It is far from ground-breaking to say that the populist Right is surging across the West. For a decade now, anti-establishment candidates have soared to power from Washington to Warsaw, and they have done so almost totally on the back of a single issue: Migration. The mass migration of millions from the Middle East, Central Asia, Central and South America, and Africa has dramatically shifted Western populists. Countries that experienced massive surges, such as Italy, Austria, and the United States, have either elected populist-right politicians or given them first prize in a series of electoral victories. Countries which have mostly avoided importing new arrivals, like Poland, have seen nationalists get elected to act as a shield to keep them out and as a sword to fight establishments which were, at best, uncaring about the effects of mass migration (and at worst were encouraging).
But this electoral sword could also, if the Right does not prepare properly, be a double-edged one. That is because the populists (at least the serious ones) are seeking actually to govern. And governing requires more than an immigration plan. This is particularly concerning as the entire West – though Europe specifically – is sitting on financial time bombs which are about to go off.
America’s financial time bombs and Europe’s differ. The United States’ is primarily debt-driven, with America burrowing itself in debt over the past decades. This is certainly a concern, and the bill will eventually come due – but due to America’s immense financial resources, it has been able to effectively kick that can down the road. And President Donald Trump’s tariffs are likely going to take another bite out of it, with estimates showing that they could pay down the deficit by trillions over the next decade.
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