Robert Royal about European elections of right-wing candidates:
We’re seeing a budding, if still disorganized, reaction in the developed world to the ways that what might be called “authoritarian liberalism” has come to dominate us. Trumpism, of course, is the most obvious example. But even in Europe, the place that seems to have gone the furthest down that illiberal path, something remarkable is underway.
Take Brexit:
The Brits have only been half-hearted EU members and never entered the monetary union. There’s something in the pragmatic Anglo-American mind that doesn’t sit easy with the kind of irresponsible bureaucracy in Brussels. Lax immigration policies while London has been repeatedly hit by terrorist attacks were the last straw. In a way, Brexit is unfortunate because, as an Italian friend said to me recently, “Without the British we Europeans are mostly just ex-Fascists, ex-Nazis, ex-Communists.”
The Anglosphere
argument comes to mind. There’s more, of course:.
Much of the resistance in several European countries stems both a potent mix of grievances against the EU and opposition to mass Muslim immigration (and fear of terrori
sm). But the deeper cause may just be the perceived slipping away of a common European way of life and a loss of national traditions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Pope Francis have pushed very hard for opening borders, promoting assimilation, calming fears. The mainstream European media, like the American MSM, have largely tried to help with that task
So we have stand-off.
The usual view from Brussels is that the new movements of nationalism/patriotism now in Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and some of the Balkan nations is retrograde and undemocratic. By contrast, many in those countries feel it’s Brussels that operates with a high hand against the interests and wishes of various European peoples
So what? We turn away from the drastic.
But nature, wise men know, abhors a vacuum. And if we don’t stand up for what we are and have been, we may rightly wonder whether we will continue to stand atall. Better if we can learn to do that in an intelligent and sober way – right now – than to put off decisions until only the most radical interventions will work
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Blithe Spirit 