishandling of immigration issues in Brussels and the spread of terrorism are connected.” It then went on to ask, “Do you agree with this opinion?” Citizens were also told, “Some people say that immigrants threaten the jobs and livelihood of Hungarians,” then asked, “Do you agree?” The U.N.’s human rights commission condemned the questionnaire as “extremely biased” and “absolutely shocking.” Nevertheless, most of those who bothered to answer did, of course, agree. Having thus manufactured a show of public support, Orban’s Fidesz party posted billboards around the country with messages like, “If you come to Hungary, you cannot take the jobs of Hungarians.”

Orban had prepared the Hungarian people in advance for the Biblical tide of refugees who began pouring through Hungary on their way to Germany or Sweden. The fences he ordered built at the border with Serbia and then with Croatia; his use of the army to turn back refugees; his scathing rhetoric; his passage of emergency laws that criminalized the very act of seeking asylum — all have been denounced across Europe, but they’ve done wonders for his standing at home. In recent years, support had been steadily draining from Fidesz to the ultranationalist Jobbik party, but by September of this year the trend had begun to reverse.

Why is Hungary different? To be fair, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have all resisted the idea of accepting Muslim refugees, but unlike Hungary they don’t have to deal with 300,000 refugees crossing their territory and overwhelming their infrastructure. Yet both Croatia and Slovenia, which have had to deal with refugees diverted from Hungary, have behaved and sounded more like Germany than Hungary. In Slovenia, the army fed the refugees and walked them to the Austrian border. Croatia’s interior minister explained his country’s policy by saying, “Nobody can stop this flow without shooting.”

That is not the view I heard in Budapest, including from people otherwise suspicious of Orban. Istvan Gyarmati, a retired diplomat who now runs a democracy promotion institute in Budapest, told me that “now everyone agrees that Orban was right about the refugees.” It would not be long, he predicted, before Merkel realized that she had a policy and political catastrophe on her hands. I asked Gyarmati how he thought the problem should be resolved. That was easy: “The alternative is to keep them out of Europe.” Once they had fled the war zone for the safety of Turkey or Jordan, they no longer needed asylum or could legally claim such status. They were just migrants. I heard the same argument — which does, in fact, correspond to the letter, if not the spirit, of the Geneva Conventions — from several government officials. When I pointed out that this meant building a wall around Europe, they shrugged...

Traub talked to all these people and he still doesn't get it, marinated in his "welcoming" collectivist ideology that both Poland and Hungary are rejecting.

Put a wall around Europe? Yeah, you think?

Still more.

Sebastian Kurz's People's Party Wins Parliamentary Elections in Austria - UPDATED!

At the Guardian U.K., "Conservative Sebastian Kurz on track to become Austria’s next leader: Centre of political gravity shifts right as projections put 31-year-old Kurz’s Austrian People’s party ahead in election with 31.7%."

And at WaPo, "Austria turns sharply to the right in an election shaped by immigration":

Early exit polls of Austria's Oct. 15 election, suggest Sebastian Kurz, will take his party into a very narrow majority — positioning himself as the next chancellor. The 31-year old conservative is known for his pledge to take the country into a more hard line stance against the influx of refugees and migrants.

BERLIN — Austria became the latest European country to take a sharp turn right on Sunday, with the conservative People’s Party riding a hard-line position on immigration to victory in national elections and likely to form a government with a nationalist party that has long advocated for an even tougher stance.

The result puts the 31-year-old foreign minister and People’s Party leader, Sebastian Kurz, in line to become Austria’s next chancellor after a campaign in which he emphasized the need to strengthen border controls, reduce caps on refugees and slash benefits for newcomers.

Much of Kurz’s rhetoric echoed positions long held by the Freedom Party, which for decades has anchored the far right of politics in this nation of 8.7 million.

With nearly all results counted as of Monday morning, the Freedom Party was in second place at 27.4 percent, with the ruling Social Democrats trailing close behind at 26.7 percent. The People’s Party was the decisive winner, at 31.6 percent.

“I’ll fight with all my strength for change in this country,” Kurz told cheering supporters — many clad in turquoise, the color he adopted to signal a new era for the People’s Party after decades of identification with black. “There’s a lot to do.”

Two years after Austria was among the more welcoming nations in Europe for refugees fleeing en masse across the continent, the results revealed just how sour public sentiment has turned. Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war, oppression and poverty passed through the central European nation on their way to destinations farther north and west in late 2015 and early 2016. Tens of thousands stayed in the country and applied for asylum protection.

“Austrians are fearful because of immigration and the refugee crisis,” said Reinhard Heinisch, a political scientist at the University of Salzburg. “Kurz addressed these fears, and played with these fears.”

As in other elections across Europe this year, the far right made significant progress, but not enough to triumph.

In France this spring, National Front leader Marine Le Pen made it to the final round of the presidential election. Just last month, the Alternative for Germany Party took 13 percent of the vote — putting a far-right party in the German Parliament for the first time in more than half a century.

But unlike in those nations, in Austria the far right is expected to become part of the government. Kurz will need a coalition partner to form a majority in the parliament, and the Freedom Party is considered the most likely option.

If he goes that route, it would end a “grand coalition” between Austria’s center left and center right that has led the country for the past decade, and for much of its modern history.

Some on Sunday called on Kurz to avoid teaming up with the Freedom Party...

A lot of good that'll do. Kurz himself is a former neo-Nazi, according to Sunday's report at the New York Times. I don't care for anyone with that kind of background and I denounce them. But I think it's just deserts for the radical left, who opened up Europe to the Muslim invasion, and thus opened up the European democracies to a resurgence of nativist, even racist, political parties.

More.

UPDATE: Correction, it's not Kurz who belonged to neo-Nazi groups previously, but Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, which came in second in Sunday's election and is likely to enter the government in a coalition with Kurz's People's Party.

Lesson From Iraq: Difficulty is No Cause for Hypercaution

Former Bush administration speechwriter Michael Gerson has a new column up at Newsweek on the lessons to be learned from Iraq. In the opening paragraph he states an obvious point: Regime change is difficult. But he makes a more substantial argument with his case against excessive caution:

There is also danger in learning the wrong lessons from Iraq—or in overlearning the lessons of caution. Some claim the American project in Iraq was doomed from the beginning, because Iraqis and Arabs more broadly are culturally incapable of sustaining democracy. That is a familiar historical charge, made in other periods, against Catholics in Southern Europe, Hindus and Muslims in India, Eastern Orthodox in Eastern Europe, and Confucian cultures across Asia. All of these groups experienced difficult days in their democratic transitions—moments when the skeptics seemed to be vindicated. Did Indian democracy look to be successful when more than a million people died by violence during the partition process in the later 1940s? But in all of these cases, betting against the advance of democracy was a poor wager.

It may be possible that the Arab world is the great exception to this trend of history; but if so, Iraq does not prove it. Americans who first entered Iraq did not report an inevitable sectarian conflict. To the contrary, the Shia were remarkably patient during the first two years after the liberation. Iraqis of every background, including most Sunnis, were pleased that Saddam was gone and were generally inclined to withhold judgment about the occupation. There was little resentment at the size of the occupation force, and great hope that the arrival of the Americans would improve the lives of the Iraqi people. Nor were the successive elections an illusion. They were real achievements. Iraqis voted under considerable threat, in percentages greater than do Western democracies—advances that should not be forgotten or denigrated.

Given these events, an imperious contempt for the Shia—a belief that barbarians will always be barbarians—is neither fair nor helpful. Iraqi patience and goodwill were not lacking; rather, they were squandered when the Coalition failed to provide security and basic services. Sectarian conflict was not preordained—it intensified when many of the Shia lost confidence in the ability of the Coalition and Iraqi army to defend them and turned for protection and revenge to militias and death squads. Iraq does not demonstrate that democracy is impossible in the Arab world; it demonstrates that founding a new democracy is difficult in a nation overrun by militias and insurgents.

This is not to say that support for democracy in the Arab world always requires immediate elections. Such elections in Saudi Arabia, for example, would likely result in a government more oppressive and dangerous than the current one. But in Iraq there was no alternative to elections. After the invasion and liberation—undertaken, it bears repeating, primarily for reasons of national security—the president was not about to install a potential Shia dictator in place of the old Sunni dictator. That kind of cynical power game would likely have facilitated a massive Shia retribution and perhaps even genocide against the Sunnis. Democracy is necessary in Iraq precisely because it is the only political system that eventually can tame sectarian tensions, giving the Shia majority the influence it deserves, while guaranteeing the rights and representation of the Sunni minority.

But democracy in Iraq certainly has enemies—jihadists, Baathist holdouts, and religious militias—who happen to be some of the worst criminals on the global stage. We have been led by history to a simple choice: do we stand with the flawed democrats of Iraq, or abandon them to overthrow and death? Some foreign-policy realists argue that such considerations of honor mean little in international affairs. But this national commitment is more than a matter of chivalry. If America abandons Muslim leaders and soldiers who are risking their lives to fight Islamic radicalism and terror—in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere—the War on Terror cannot be won.

Another false lesson is found in the assertion that the Iraq War has actually been creating the terrorist threat we seek to fight—stirring up a hornet's nest of understandable grievances in the Arab world. In fact, radical Islamist networks have never lacked for historical provocations. When Osama bin Laden proclaimed his 1998 fatwa justifying the murder of Americans, he used the excuse of President Clinton's sanctions and air strikes against Iraq—what he called a policy of "continuing aggression against the Iraqi people." He talked of the "devastation" caused by "horrible massacres" of the 1991 Gulf War. All this took place before the invasion of Iraq was even contemplated—and it was enough to result in the murder of nearly three thousand Americans on 9/11. Islamic radicals will seize on any excuse in their campaign of recruitment and incitement. If it were not Iraq, it would be the latest "crime" of Israel, or the situation in East Timor, or cartoons in a Dutch newspaper, or statements by the pope. The well of outrage is bottomless. The list of demands—from the overthrow of moderate Arab governments to the reconquest of Spain—is endless.

America is not responsible for the existence of Islamist ideology. Yet the shifting prospect of American success or failure in the Iraq War does have an effect on the recruitment of radicals. All "pan movements"—political ideologies that claim historical inevitability—expand or contract based on morale. Bin Laden talks of how the Arab world is attracted to the "strong horse"—the victor, the evident winner—and there is truth in that claim. In an ideological struggle, perception matters greatly, and outcomes matter most. Israel's perceived defeat in Lebanon in 1982 helped produce a generation of terrorists, convinced that armed struggle could humble their enemy. If America were really to retreat in humiliation from Iraq, Islamist radicals would trumpet their victory from North Africa to the islands of the Philippines … increase their recruitment of the angry and misguided … and expand the size and boldness of their attacks.

Perhaps the most dangerous and self-destructive lesson that might be drawn from Iraq is a hyper-caution indistinguishable from paralysis. In a backlash to the Iraq War, some Democrats seem to argue that any future American action or intervention will require both certainty as to the validity of our intelligence and international unanimity. The evidence on weapons of mass destruction must always be conclusive, or else it must always be mocked and dismissed. The United Nations must always grant its blessing and legitimacy. Were America to accept these ground rules, we would become a spectator in world events. The demand for intelligence certainty would allow flickering threats to become raging fires before any action were taken to extinguish them. The demand for international unanimity would make interventions to prevent genocide or ethnic cleansing nearly impossible. America acted in the former Yugoslavia under President Clinton without U.N. support, and may need to do the same in other places in the future. At some point, caution becomes demoralization, and humility becomes humiliation.

That's most of his piece, actually. His new book, from which this excerpt is drawn, might be worth a good look as well.

Alternative for Germany Party Gains Ground Ahead of Elections

Hmm.

At Der Spiegel, "Normalization on the Extreme Right":

The far-right Alternative for Germany party is polling better than it has in several years. With elections approaching next year in a trio of eastern German states, the AfD is seeking to find its way even closer to the political mainstream.

The world wars, says Tino Chrupalla, head of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), were "a catastrophe" for Germany and Europe. They "divided the continent and weakened it permanently."

Chrupalla speaks of Germany’s "defeats." He doesn’t, however, speak of the millions of dead, nor does he make mention of the Holocaust.

Instead, Chrupalla says that he finds it problematic "to always link remembrance with the question of guilt." Culpability issues should be "superseded by the question of the accomplishments of every civilization." That, he says, is a process the AfD would like to initiate. "Historical guilt should no longer determine the way we act."

Those who may still have been wondering where the AfD stands on the political spectrum and what to think of the party’s leader – who is fond of referring to himself as a mainstream conservative – such utterances should make it abundantly clear. The quotes come from an interview Chrupalla gave to the right-wing extremist blog "Sezession," which appeared two weeks ago – right around the time when the rest of Europe was observing Victory in Europe Day.

Chrupalla’s comments are reminiscent of the rather shocking claims of his predecessor Alexander Gauland, who is today honorary chairman of the AfD. In 2018, Gauland said that Germany had a "glorious history that is much longer than 12 years." And: "Dear friends, Hitler and the Nazis are but a spot of bird shit on German history."

Five years ago, Gauland’s statements triggered widespread indignation. Leading politicians from all of Germany’s democratic parties condemned his comments, the German government branded them as "shameful" and all major media outlets covered the story. There were even voices within the AfD itself demanding an apology, which Gauland then half-heartedly delivered. He regrets the impact they made, he said.

But following Chrupalla’s comments? Crickets. There were no objections worthy of note from his own party nor from other politicians – despite the fact that Chrupalla went even further than Gauland. Gauland at least mentioned the Nazis. Chrupalla, though, did not, nor did he say anything about their crimes.

Getting Used to the Party

The incident shows once again just how entrenched the AfD has become, how the party has become an accepted part of Germany’s political landscape. Ten years after its founding, so many have grown used to the party and its beliefs that not even historical revisionism is sufficient to trigger a debate. Instead, other parties have begun cooperating with the AfD time and again, particularly the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), which is part of Germany’s current governing coalition.

Despite being monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, on suspicions of right-wing extremism, the AfD doesn’t just have representatives in almost all of Germany’s state parliaments and in the Bundestag, the federal parliament in Berlin. It is also polling higher in public opinion surveys than it has in five years. A broad feeling of uneasiness with the current situation could be feeding the rise, as could the fact that the number of refugees arriving in Europe has once again ticked upwards. But are such explanations sufficient?

Keep reading. 

The Radical Left's Massive Resistance

The radical left has declared war on the Trump administration, and by extension, all decent Americans.

At FrontPage Magazine, "The 'Resistance' Democrats are a Terrorist Party":

The Democrats have committed to overthrowing our government.

What does #Resistance really mean? It means the overthrow of our government.

In this century, Democrats rejected the outcomes of two presidential elections won by Republicans. After Bush won, they settled for accusing him of being a thief, an idiot, a liar, a draft dodger and a mass murderer. They fantasized about his assassination and there was talk of impeachment. But elected officials gritted their teeth and tried to get things done.

This time around it’s “radically” different.

The official position, from the Senate to the streets, is “Resistance.” Leftist media outlets are feeding the faithful a fantasy that President Trump will be brought down. There is fevered speculation about the 25th Amendment, a coup or impeachment due to whatever scandal has been manufactured last.

This fantasy is part clickbait. Leftist media outlets are feeding the worst impulses of their readers. But there is a bigger and more disturbing radical endgame.

The left can be roughly divided into moderates and radicals. The distinction doesn’t refer to outcome; both want very similar totalitarian societies with very little personal freedom and a great deal of government control. Instead it’s about the tactics that they use to get to that totalitarian system.

 The “moderates” believe in working from within the system to transform the country into a leftist tyranny. The “radicals” believe that the system is so bad that it cannot even be employed for progressive ends. Instead it needs to be discredited and overthrown by radicalizing a revolutionary base.

Radicals radicalize moderates by discrediting the system they want to be a part of. Where moderates seek to impose a false consensus from within the system, radicals attack the system through violent protests and terrorism. Their goal is to set off a chain of confrontations that make it impossible to maintain civil society and polarize the backlash and chaos into consolidating the left for total war.

That is what “Resistance” actually means.

A similar program implemented in Europe, with a covert alliance between Communists and Nazis, led to the deaths of millions, the destruction of much of Europe and the temporary triumph of the left.

The radical left’s efforts in America caused death and destruction but, despite the sympathy of many liberals for terrorist groups such as the Weathermen and the Black Panthers, failed to escalate because the majority of Democrats and even liberals did not accept the premise that our system was illegitimate.

That began to change this century.

64% of Democrats insisted that President Bush had not been legitimately elected. 49% declared that he was not a legitimate president. 22% vowed never to accept him no matter what he might do.

After 9/11, over half of Democrats believed that Bush had known about or been involved in the attacks.

Anywhere from two-thirds to a quarter of the Democrats rejected the results of a presidential election, rejected the president and suspected him of conspiring to murder thousands of Americans.

The left was winning. Much of its natural “moderate” base viewed our government as illegitimate.

The left has declared that President Trump’s victory is illegitimate. The response is “Resistance.” That covers violent anti-government protesters, states declaring that they are no longer bound to follow Federal immigration law and Senators obstructing for the sake of obstruction.

It’s easy to get lost in the partisan turmoil of the moment, but it’s important to understand the implications. If two presidential elections were illegitimate, then our entire system of elections might be illegitimate. And indeed the left made exactly that case with its attack on the Electoral College.

The left pressed Dems to oppose President Trump for the sake of opposition. The goal wasn’t just spite. It was to break the government. When the left forced Senate Dems to filibuster President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, the filibuster became the first casualty of the fight. The goal of the radicals was to make bipartisan legislative activity impossible. Senate Democrats adopted the position of the radical left that their mission was wrecking institutions to deny them to Republicans rather than governing.

Once that was done, the radical left could unveil arguments such as, “The United States Senate is a Failed Institution”. Much like our system of elections and every other part of our government.

The radical left’s goal is to convince its natural base that our system of government is illegitimate. It knows that this can’t be limited to the theoretical level of ideology. Instead it must radicalize by demonstrating it. It does not seriously believe that President Trump will be removed from office by the 25th Amendment or any other aspect of the system. Instead it is feeding these fantasies so that when they fall through those on the left who believed in them will be further radicalized by their failure.

And Democrats have become complicit in the radical left’s program to bring down the government.

They have normalized the radical leftist position that our system is illegitimate. They have moved into the second phase of the left’s program of demonstrating that illegitimacy through confrontation. The final phase is to overthrow the system through actions ranging from protests to terrorism.

This is Cloward-Piven institutional sabotage on a whole other scale. The goal is to collapse our entire system of government. And the Democrats have climbed on board with it using President Trump as a pretext. But regardless of which Republican had won, the end result would have been the same.

The left makes its opposition to the Constitution, the election process and the rule of law into a crisis. And then it uses that crisis to demand a new system. It has pursued this approach successfully in local areas and in narrower causes. This is not the first time that it has embarked on such a project on the national level. But this is the first time that it has the full support of a major national political party.

And that is the true crisis that we face.

The left’s endgame is a totalitarian state. Its “moderates” pursue one by peaceful means only so long as they are allowed to hijack the system. When an election fails to go their way, the radicals brandish it as proof that the system has failed and that violent revolution is the only answer.

But what was once the obscure behavior of a deranged political fringe has become the mainstream politics of the Democrats. The Resistance theme shows that the radicals have won. The Democrats haven’t just fallen to the left. They have fallen to the radical left which believes in overthrowing our system of government through conflict and confrontation rather than covertly engineering change.

The Democrats have become a terrorist party. And their commitment to a radical revolution has plunged our political system into chaos. The left is now exactly where it wanted to be.

And a civil war has begun...

Still more.

UKIP's Political Earthquake

At Blazing Cat Fur, "'The most extraordinary result in 100 years': Farage hails UKIP triumph as Labour and the Tories are humiliated."

And from Enza Ferreri, at Frontpage Magazine, "‘Earthquake’ in the U.K.":

“An earthquake” is how the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) described what happened Thursday May 22 when all Britain voted to elect its share of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and various parts of the country voted to elect local councils.

While the results of the Euro Elections were not announced until Sunday to wait for the results of the whole European Union, where some countries voted later, the local election results were known immediately, and were pretty much as Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, described them: an earthquake. In a country with a three-main-party system (Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats), the UKIP became firmly established as the fourth party. It didn’t gain overall control of any local council, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Labour won 338 more councillors than it previously had, the Conservatives were down 231 councillors, the Liberal Democrats took a bashing losing 307, as many as 40 percent of their councillors, and UKIP went from two to an astonishing 163 councillors, turning from a fringe, tiny party into a serious contender for government.

But it was last night, at the European Elections, that UKIP got a real triumph. Not only did it top the polls with more votes than all other parties for the first time in its history, but its victory also marked the first time in which a nationally-held election has not been won by either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party since 1906.

This historical event upsets all the current paradigms of British politics. For a start, it makes it much more difficult to predict future election results, including the 2015 general elections for the British Parliament, the “real” polls that will decide who’s going to govern the UK.

A three-party system is easier to understand and forecast than a four-party one. Without UKIP, Labour might have been cast as the next British government, benefiting from the dissatisfaction from the supposed “cuts” and “austerity” measures that the present coalition of Tories and Lib Dems in government had to enforce to heal at least in part the ruinously irresponsible economy and welfare policies of the past Labour administration.  Something similar happened in other parts of Europe, hence the BBC’s headline, “Eurosceptic ‘earthquake’ rocks EU elections,” in reference to the parallel result of Marine Le Pen’s Front National which won a record victory in France.

Back in the UK, the Liberal Democrats were almost wiped out from the European Parliament, being left with just one MEP of the 11 they previously had. This is Catherine Zena Bearder, standing in the South East, the largest region in the UK, where my party, one-year-old Liberty GB, got 2494 votes.  These results show a clear shift in public opinion towards a decidedly anti-immigration, anti-European-Union stance.  The reaction of the (previously) three main parties and of the liberal media is interesting because it shows that they simply don’t get it.

They cling to justifications, rationalizations, excuses, pedantic nitpicking, like “it hasn’t been an earthquake because UKIP has no control of a single council” or “it’s just a temporary protest vote. They’ll come back to us.”

Also at London's Daily Mail, "'We're coming for YOU, Red Ed': Farage boasts there is no limit to UKIP's ambitions as he reveals plan to go after Miliband's Doncaster seat in the wake of Euro triumph."

Worries in Euro Zone Shift to Italy From Spain

Well, I'm not surprised at all.

At the New York Times, "Worry for Italy Quickly Replaces Relief for Spain":

VENICE — Concerns grew on Monday that Italy could be the next victim of Europe’s financial infection, leading nervous investors to sell Italian stocks and bonds and damping euphoria over a weekend deal to bail out Spain’s banks.

Italian officials privately expressed concern that the 100 billion euros, or $125 billion, that Europe pledged to Spanish banks might not stop the troubles from spreading.

Italy’s main stock index was Europe’s worst performer on Monday, a day when United States stocks were also dragged down and investors flocked yet again to the safe harbor of American and German government bonds. Even the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, a European technocrat who came to office after the euro crisis forced out Silvio Berlusconi last November, has begun to acknowledge the dangers posed to his country’s 1.56-trillion-euro economy ($1.95 trillion).

The main fear is that Italy cannot grow its way out of a recession fast enough to pay a mountainous national debt. Other concerns include the fact that Italy, with the third-largest euro zone economy after those of Germany and France, will have to shoulder a large portion of the bailout bill even as it grapples with its own sharp economic downturn.

Because Italy does not have enough economic growth to generate the money itself, the government will probably have to borrow it at high interest rates, adding to an already heavy debt load.

“There is a permanent risk of contagion,” Mr. Monti told an economics conference near Venice over the weekend, speaking by telephone. “That is why strengthening the euro zone is of collective interest.”

Prices of Italy’s government bonds reached their lowest level in months. Investors apparently found little assurance that the euro currency union was any closer to solving its underlying problems — not with parliamentary elections in Greece this weekend that could determine whether the currency union is strong enough to retain its weakest members.

Investor euphoria in Europe over the Spanish bailout deal Monday morning was short-lived, giving way to an essentially flat day on many European stock markets. But Italy’s benchmark index was the Continent’s worst performer, ending down 2.8 percent.

Continue reading.

Geert Wilders Convicted of 'Hate Speech'

Well, perhaps Mr. Wilders might move here, after the new Trump regime comes to power. He'll have a nice welcome compared to "old Europe," the hateful Europe of far-left political correctness and oppression.

At the Guardian U.K., "Geert Wilders found guilty of inciting discrimination" (via Memeorandum).

And at Pamela's, "Islam in Europe: Freedom party’s Dutch MP Geert Wilders CONVICTED of heresy, WILDERS’ STATEMENT":

Freedom party leader Geert Wilders has been convicted of hate speech today in the Netherlands.

I have long known, admired and worked with Geert Wilders. I brought him to CPAC back in 2009. He spoke at our Ground Zero Mosque protests in 2010. He is one of the world’s foremost fighters in defense of liberty, a modern-day Churchill. He is a towering figure, iconic of the fight in defense of freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. We oppose jihad and sharia.

The unending persecution of Wilders is the byproduct of Islam in Europe. Today he was found guilty of discrimination — hate speech — in other words, violating the speech laws under the sharia (Islamic law).

I predict this will backfire and Geert Wilders will go on to be elected Prime Minister in the next election.

Here is Geert Wilders’ response to his conviction:

Dear friends, I still cannot believe it, but I have just been convicted. Because I asked a question about Moroccans. While the day before yesterday, scores of Moroccan asylum-seekers terrorized buses in Emmen and did not even had to pay a fine, a politician who asks a question about fewer Moroccans is sentenced.

The Netherlands have become a sick country. And I have a message for the judges who convicted me: You have restricted the freedom of speech of millions of Dutch and hence convicted everyone. No one trusts you anymore. But fortunately, truth and liberty are stronger than you. And so am I.

I will never be silent. You will not be able to stop me. And you are wrong, too. Moroccans are not a race, and people who criticize Moroccans are not racists. I am not a racist and neither are my voters. This sentence proves that you judges are completely out of touch.

And I have also a message for Prime Minister Rutte and the rest of the multicultural elite: You will not succeed in silencing me and defeating the PVV. Support for the Party for Freedom is stronger than ever, and keeps growing every day. The Dutch want their country back and cherish their freedom. It will not be possible to put the genie of positive change back in the bottle.

And to people at home I say: Freedom of speech is our pride. And this will remain so. For centuries, we Dutch have been speaking the unvarnished truth. Free speech is our most important possession. We will never let them take away our freedom of speech. Because the flame of freedom burns within us and cannot be extinguished.

Millions of Dutch are sick and tired of political correctness. Sick and tired of the elite which only cares about itself and ignores the ordinary Dutchman. And sells out our country. People no longer feel represented by all these disconnected politicians, judges and journalists, who have been harming our people for so long, and make our country weaker instead of stronger.

But I will keep fighting for you, and I tell all of you: thank you so much. Thank you so much for all your support. It is really overwhelming; I am immensely grateful to you. Thanks to your massive and heartfelt support, I know that I am not alone. That you back me, and are with me, and unwaveringly stand for freedom of expression.

Today, I was convicted in a political trial, which, shortly before the elections, attempts to neutralize the leader of the largest and most popular opposition party. But they will not succeed. Not even with this verdict. Because I speak on behalf of millions of Dutch. And the Netherlands are entitled to politicians who speak the truth, and honestly address the problems with Moroccans. Politicians who will not let themselves be silenced. Not even by the judges. And you can count on it: I will never be silent.

And this conviction only makes me stronger. This is a shameful sentence, which, of course, I will appeal. But I can tell you, I am now more vigorous than ever. And I know: together, we aim for victory.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, we are strong enough to change the Netherlands.

To allow our children to grow up in a country they can be proud of.
In a Netherlands where we are allowed to say again what we think.
Where everybody can safely walk the streets again.
Where we are in charge of our own country again.

And that is what we stand for. For freedom and for our beautiful Netherlands.

There's video at the link.

PHOTO: "Faith, Freedom, and Memory: Report From Ground Zero, September 11, 2010."

BONUS: "Geert Wilders' Right to Speak."

Rotten in Denmark: 'Growing domestic consensus that large-scale Muslim immigration is incompatible with European social democracy...'

Get a kick out of this, from Hugh Eakin, at the New York Review of Books, "Liberal, Harsh Denmark":

In country after country across Europe, the Syrian refugee crisis has put intense pressure on the political establishment. In Poland, voters have brought to power a right-wing party whose leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, warns that migrants are bringing “dangerous diseases” and “various types of parasites” to Europe. In France’s regional elections in December, some Socialist candidates withdrew at the last minute to support the conservatives and prevent the far-right National Front from winning. Even Germany, which took in more than a million asylum-seekers in 2015, has been forced to pull back in the face of a growing revolt from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own party and the recent New Year’s attacks on women in Cologne, allegedly by groups of men of North African origin.

And then there is Denmark. A small, wealthy Scandinavian democracy of 5.6 million people, it is according to most measures one of the most open and egalitarian countries in the world. It has the highest income equality and one of the lowest poverty rates of any Western nation. Known for its nearly carbon-neutral cities, its free health care and university education for all, its bus drivers who are paid like accountants, its robust defense of gay rights and social freedoms, and its vigorous culture of social and political debate, the country has long been envied as a social-democratic success, a place where the state has an improbably durable record of doing good. Danish leaders also have a history of protecting religious minorities: the country was unique in Nazi-occupied Europe in prosecuting anti-Semitism and rescuing almost its entire Jewish population.

When it comes to refugees, however, Denmark has long led the continent in its shift to the right—and in its growing domestic consensus that large-scale Muslim immigration is incompatible with European social democracy. To the visitor, the country’s resistance to immigrants from Africa and the Middle East can seem implacable. In last June’s Danish national election—months before the Syrian refugee crisis hit Europe—the debate centered around whether the incumbent, center-left Social Democrats or their challengers, the center-right Liberal Party, were tougher on asylum-seekers. The main victor was the Danish People’s Party, a populist, openly anti-immigration party, which drew 21 percent of the vote, its best performance ever. Its founder, Pia Kjærsgaard, for years known for suggesting that Muslims “are at a lower stage of civilization,” is now speaker of the Danish parliament. With the backing of the Danish People’s Party, the center-right Liberals formed a minority government that has taken one of the hardest lines on refugees of any European nation...

Leftists are constantly spewing about how great Scandinavian countries like Denmark are, claiming that their social welfare-state economies are superior to the U.S., blah blah.

Heh, not so much when it comes to Muslim "refugees" though.

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