If It Was Really Sailing in Boiling Seas, How Did the EU Ship of State Hit a Populist Iceberg?

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

We've had some pretty spicy discussions here over the past couple of weeks concerning the direction Europe was going to take, and what seemed like most of us felt was a general sense of doom, gloom, pessimism, and panic emanating from the Brussels elite. There was an absolute flurry of desperate, last-minute, 'we're gonna get our clocks cleaned' invective and gas-lighting coming from both the establishment and their enabling toadies in the media.

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EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE WITH US IS A NAZI/FASCIST/RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST/BOGEYMAN

...And speaking of "spasms," watch as Politico hits the Nazi/fascist/Mussolini/Hitler and even Franco (!) high notes in their complete anti-populist denunciatory meltdown.

...In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party is expected to trounce Macron’s party, increasing the likelihood of the far-right leader, or someone of her ilk, winning a presidential election due in 2027.

Across the Rhine, the far-right Alternative for Germany party — whose lead candidate recently told an Italian newspaper there were good people to be found among Nazi SS troops — is seen as vying a second place with the Scholz’s Social Democratic Party.

In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has its roots in the country’s fascist past, is due to increase its number of seats in the European Parliament. In Poland, the nationalist, anti-abortion Law and Justice party is looking to make a comeback after losing power last December.

For a Continent that has prided itself on having laid the rest the ghosts of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, the resurgence of the right as a political forces is coming as a shock. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows far-right groups substantially increasing their share of the 720 seats in the European Parliament to as many as 184 seats, as voters across the bloc swing to the right.

Oddly enough, nowhere in any of these hysterical hyperbolic articles warning of the literal return of jack-booted thugs kicking down doors were any nods to WHY such horrible, "POPULIST/NATIONALIST" forces - two once common adjectives suddenly become epithets in this frantic power struggle - were gaining adherents, to begin with.

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"OUR peaceful" - don't you just want to eat her up? 

They ignored citizens who were fed up with being overrun by "immigrants," run over by inflation, beaten up by skyrocketing energy costs, pursuing "Green" policies that delivered the opposite result promised, suffering while waiting for a boiling frog Climate Apocalypse that never arrives but never ends and watching their national identities and standard of living being stripped away before their very eyes. 


All while being told to stuff a sock in it, and suck it up. Their betters in Brussels and the elected instruments of enforcing those mandates in EU members' capitals would lead the dullards to a more perfect world.

Anyone questioning the methods, data, pretense, or wisdom of the policies, would be declared a heretic for deviating from the path best for "the common good." And suffer repeated schmearings of the worst vituperations that a European can fling. In any previous other election, this repetitive shaming would have cowed the general populace of even-keeled Europeans back into the woodwork.

The soothing 'shared values' cajoling and dire warnings had always worked before.

This time, across the continent, it failed spectacularly.

I was on my usual weekend Headline Section duty when the results from the European Union Parliament elections started being tallied. I have to admit I had a Schlitz eating grin on my face updating the intial headline post as the evening wore on. And it did take time because polls in Italy didn't close until 11 p.m., local time.

 And Away We GO: Macron and Scholz GET HAMMERED in EU Elections UPDATE: A Meloni SWEEP

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suffered massive defeats in the European Parliament elections Sunday, as far-right parties made gains that could sway the bloc to take a harder line on migration and upset ambitious climate change plans.

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Sunday was a shock for supporters of French President Emmanuel Macron. They knew things were a little shaky, but they had no idea it was quite as bad as it really was.

Macron immediately dissolved the French legislature and called for snap election, hoping to catch Marine LePen's party off guard and, basically, just survive - a wounded but alive lame-duck president.

Here we are a couple of days later, and the picture is really starting to firm up. It is glorious.

It's starting to look like you can stick a fork in Macron- he's done.

And, holy CRAP, aren't the usual suspects screeching like banshees at that news! 

ANYONE WE DON'T LIKE IS HITLER

French politics moved towards a historic shift on Tuesday as the head of the centre-right Republicans backed the populist National Rally in its attempt to form the next government.

National Rally, some of whose roots can be traced to the regime that collaborated with Hitler during the Second World War, has long been blacklisted by mainstream French parties.

However, Éric Ciotti, the Republicans’ leader, said he would support Jordan Bardella, the rally’s 28-year-old chairman, in his campaign to become France’s first hard-right prime minister since 1944.

As if to prove a point, Leftists and "immigrants" - excuse me, I misspoke. 

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They're referred to in French media as the "anti-EXTREME-RIGHT." (See how this works?) 

Anyways, they went tantrumming along on mostly peaceful but fiery rampages and looting sprees in Paris.

There are also significant howls about the timing - Macron has called elections right before the Paris Olympics are set to kick off! 

SOCCER BLEW!

As if things couldn't possibly be any more chaotic, right? They're wondering what the man is smoking.

In Germany, the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, even after unending vilification and hamfisted missteps by party leaders feeding into it, still handily pulled off a major upset, becoming the second-largest party in Germany. They smoked the shorts off the Greens and shaved some serious hair from Chancellor Olaf Scholz's ruling coalition.

Much of this can be attributed to Scholz and the Greens' arrogance and ineptitude in destroying the vaunted German industrial complex in Gaia's name (who ever thought "German" and "deindustrialization" would be in the same sentence together?), as well as the unending assault on the average German citizen of unfettered immigration, and the government's miserable, flailing, completely inept responses to the problems caused by it.

In a classic progressive desperation move, Scholz's coalition changed the voting rules to include a demographic they felt sure would help keep their claws on the steering wheel—they let 16-year-olds vote because they contribute to society, and if mostly old people vote, their needs don't get representation.

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OKAY

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The European Union is holding its parliamentary election this week. The results will help shape the direction of the EU for the next five years, but there's something different this time - 16-year-olds are eligible to vote in Germany and Belgium. Those two countries join a growing list that have lowered the voting age from 18. To learn more, our colleague A Martínez spoke with Pawel Zerka, with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

So first off, tell us about the decision to lower the voting age below 18. Why now?

PAWEL ZERKA: So it makes sense, because when you are 16, you already have some obligations - so, for example, if you work, you need to pay taxes - you already have the right to take some medical decisions or to enter a marriage or a civil partnership; then why shouldn't be that accompanied with the right to vote? The second reason which I can see is that European population is getting older, so there is a risk that if mostly old people vote in elections, then also they choose parties that defend the priorities representative for the older population, whereas the younger voters do not get their representation at the political level.

Yeah? Really?

So, how'd that work out for you?

D'OH!

Um...Belgium (Where, believe it or not, voting was compulsory (!) for the teenagers)?

Oh, dear

So the kids didn't ride to the EU elite rescue, either, huh? Ungrateful brats. Maybe Belgium should have lightened up a notch on the "you are required to by law" a bit. It's like they're so sunk into being God-like authoritarians, they've never dealt with a teenager.

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The "Freedom Party" in Austria (FPÖ), born of resistance to the COVID lockdowns and then morphing into a fervent anti-Green, anti-immigration group, took the top spot in their elections. Building on this success, they announced they'd be gunning for their country's top elected jobs. A bemused press sounds alarmed but hasn't quite gotten over the shock of "extremist" FPÖ winning yet enough to really begin the job of seriously vilifying them. 

...Writing in Der Standard newspaper, editor-in-chief Gerold Riedmann said the FPÖ had become a melting pot of people who have "concerns about migration; who don’t think Putin is all that bad; who felt humiliated by vaccination and corona [virus]; who think climate protection is unnecessary; and who simply want to teach everyone a lesson".

"Extremists" are on the march everywhere, Scholz is in deep Scheiße, Macron may be going up in literal flames, and they are the two chief boosters of whom?

Why, the Ice Queen of Europe, who just a few days ago seemed sure to cling to her throne.

Now? She's going to have to make nice to fight off this assault from the proletariat, agricultural class, and kitchen help.  When you've shivved everyone on the climb up, it could be hard finding a hand to stop you slipping off the peak.

Von der Leyen forced to look Left and Right in fight for survival

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s search for a second term is now reliant on her gaining the support of her former political enemies.

Despite her post-election boast that the European Parliament’s centre had “held”, sources say the cumulative total of more than 400 ‘centrist’ MEPs is unlikely to be enough to get her reappointed.

The German politician’s two-faced politics, which has involved flirting with both the Right and the Greens, has rendered her unpopular within her own European People’s Party, as well as its allied groups, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Renew, with numerous representatives within these groups having vowed not to support her return to power.

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I think the lesson in all of this - and hopefully in our own November reclamation of our senses and our government as well - is in that last sentence from the Austrian daily, Der Standard, don't you?

"...who simply want to teach everyone a lesson".

We, the people, have had enough. We've been telling them we've had enough, we've only gotten more and worse of the same in response, and, by God, we're not going to take it anymore.

It's about time someone learned that.

The only ones who can do it are us.


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