Reading recent scary headlines might make some people worry that jackbooted stormtroopers are on the march in European capitals again. 

We have been warned by the establishment media that the “Polish far-right’s win is a thunderclap above Europe” (Le Monde); informed of how “The hard-right’s champion blows up the Dutch government” (The Economist); told that German politics is now a pitched battle “between the far-right AfD and just about everyone else” (Euractiv); given a health warning that British democracy is threatened by a “populist far-right virus” (Politico). And much more along similar lines.

You would not know it from the language used, but what these stories are really describing is democracy in action. In different ways, in different countries, they are all about right-wing political leaders standing up for what they see as the interests and expectations of the demos, the people who elect them. And winning the support of masses of voters by sticking to their principles. 

The European establishment recoils in horror from such democratic displays. It tries to brand the rising populist parties as ‘far-right,’ ‘hard right,’ or ‘extreme right’ in order to delegitimise them and exclude them from normal democratic debate.