As Europe sorts itself out, it appears
that the center did hold, but only barely, in elections for the European
Parliament. The British Conservatives were a non-factor. They came in fifth at
home, which may not mean much since Britain is leaving the Parliament some day,
maybe at Halloween, maybe sooner, maybe next year, maybe after the British
Parliament rejects Mrs. May’s plan one more time as a sort of going-away
present.
But Germany’s
oldest party, the Social Democrats, ended up with about the same parliamentary
clout as the Munich Parent-Teachers Association. They, and Britain’s Labour
Party, are as brain dead as our American nominally leftwing party. The best
lack all conviction.
The worst are
full of passionate intensity. The rightwing, crypto-Nazi, anti-Semitic and
anti-immigrant parties made fewer gains than feared but are approaching 60 mph
after being at zero only five or six years ago. One thing they seem to have in
common is fear. Another is Steve Bannon who wasn’t banished from Jerusalem when
Trump fired him; he was sent like Paul to the Gentiles, and is doing well for
himself there, thank you very much.
It’s a bad time
to need anything from your neighbor.
One thing the
European Parliament can look forward to is disruption because the newbies tend
not to want to do anything for Europeans but to
undo the past 75 years. They have found a constituency that longs for the good
old days of trenches, gas warfare, round-the-clock bombing, food shortages and
sleeping with the occupiers. Make Europe great again.
Meanwhile, the
rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Westminster to be
born.
Yeah, pretty depressing. A family member and I were talking about the far right revival and concluded that one of the causes is that nearly all those who directly remember the horrors of WWII are dead. People could read history but that would be so boring, and besides they probably exaggerated it. It was likely only two million Jews killed, and those photos of the liberation of the camps look photoshopped. (Okay, sarcasm off now.)
ReplyDeleteAbout Bannon, the Italians where he is establishing his alt-right koolaid retreat center aren't exactly welcoming him with open arms. I can't believe churchmen such as Cardinal Burke are giving him the time of day.
I think a big part of the problem is that everybody wants to have their cake and eat it too.
It's like all that dry tinder lying on the floor of a California forest. It just took a match to light it off. And that match, in the case of Europe, was the influx of Muslim immigrants from the ever chaotic Middle East, made worse by American adventurism and the "Arab Spring". Climate change may have played a role as well. There are other minds here that can sort out that roiling bucket of worms better than I. It's too complex and crazy for me.
ReplyDeleteYou can argue, I think, that the EU is an anomoly without dragging poor Yeats into it.
ReplyDeleteBorder fights, incursions, tribalism, crusades, colonization, and pogroms have a much longer tradition in the Old World than resource sharing, cooperation, and welcoming outsiders.
The U.S. used to be the example that a powerful and inventive nation could be built from the dregs of other nations if they were willing to spend a generation or two in the tenements and being reviled for talking funny and being poor and not WASPy.
Now that we are as xenophobic as everyone else, why wouldn't nationalism gain ground?
Happy Memorial Day.
Is there a precedent for what the EU is trying to accomplish? I'm pretty sure they're breaking new ground with this experiment.
ReplyDeleteBy way of contrast, NAFTA doesn't allow for the free movement of peoples across borders. It doesn't impinge on national sovereignty nearly to the extent that the EU does. There is no such thing as a NAFTA parliament. There isn't even a common currency.
I'm just wondering if it's possible that the EU is "too much".
If capital and trade can flow freely between countries, why not people? Personally, I don't think of Canadians and even Mexicans as that much different from me. Hispanic immigrants stopped raising my eyebrows a long time ago. If we could make the USA a kinder, gentler, less overbearing and obnoxious nation, maybe a United States of North America would not be out of the question. A border at the Panama Isthmus would certainly be easier to "defend". Europe is funny. Germany and Italy, formed almost a century after the USA, still have regional adherence. I'm for conglomeration over balkanization. The resulting unions, however, must take care that some members aren't disadvantaged.
DeleteI see echoes of the Hanseatic League of the late middle ages in the EU. It doesn't cover precisely the same area. But its purpose was commerce and to an extent, defense. Its heyday was about three centuries. It is by now a long time in the rear view mirror, but I see some purposes in common with the EU.
DeleteThe conscious model of the original postwar Europeanists was Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire. Voltaire dismissed as neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. Maybe not holy or Roman, but it did meet the then-current definition of an empire. The fact that both the French and German treat Carlos Magnus as one of them was always a harbinger of European unity to those who were looking for it.
DeleteBtw, the NY Times' David Leonhardt's daily email blast for this morning bore the subject line "The Center Collapses". A snippet:
ReplyDelete"The shrinking of Europe’s traditional political parties continues.
In Britain, the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, finished in third place and fifth place in this weekend’s European Parliament elections. The populist right-wing Brexit Party finished first, with close to 32 percent of votes. In Germany, the two establishment parties — one center-right and one center-left — lost more than quarter of their combined seats. The biggest gainers were the left-leaning Greens. In France, the Greens gained as well, although the right-wing National Rally (known until recently as the National Front) finished first. The two traditional parties finished fourth and sixth. Many people felt relief that far-right parties — which traffic in xenophobia — didn’t do better in this weekend’s elections. Instead, candidates who support the idea of the European Union combined to win a majority of seats. I share that relief."
Tom, under separate cover, I've forwarded the contact info of a reputable intellectual-property-rights attorney to both you and Yeats.
Btw, Leonhardt also provided further reading on this topic:
"Extremist right-wing parties did especially well in countries where they’ve become more politically established, including France, Italy, Britain and Poland, notes Johns Hopkins political scientist Yascha Mounk. “Far-right populists are now established as a major force in virtually all European countries,” he tweeted.
"My colleague Ross Douthat thinks those gains are proof that “the global fade of liberalism” may be a longer-lasting phenomenon than many liberals believe. “A liberalism that remains inflexible in the face of variegated resistance is the ideology more likely to be crushed,” he writes.
"The Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum sees a re-emergence of political debate in Europe, as the center collapses and the right and left grow. “The European Parliament will now be a place where real politics happen. There will be deals to do, arguments to have,” she writes. “Despite itself, the continent is becoming a single political space.”
"In The Atlantic, Yasmeen Serhan articulates the flip side: “The results foreshadow a European future increasingly influenced by diametrically opposing forces, and the divisions that come with them,” she writes.
"In The Times, Jochen Bittner, a German political writer, calls for the abolition of the European Parliament. It should be replaced, he writes, with a body more closely tied to domestic politics in each European country — and thus more accountable to voters."
“A liberalism that remains inflexible in the face of variegated resistance is the ideology more likely to be crushed.” Young Douthat
Delete"A liberalism that laid down its sword, kicked out its union members and focused on seeking closure for all the hurtful things done to fellow/sister sufferers in 1976 will more likely be ignored." -- Me
I hate to be dense, but what hurtful things in 1976 are we referring to?
DeleteKatherine, I think Tom is referring to the obsession with the metoo thing in general, specifically grievances dating from the neolithic age.
DeleteYes. Specifically the idea, which started with Carter, that the New Deal did all that needed doing, and all that's left is competency in office. That's all Dukakis ran on, too, remember. Meanwhile, the other side gave us the most conservative administration since Coolidge and the most activist conservative administration since Tyler. And still the D's preach competence, triangulation, and making the mare's nest of the tax law, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP, the standard by which they decide what the federal can no longer afford to do. And if anyone tries to remind them of what they used to stand for, they accept their opponent's characterization of it as "socialism" and recoil like the vicar who noticed the uncovered piano legs.
DeleteGlad you noted the Yeats, Jim. I am waiting for Margaret to weigh in on the theft from Edward Grey. If you're shameless, why not be shameless all the way, is what I say
ReplyDeleteEdward Grey! We're talking the British foreign minister in WW1, right? As you know Tom, he was an ardent birder and I'm guessing that with summer upon us and the current government falling apart, he is off in the woods looking for wablers. I still think Chrisopher Clark's Sleepwalkers is NOW the book to read...Barbara Tuchman still okay.
DeleteThat is the guy,later a Viscount. The only thing he is famous for is saying, in August 1914, "The lights are going out in Europe. I fear we will not see them lit again in our lifetimes." Personally, I don't expect to be around when Europe returns to sanity, as it will have to do unless it's good with flints as a cutting tool.
DeleteRe Grey...and lights going out in Europe. One of the things I have taken from the WW1 reading group is how many--politicians, military, journalists, writers, business types--saw how devastating a war, which turned out to be ww1, would be, and yet....they did it anyway. Of course, they expected it to be over by Christmas 1914...Wrong again.
DeleteLights going out? Without disputing all the columnists opinions quote above, I think we should keep in mind how much money goes from West to East in Europe with a slip to the South to keep Italy from going bankrupt.
ReplyDeleteFor all of their sneering at Germany, France, England, Netherlands, etc., Italy, Poland, Hungary, and the former enslaved nations would be nuts to give up the subventions they get as part of the EU. Ingrates!
But yes, so many forget the horrors of two major wars, 1 and 2, and all of the smaller wars that make the EU a better idea than the alternatives.
Money West to East in Europe is something like the North to South that obtains in this here disUnited States. Gratitude best expressed by contempt!
DeleteFWIW, I ran across this Bret Stephens opinion piece in the NY Times that looks beyond the EU results (only expected rather than realized at the time Stephens wrote the article, but predicted accurately) at other recent elections:
ReplyDelete"More than 600 million Indians cast their ballots over the past six weeks in the largest democratic election in the world. Donald Trump won.
"A week ago, several million Australians went to the polls in another touchstone election. Trump won.
"Citizens of European Union member states are voting in elections for the mostly toothless, but symbolically significant, European Parliament. Here, too, Trumpism will mark its territory.
"Legislative elections in the Philippines this month, which further cemented the rule of Rodrigo Duterte, were another win for Trumpism. Ditto for Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election in Israel last month, the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil last October, and Italy’s elevation of Matteo Salvini several months before that.
"If past is prologue, expect the Trumpiest Tory — Boris Johnson — to succeed Theresa May as prime minister of Britain, too."
Stephens then looks at what ties these events together:
"The common thread here isn’t just right-wing populism. It’s contempt for the ideology of them before us: of the immigrant before the native-born; of the global or transnational interest before the national or local one; of racial or ethnic or sexual minorities before the majority; of the transgressive before the normal. It’s a revolt against the people who say: Pay an immediate and visible price for a long-term and invisible good. It’s hatred of those who think they can define that good, while expecting someone else to pay for it."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/opinion/trump-elections-india-australia.html
Today's (5/29) Times print headline: "European Vote Buoys Liberals as Kingmakers." The story give Macron's party in the EU plus the Greens the votes to be a majority and to have say over the next president of the European Council.
DeleteThe web headline is more circumspect: "Sure the populists gained, but the real winners may be for Europe."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/world/europe/european-union-elections-populists.html
Re:the Brett Stephens article, he says, "The common thread here isn't just right-wing populism..." Then he pretty much goes on to describe what is exactly right-wing populism. And I would add another description "reactionary", or reactionaryism, if there is such a word; which appears to be going around like a measles epidemic. And like an outbreak of the measles, isn't that something we thought was in the rear view mirror? Stephens lays out the problem, but he doesn't address how to counter it (and not re-elect Trump).
DeleteThe article Margaret linked gives a little hope that maybe all the international community won't lose their minds at the same time. But then again, maybe they will. And what are the potential consequences?
Jim, When I look at Stephens's fair summary of rightwing populism I can't see any way to shoehorn it into Jesus's description of the Last Judgment at Matt. 25: 31-46. I mean, not. at. all.
DeleteWhen Stephens says, "It’s hatred of those who think they can define that good, while expecting someone else to pay for it," all I can think of is that they hate basic Christians, who think everyone should pay for what is good. That includes what is good for other people. I mean, what else is money for?
Stephens is neither liberal nor a populist. Here he is on Trump and Latin American immigration.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/opinion/trump-central-america-border.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fbret-stephens&action=click&contentCollection=undefined®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=collection
When I made the comment about populism, I didn't mean that Stephens subscribed to that way of thinking. I realize that he was describing it.
DeleteBTW, the Stephens article on Latin America was good; "...Trump’s approach to Central America is an excellent illustration of the ways in which “America First” fails America."
DeleteKatherine - yes, I agree about Stephens and the Latin America article. Conservatives who are not populists don't really have a political home these days. They have choices to make in 2020. If Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee, I'd think quite a few of them will vote for him, for the sake of having a president who falls within the guardrails of acceptable.
Delete