Posted on 05/06/2011 8:58:23 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The rise of populist parties on the Old Continent seems to echo the success of the Tea Party in the United States. But the two movements have different histories, writes the Boston correspondent for De Morgen. The result, though, is the same: governments threatened with paralysis. Excerpts.
In the American media recently there has been a lot of talk of the “European Tea Party.” The Old Continent is supposed to have become acquainted with this movement following the victory of the True Finns in elections in Finland and the rise in the polls in France of the leader of the Front National, Marine Le Pen.
The emotions that animate the Tea Party, it would appear, have crossed the Atlantic to Europe. When it rains in Washington, a few drops will fall in Helsinki, Paris and Flanders. And when the American Tea Party revolts in Washington, the European Tea Party rises up against Brussels.
Let’s be clear: apart from a few loners with a Facebook page, the notion of a “European Tea Party” makes precious little sense. It’s actually the other way around. The Tea Party is an American outlet for sentiments that in Europe have been venting for years in parties like the Vlaams Blok, which became the Vlaams Belang [VB, Flemish nationalist party of the far right] in Flanders, the Front National in France, the Pim Fortuyn List [dissolved in 2008] in the Netherlands and the Northern League in Italy. Filip Dewinter [head of the VB] was making speeches while Sarah Palin [muse of the American Tea Party] was still content to help her husband with his fishing business in Wasilla, Alaska. We have some right, therefore, to claim ownership of what is happening here in Europe.
What is called the “European Tea Party”, we might also note, worries about holding onto social gains, while the American version recoils with dread at the idea of a welfare state on the European model. [US President Barack] Obama cannot even lift a finger for a social initiative without loud cries of “Communism!” The differences are legion. Nevertheless, the origins of the resentments are very similar.
At bottom, it’s about the existential fears of white, middle-class workers. On both shores of the Atlantic, the white taxpayer fears that his country is being held hostage, that he is being crowded out by immigrants and witnessing the end of the world where he has lived so long in comfort. On both sides of the ocean there is the same dislike of arrogant elites who look down on ordinary people and despise their own national characteristics.
And the populist right is spending a lot of time on trans-Atlantic phone calls. Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, one of the Republican lobby groups in the shadows of the Tea Party, recently visited Norway to teach the Progress Party, a far-right party, how to emerge in no time as a “spontaneous” grassroots movement. Vlaams Belang has known links with the United States, and the nationalist Flemish leader Bart De Wever draws his inspiration from the British journalist Theodore Dalrymple, whose writing is also appreciated in Tea Party circles in the US And the personal adviser to Geert Wilders [leader of the PVV, a populist Dutch party] is Paul Beliën, husband of Alexandra Colen, a member of Vlaams Belang who has excellent contacts with the thin-skinned American right.
Common ground here is anti-Islamic paranoia. The “Eurabia” hypothesis, which holds that Muslim immigrants are the fifth column in the Islamisation of Europe, is popular on both sides of the ocean. In some U.S. states initiatives are underway to keep Sharia [Islamic law] from being applied in the courts – which, however, is never applied anyway. What this shows is that the Tea Party is closer to people like Geert Wilders and Philippe De Winter than one might think.
No surprise there, really. As early as 1964 the American historian Richard Hofstadter described in his now classic essay, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, the creeping fear of elites who seemingly run everything from the shadows. While members of the Tea Party believe that Obama is a Muslim secret agent, their European colleagues are certain that Brussels is trying to establish a European super-state dictatorship. Whether in Europe or America, everywhere conspiracies against the little white taxpayer are feared.
The situation has clearly begun to fester throughout the West. The world of yesterday, once so safe, will never return. The Great Recession has taken its toll on both sides of the Atlantic. Unemployment, poverty and uncertainty about the future are spreading. There are problems with immigration. Add to that a series of revolts in the Middle East whose outcomes are uncertain and it’s all somewhat disquieting, at the least.
In a growing number of countries this situation is giving rise to hostile reactions in the electorate, who are trying to persuade themselves that everything would be so much better if the rest of the world would just go away and let them get back to living in an idyllic past, set roughly in the 1950s. All those who fail to share this view are intellectuals aloof from the people, or “bad Flemings”, or not quite “true” Americans or Finns. Legitimate distress with the state of the world risks slipping into irrational reactions that could make things worse.
On both sides of the Atlantic, a self-destructive vicious circle threatens. It is highly probable that those who are currently supporting the populists will turn even more hostile at voting times, which will let the populists go on gaining ground and make it even harder to find rational solutions to problems that are no less real.
Potential disasters aside, the outcome is an increasingly inability to govern and a growing incapacity to act to resolve the pressing issues of the day. This is as clearly seen in Washington as it is in Helsinki and The Hague, and in the European and Belgian political capitals in Brussels.
“trying to persuade themselves that everything would be so much better if the rest of the world would just go away and let them get back to living in an idyllic past, set roughly in the 1950s.”
Fix separate but equal race laws,,put airbags and fuel injection in the cars,,, and yes, i would indeed love to get back to living in the idyllic past, set in the 1950s. Yessiree,, 98% of the 1950s was about perfect.
If "ability to govern" continues to be expressed as "ever more regulation" and "resolving the issues" means "ever more spending," then give me paralysis any day.
yitbos
“the outcome is an increasingly inability to govern and a growing incapacity to act to resolve the pressing issues of the day”
Awwwww, are the little people thinking THEY get to run their government? How uppity! That must really upset the guardians.
“Conservatism/Tea Party cannot be defined by Socialists.”
That story sounds like we are upsetting them,,,, That makes me happy :)
It took quite a while for the author to let slip his "tell." It's all about racism, should have seen that one a few paragraphs earlier....
Empty rhetoric, as usual.
The article tries to compare American conservatives with European national socialists. Sounds like liberal/socialist/Democrats in the U.S.
yitbos
It took quite a while for the author to let slip his “tell.” It’s all about racism,” ==========
That’s exactly where my offense flaired. Immigration has no order whatsoever anymore given that in Washington there is no respect for our immigration laws, our history and culture, nor assimilation programs in place BEFORE citizenship is granted let alone after. There is actually no respect for us. It’s a take over by fiat. The solution is gutting and rebuilding our education/liberal indoctrination camps/system which no one campaigning mentions EVER.
In Europe they have a choice on a line with Natinal Socialists (fascists) on the right end and International Marxists (communists) on the Left end. In the US we have the International Marxists and the National Socialists on one end and the constitutionists on the right end.
Libertarians would put themselves on the right end but they can’t because they are Marxist toltartarians when it comes to social freedom issues for those they have accepted Rand’s ideal of religious oppression with that communist “wall of separation” that does not exist in the constitution. Economically and in national defense (borders and law enforcement) and foreign policy, they are anarchists like the far left.
I have no idea whether the national socialists of Europe are always totally racist or not. In the US the National socialists and the Marxists are into racism against whites. That is due to American leftist intellectuals realizing that they have to defeat the constitution and those historically who were free, to realize their dream of total power.
I think the European Marxists has followed the same path of our left in flooding the country with foreigners in the hope of “progress” and given them economic and cultural preferences for their votes. That would pit whites against minorities in those countries as it has done here until the courts finally recognized that white men have equal rights to minorities and women.
The international Marxists have succeeded in Europe where they have consolidated power in the dictatorship by the European Commission and virtual elimination of national borders within the EU.
yitbos
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.