As Europe Begins to Trump-It

I hear it all the time. “People aren’t so nice anymore.” “There’s something, a tension everywhere. It’s not all peace and love like the movements in the 1960s and 70s.” “The American dream is dead.” “Upward mobility has pretty much vaporized.” “Everyone’s trying to get an edge.” Even those who are going well in this economy, the mega-rich who have never been richer, sense the unease. Few think things are going to get better is the societal expectation. Younger generations don’t expect a better quality of life than that of the parents. We are horribly and perhaps inconsolably polarized. Politics has been reduced to name-calling and “fake news.” The only sure thing: uncertainty.

Why? Malthusian overpopulation? Climate change decimating agriculture, wreaking havoc through ultra-violent storm patterns, coastal erosion, flooding, fires, droughts and rising temperatures? Automation replacing legions of blue, and now white, collar workers? Regional conflicts driving hordes of desperate people to leave their homelands to migrate seeking hope and salvation, only to be greeted by hatred and anger? Ultra, “my God is right and yours must be purged,” religiosity as a reaction to all this? Old world developed economies dependent on social programs that those who can afford it will not pay for against desperate and displaced citizens demanding support and attention? Scarce resources with more mouths to feed? The decline of the West, and the rise of the East? Autocratic leaders, driven to “solve” these issues with simple slogans, willing to destroy democracy to advance their own power, promising what they can never deliver? All of the above?

The rise of hate crimes (related to negative racial, ethnic, sexual-orientation and religious motivation) throughout the Western world, particularly in the United States, has increased with frightening speed. Historically, hate crimes are often a precursor to legitimizing attacking these traditional victims, scapegoating them, and ultimately assaulting, killing or banishing them. What was a crime becomes acceptable and even required behavior. Think Jews in Hitler’s Germany, the Rohingya in Myanmar, ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, Boko Haram slaughtering Christians, etc., etc. The signs are everywhere, hate crimes and shootings of unarmed people of color, gay-bashing, from an anti-Muslim slaughter in Christchurch, New Zealand to the march of some “very fine,” torch-bearing white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Donald Trump is hardly the cause of this ugly trend; he has just legitimized those who harbor these malevolent intentions against those who are “different.” Blame is the easy game of autocrats throughout the ages. The Washington Post recently asked if there might be a correlation between areas where Donald Trump holds his rallies – often laced with rather openly “nationalistic” us against them racist/ethnic suggestions – and a rise in hate crimes in those states. “Using the Anti-Defamation League’s Hate, Extremism, Anti-Semitism, Terrorism map data (HEAT map), we examined whether there was a correlation between the counties that hosted one of Trump’s 275 presidential campaign rallies in 2016 and increased incidents of hate crimes in subsequent months.

“To test this, we aggregated hate-crime incident data and Trump rally data to the county level and then used statistical tools to estimate a rally’s impact. We included controls for factors such as the county’s crime rates, its number of active hate groups, its minority populations, its percentage with college educations, its location in the country and the month when the rallies occurred.

“We found that counties that had hosted a 2016 Trump campaign rally saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes over comparable counties that did not host such a rally… Additionally, it is hard to discount a “Trump effect” when a considerable number of these reported hate crimes reference Trump. According to the ADL’s 2016 data, these incidents included vandalism, intimidation and assault.

“What’s more, according to the FBI’s Universal Crime report in 2017, reported hate crimes increased 17 percent over 2016. Recent research also shows that reading or hearing Trump’s statements of bias against particular groups makes people more likely to write offensive things about the groups he targets.” Washington Post, March 22, 2019. Much of this statistical analysis was done through a group of professors and their graduate students at the University of North Texas. Whether the United States erupts into a self-inflicted civil war remains an open question, but this lurch to the nationalistic right is hardly uniquely American. The waves of nationalistic, ethnic-racist populism are surging across Europe as well.

As extreme French populist, Marine Le Pen lost handily in the 2017 election, many in Europe saw that as a sign that Trump-style populism would not find traction in Europe. “Leaders like Emmanuel Macron, whose 2017 election as French president was widely — and in retrospect, perhaps incorrectly — seen as a sign that the populist wave sweeping the continent had crested, place their faith in the European project, exemplified by common values, goals and interests.” Los Angeles Times, May 22^nd. But with a looming election for representatives to the European Union’s Parliament, the populist movement is anything but dead. Even Marie Le Pen is back and rising fast.

“Five years ago, Brexit wasn’t even a blip on the horizon. Populist and extreme-right parties were mainly political sideshows. The pillars of the postwar order — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union — were weathering occasional family squabbles but hardly riven by existential threats. And the transatlantic relationship hadn’t been turned on its head by an impetuous U.S. president who speaks far more harshly of traditional European allies than he does of tyrants such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un .

“This time around, it’s an entirely different landscape. When four-day balloting for the European Union’s legislative body begins Thursday [5/23], starting with votes in Britain and the Netherlands, mainstream parties that have held sway for decades face an unprecedented insurgency by anti-establishment movements…

“Led by Italy’s hard-line deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, the [a right-wing assemblage of European leaders in Milan] denounced ‘out-of-control’ immigration — even though numbers of migrants arriving in Europe have dropped off dramatically since 2015, which saw a surge in arrivals from war-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“‘Working in concert with parties such as Germany’s Alternative for Germany and the Dutch Freedom Party, whose platform largely rests on anti-Muslim sentiment, Salvini’s alliance hopes to wind up as the European Parliament’s fourth-largest group.

“But the Milan gathering did not include Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban , whom the far-right movement considers one of its brightest stars. He says he may remain allied with the centrist parliament bloc and try to move it rightward. Orban has also shown no interest in joining forces with Le Pen…

“Salvini and his would-be coalition partners have seized upon the notion that immigrants, especially from Muslim countries, pose a threat to ‘European’ culture — often used in that context as a code word for Christianity.

“Even from across the Atlantic, President Trump is an unseen presence in the vote, some analysts said. He hosted Orban in the Oval Office last week, and he is an enthusiastic proponent of Brexit… His onetime senior White House strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, has sought to play a more active role, boosting politicians such as Salvini and denouncing Macron. The election, Bannon told the French newspaper Le Parisien last week, is a referendum on Macron’s vision of Europe, which he derides as unworkable.” LA Times.

No one believes that these populists will win new majorities, but their rising presence gives them power in so many ways. Aside from having a new and more powerful platform of influence, some of these far-right nationalists may well be the linchpins in new coalitions if no one party wins a clear majority. It is a disturbing trend.

“With German Chancellor Angela Merkel having decided not to seek another term in federal elections due in 2021, Macron has sought to take up the mantle as the leading proponent of a united Europe.

“But as his popularity at home has slipped, he finds himself grappling with widespread resentment over falling living standards in rural areas.

“The ‘yellow vest’ movement has held raucous and sometimes violent demonstrations across the country and in iconic Parisian venues such as the Champs-Elysees. Macron, while promising to listen to the grievances of those who feel left behind, has painted the European vote as a referendum on moving forward with closer integration that would help the EU compete with world powers such as the U.S. and China.

“‘Retreating into nationalism offers nothing,’ Macron wrote in an open letter in March. ‘It is rejection without an alternative. And this is the trap that threatens the whole of Europe.’” LA Times. Will the pendulum swing back or is this just the beginning of a new world running on hate and fear?

        I’m Peter Dekom, and I truly feel that the older generations have laid a terrible path for the generations who follow.