Will Brexit and Trump Effect Sweep Western World?
The deplorables of the Western world are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore
The push back against the progressive left’s agenda that culminated in the election of President-elect Trump had been gaining steam for a while now and not just on this side of the Atlantic.
Faced with poor economic growth, an influx of refugees, a sense of losing their national identity, and a variety of country-specific reasons, the entire Western world seems on the verge of the same sort of election-revolution we just witnessed in America.
Heralded as the “the liberal West’s last defender,” Angela Merkel has been under intense pressure based on her open door policy to refugees, and she now finds herself feeling the growing dissatisfaction of the German people even more powerfully than before Trump’s victory.
Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has emerged as the last powerful defender of Europe and the trans-Atlantic alliance after the election of Donald J. Trump. But after 11 years in power, she is tired, her associates say, and under siege seemingly from all directions.
She is under pressure from the same forces that elevated Mr. Trump in America, fueled Britain’s vote to exit the European Union and are now propelling the populist Marine Le Pen in France. At home, the hard-right Alternative for Germany party has scored a string of victories in state elections.
. . . . For the last eight years, Ms. Merkel could count on the steadfast backing of President Obama and France’s Élysée Palace. But with the ascent of Mr. Trump and the deep unpopularity of President Franςois Hollande, she has lost that vital backing.
Those who follow Ms. Merkel closely say that she is weary of grappling with Europe’s troubles, and that her close circle, always small, is more defensive and withdrawn after last year’s migrant crisis, which has weakened her politically. Still, she is under pressure to run for a fourth four-year term, a decision expected by early December.
“She’s the last one standing, and that makes her both strong and weak at the same time,” said Stefan Kornelius, one of her biographers and a political analyst for the daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. “She’s a pillar of stability, the last wall, and people want to lean against it.”
The BBC notes that the core of Merkel’s agitation may be in her continued resistance to the anti-establishment populist movement sweeping not just Britain with the Brexit vote, but much of Europe.
But, as Mr Trump prepares to take office, arguably Mrs Merkel’s greatest challenge is how to hold her country – indeed the EU – together.
Because what’s really got German politicians so jittery is that in Donald Trump’s victory they see parallels with the sweep of right-wing and populist parties through Europe.
Germany itself goes to the polls next year. The established parties are losing votes to the anti-migrant, anti-Muslim Alternative for Germany (AfD).
As the Gatestone Institute observes, the anti-establishment movement across Europe greeted news of Trump’s victory with hope.
Anti-establishment politicians, many of whom are polling well in a number of upcoming European elections, are hoping Trump’s rise will inspire European voters to turn out to vote for them in record numbers.
Commenting on Trump’s victory, Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, wrote: “America has just liberated itself from political correctness. The American people expressed their desire to remain a free and democratic people. Now it is time for Europe. We can and will do the same!”
One great Trump supporter who played a pivotal role in the Brexit vote is Nigel Farage, who recently met with President-elect Trump.
It was a great honour to spend time with @realDonaldTrump. He was relaxed and full of good ideas. I'm confident he will be a good President. pic.twitter.com/kx8cGRHYPQ
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) November 12, 2016
Farage discusses 2016 as the “year of the political revolution,” watch:
Other European leaders were equally enthusiastic and hopeful that Trump’s win signaled a desire for change across the Western world.
The Gatestone Institute continues:
Austria. The leader of the Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, congratulated Trump on Facebook. He wrote: “Little by little, the political left and the out-of-touch and corrupt establishment is being punished by voters and driven from power. This is a good thing, because the law comes from the people. The Austrian mainstream media, which has been campaigning against Trump for weeks and prematurely declared Hillary Clinton the victor, were embarrassed by the voting public.”
Belgium. The populist Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party congratulated Trump and said his unexpected election victory could be repeated in Europe. Party chairman Tom Van Grieken tweeted: “U.S. election shows again how far politicians are from the people.” In another tweet, he wrote: “The rise of Trump is not an isolated phenomenon. In Europe too, more and more voters want real change.”
Britain. Prime Minister Theresa May said: “I would like to congratulate Donald Trump on being elected the next President of the United States, following a hard-fought campaign. Britain and the United States have an enduring and special relationship based on the values of freedom, democracy and enterprise. We are, and will remain, strong and close partners on trade, security and defense.”
The leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, who successfully campaigned for the “Brexit” referendum for Britain to leave the European Union, said Trump’s victory did not surprise him.
He tweeted: “2016 is, by the looks of it, going to be the year of two great political revolutions. I thought Brexit was big but boy this looks like it is going to be even bigger.”
. . . . Speaking to ITV, Farage said: “The political class is reviled across much of the West, the polling industry is bankrupt and the press just hasn’t woken up to what’s going on in the world.”
. . . . Czech Republic. President Milos Zeman said Trump’s election was a victory over “media manipulation.” He said: “I would like to cordially congratulate Donald Trump. I had, as one of few European politicians, declared public support for this candidate because I agree with his opinions on migration as well as the fight against Islamic terrorism. I appreciate Donald Trump’s public demeanor. He speaks clearly, sometimes roughly, but understandably, and avoids what is sometimes called political correctness.”
The list goes on to include responses for the anti-establishment (and some pro-establishment) leaders across the Western world; it’s well worth reading them all.
The French seem particularly ready to embrace the sort of populist change that the UK’s Brexit vote and Trump’s election have shown is entirely possible.
Again from Gatestone:
France. . . . . Laurent Wauquiez, leader of the opposition party The Republicans, said: “In a democracy, when the people feel ignored and despised, they will find a way to be heard. This vote is the consequence of a revolt of the middle class against a ruling elite that wants to impose what they should think.”
The leader of the National Front party, Marine Le Pen, tweeted: “Congratulations to the new president of the United States Donald Trump and the free American people!”
Le Pen’s father, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, tweeted: “Today the United States, tomorrow France.”
Indeed, newly-appointed Chief Strategist and Chief Counselor to President-elect Trump has reached out to Le Pen’s niece and offered to work together, though specifics of Bannon’s offer are not yet known.
I answer yes to the invitation of Stephen Bannon, CEO of @realDonaldTrump presidential campaign, to work together. https://t.co/tPSoY5A2vS
— Marion Maréchal (@MarionMarechal) November 12, 2016
What is known is that France’s current socialist leader Hollande is deeply unpopular (indeed, there are rumors he may be impeached) and that Marine Le Pen sees a path similar to that taken by Trump.
It was a moment of intense French patriotism on a sunny Friday, Armistice Day. A band blared “La Marseillaise,” the national anthem. Shouts of “Vive la France!” filled the chilly November air. And there, too, was Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party, beaming.
Before Donald J. Trump’s presidential victory in the United States this week, Ms. Le Pen was considered a disruptive political force but far from a true threat to become president herself when France votes next spring. Not anymore.
Since Wednesday, French news outlets, along with Ms. Le Pen’s mainstream political rivals, have been repeating the same thing: It could happen here.
. . . . Ms. Le Pen in many ways stands as the most prominent leader of Europe’s far right. The French political establishment was in consensus this week that the news from the United States had put new wind in her political sails.
“Mrs. Le Pen could win in France,” said the former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, usually known for his sobriety.
A cartoon on the front page of the leading daily Le Monde this week showed a grinning Mr. Trump giving the V for victory sign while a winged Ms. Le Pen happily flew away, with the caption, “Marine Le Pen feels wings grow.”
The feeling isn’t limited to France, of course, and in Italy and Austria, Trump’s victory has also inspired change that pushes back against the progressive trends that have marred the Western world for far too long.
The New York Times continues:
Populist leaders, not necessarily of the far right, who have mounted insurgent challenges to longstanding political orders were similarly buoyed by Mr. Trump’s victory, like Beppe Grillo, the leader of the Five Star Movement in Italy.
“They called us sexists, homophobes, demagogues and populists,” Mr. Grillo wrote in a blog post. “They don’t realize that millions of people already no longer read their newspapers and no longer watch their television.”
The idea that Mr. Trump’s supporters had delivered a double blow — to the establishment’s ideas and to the “elite” itself — had wide support.
“The left and the corrupt establishment, which considers itself so superior, are being punished blow by blow by the voters and voted out of various positions of responsibility,” said Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the Freedom Party of Austria, a serious contender to win the country’s presidency on Dec. 4.
Of course, what is considered “right-wing,” “nationalist,” “anti-establishment,” and etc. varies across the West and encompasses a range of political parties and ideologies. But if this populist uprising and rebuke of leftist progressive social, economic, and political policies does end up sweeping across Europe, we are looking at monumental—and relatively rapid—change of deep, historical consequence.
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The Western people responding to Western establishments:
“Globalism? Yeeeaaah.. NO.”
Not “Western” establishments, but globalist establishments.
Since when is it “strong” to stand by and defend a policy that has generated such divisiveness and which has been confirmed to have resulted in lawlessness? Sounds more like foolishness to me. Too many elected officials, once elected, abandon their electorate and claim to know more by adhering to some agenda; their job is to represent their constituents, even if it isn’t what they would choose themselves.
I must disagree. Both polls and popular media can be dead wrong (this election should have taught us that), so how does an elected official know whether he/she has the majority of the people with them ?
All politians should stick by their principles until they are either voted out or re-elected. This is called integrity.
However, the above does not endorse the lame duck/scorched earth policies of some.
…we are looking at monumental—and relatively rapid—change of deep, historical consequence.
It won’t be a short, or easy, fight to push back the progressive leftists. As Rush often says: They don’t give up!
And unfortunately, we can’t round them up and put them in internment camps, as appealing as that idea sounds.
Freedom and prosperity talk.
Once little barry is put out of office in January, no one will want to be left out of the coming boom.
Lots of good things happening and he hasn’t yet taken office. It reminds me of the shakeup in ’80 after Reagan’s election. The world knew America was back and was eager to get on board. Imagine the stories we would be writing now if we had been stupid enough to #NeverTrump this election.
It’s too early to gloat, Trumpkins. Did you spend the last eight years smoking crack? In 2008 Barack Obama was greeted with hosannas from Europe, too. He even got a Nobel Peace Prize out of the deal. They were lefty Europeans, sure. But now they have buyers remorse, but back then they were so cock sure. Just like you are now.
You do realize that most people who voted for Trump were really voting against Hillary Clinton? I would love to be able to say, “I was wrong about Trump.” Except, how could I have been wrong about Trump? I have no freaking idea what I’m going to get with Trump, and neither do you Trumpkins nor anyone else. But I and a lot of other people knew what we were going to get with Clinton so we said “F**k it” and jumped off the cliff into the river below.
“It’s too early to gloat, Trumpkins.”
Early? We are currently into Day 7 of gloating and basking in the tears of libtards.
I take special pleasure in the tears of #NeverTrump. As Jackie Gleason said, “How sweet it is!”.
Your smallness never ceases to amaze.
Yawn.
Brexit and Trump are symptoms, not causes.
And, in many important ways, Brexit and T-rumpism are antithetical.
Be very careful what you wish for. Runaway nationalism can be a dangerous thing.
[yawn]
We decline to be fear-mongered by the very same people who were wrong about EVERYTHING this election cycle. You should be listening instead of speaking.
Lee Jan, you make a very valid point, one I’ve contemplated myself. However, we’ve (in this case, the entire Western world) gone so far off the rails with progressive policies and influence (cultural, social, economic, political, you name it) that getting us back even to a center is going to be a long, uphill battle.
I just don’t see the more worrying components taking hold in the foreseeable future; winning elections is only the first battle, the war has yet to begin and must be waged in every arena to undo the horrendous damage of the progressive left.
We understand the dangers, in other words, but don’t see an imminent threat. Just as many on the right predicted gulags, an end to elections as Obama declared himself king, and an Obama police state, the worries of the same things occurring under Trump are equally wrong . . . and for the same reason: we, the people, simply won’t allow it.
It’s amusing that the people who wanted us to lose are now “cautioning” us to not run up the score. Concern trolls.
Exactly! One laughs at all the Conservatives In Name Only (CINOs?) who wish they were saying ‘President Elect Clinton’ right now. Not only did they reject the chance to get on Trump’s bus, they did everything in their power to flatten the tires and spike the gas. Now they demand to drive it. Their right to input in a Trump aftermath exited with them in the general election. Trump said he would do it without them, and he did. He didn’t need them then and he sure doesn’t need them now. They’re just losers trying to be winners, sounding like whiners and acting like wieners.
More stupid, impotent shutupery from the ThoughtPolice goons who inhabit this site.
Won’t work. Never has worked. All you do is teach and reteach the lessons of T-rumpian cultism and its dangers. At that, at least, you are wonderfully effective bullies, and great exemplars of what Americans ARE NOT.
You Trumpkins are delusitonal. What score do you imagine you’re running up? Your jock boyfriend isn’t even in the stadium yet. The only ones running up the score are Obama and his minions.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/11/epa-speeds-up-rule-making-process-ahead-of-trump/comment-page-1/#comment-713549
The libs are never out of power in DC. They are always in charge of the unaccountable, unconstitutional, and out of control fourth branch of government, the federal bureaucracy. It won’t be easy to roll this back; what if McConnell is stupid enough, or more likely complicit enough, to recess the Senate for more than ten days from before Christmas until the new Congress convenes on 3 January 2017? Then Obama can use his recess appointment to place Merrick on the Supreme Court and nobody can do a damn thing about it for two years the EPA causes another environmental disaster? Odds are they deliberately caused the the Gold King mine blowout. They had been battling the locals for decades to turn that area into a Superfund site. Designating the site a Superfund site gives the EPA authority to kill the mining industry in the area, which would also kill the local communities. That’s why they were refusing the EPA’s demands. The EPA’s critics were warning the locals the EPA was sick and tired of having to deal with the locals, so they could very well cause an environmental disaster. As Rahm Emmanuel said when he was Obama’s COS, never let a crisis go to waste, even if you have to create the crisis. So the EPA made its own mess because only it has the authority to clean it up.
Actually they don’t need to another such disaster. The Gold King mine in San Juan county CO had been plugged years ago and the plug was stable. It only blew out because the EPA decided to “fix” it until it was broken. That disaster alone is enough to not only justify their continued existence
… but a bigger budget and more personnel.
More importantly will Trump want to roll it back? Sure, he’ll tweak the system but he won’t dismantle it. The libs have been concentrating power into the executive branch bureaucracy ever since FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court. Before that the court always arrived at the obvious conclusion. FDR’s initiative to usurp Congress’ legislative by unilaterally granting his own bureaucracies unfettered rule making powers and usurping the judiciary’s powers by establishing administrative law courts violated the separation of powers and were unconstitutional. This remains true even though the Supremes gave in to FDRs threats and rubberstamped whatever he wanted.
Trumps comments about reducing regulations on business and shrinking the bureaucracy through attrition is just tweaking the system. There’s nothing to indicate he even wants to address the fundamental problem. Actually it’s the opposite.
http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/hunting/2016/01/qa-donald-trump-on-guns-hunting-and-conservation?src=SOC&dom=tw
“AL: I’d like to talk about public land. Seventy percent of hunters in the West hunt on public lands managed by the federal government. Right now, there’s a lot of discussion about the federal government transferring those lands to states and the divesting of that land. Is that something you would support as President?
DT: I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do. I mean, are they going to sell if they get into a little bit of trouble? And I don’t think it’s something that should be sold. We have to be great stewards of this land. This is magnificent land. And we have to be great stewards of this land. And the hunters do such a great job—I mean, the hunters and the fishermen and all of the different people that use that land. So I’ve been hearing more and more about that. And it’s just like the erosion of the Second Amendment. I mean, every day you hear Hillary Clinton wants to essentially wipe out the Second Amendment. We have to protect the Second Amendment, and we have to protect our lands.”
One more time, for emphasis, the money quote:
“I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do.”
This is the same kind of thinking that causes Democrats at every level to reflexively oppose tax cuts. First of all it’s not your money, it’s theirs. More importantly if you controlled more of it they don’t what you’ll do with it. But they’re sure you’ll probably do something stupid with it like buy something they know you don’t need. So they better hold on to it keep that from happening.
And here’s Donald Trump saying the same thing about federal lands. First of all, it rightfully belongs to the feds. More importantly if the feds let the states control more of the land within their borders Trump doesn’t know what they’ll do with it. But he’s sure it’ll probably be something stupid like selling Mount Rushmore to a mining company or selling the Grand Canyon to a waste company to use as a land fill site. So he better hold on to all that land to keep that from happening.
Rags is exactly right. Trumpism and Brexit are in many important ways antithetical. Brexit was about taking control back from unaccountable, out of control bureaucrats in Brussls. Trump is all about keeping control in DC. He thinks like a Democrat, which means he thinks like a bureaucrat. Once you get power you don’t give it up. And controlling the amount of land the federal government owns is power.
The feds own 1/3 of the landmass of the United States. 96% of that federal land is administered by four agencies; BLM, the Forest Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service.
First off, this means the feds are actually lousy stewards of the land because they have too much of it. That’s why I say thy administer it. They don’t manage it; they can’t manage. The states and private property owners do much better jobs of managing parks and natural resources such as rangeland and I have facts to back that up. But this comment is going to be long enough without me going into it.
Most importantly, particularly in Alaska and the 11 coterminous western states of Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, life and death decisions that effect the lives of the residents aren’t in their own hands. That’s because the feds own over 60% of the land in Alask, and collectively in those 11 states the feds own 50%.
When I say life and death I’m not kidding. There’s a small Aleut village called King Cove on the Pacific side of the Alaska Peninsula. They’ve been trying to build an eleven mile gravel road so they can get to another small Aleut village on the opposite side of the Peninsula called Cold Bay. They need that road primarily for medevac cases. There’s a state-owned airstrip at King Cove but it’s shut down about 2/3 of year because of gale force winds whipping in from the Pacific. Cold Bay is the nearest town with year round flying facilities; because it’s more the sheltered the weather is more stable and predictable.
The problem is that the people at King Cove are cut off from the rest of the world by Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The USFWS controls the refuge, the Dept. of the Interior controls the USFWS, and environmentalists control the Secretary of the DoI. So for decades the Secretary of the DOI has been denying King Cove and the state of Alaska because environmentalists think nesting waterfowl are more important than people. The community and the state pooled their resources and offered tens of thousands of acres the DoI could add to the refuge in exchange for the land they’d need for the road. It was a 300 to 1 exchange in favor of the feds. No deal; the environmentalists could care less, so neither does the Secretary of the DoI.
And Donald Trump is going to keep it this way. You can’t transfer federal lands to the states! You never know what they’ll do with it. Probably something stupid like valuing the lives of their citizens over causing the wildlife some minor annoyance.
So you’re not running up any score, they are. And you don’t know what the final score is going to be. And you don’t know which side your jock boyfriend is going to be playing for.
And in that same interview, T-rump express stated he wanted to keep mineral development on Western lands under Federal control locked up.
Sell-out Sarah Palin never said a word. No drill, baby.
Brexit is also about an expansive, robust, optimistic trading relationship with the world, taken out from under the EU repression and central planning regime.
T-rumpism is about recoiling from the world and erecting barriers (and NOT a wall), shrinking American influence in the world, and central planning that tells Americans and their businesses who they may trade with, on what terms, and how they may use their own property.
If the spirit of Brexit is given full flower by the Brits, they will be the conservative example of a great and prosperous nation.
If T-rumpism is allowed to develop, the US will be the tallest pygmy in the world, and one of the sad examples of how Collectivism ruins. Der Donald doesn’t believe in the American people. “Only I know how to fix it”. THAT is truly sick.