Free Republic

Moscow legislators backtracked on claims that they are considering the return of a monument honoring the founder of the Soviet secret police to the center of the city. The city parliament made no plans concerning the return of the statue of Felix "Iron Felix" Dzerzhinsky, legislature speaker Vladimir Platonov said on Ekho Moskvy radio Saturday. City lawmakers have no right to pitch such initiatives anyway and can only rule on their funding, said Platonov, a member of the ruling United Russia party. Fellow city lawmaker Andrei Metelsky said earlier Saturday that the Dzerzhinsky statue was a historical landmark and could...

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s caretaker government plans to expel some 18,000 foreigners living in the country without authorization, a minister said Saturday in the buildup to a national election.Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro said the center-right government will issue approximately 18,000 notifications to people in the country illegally to leave. The minister said officials will begin next week by asking some 4,500 foreigners to leave voluntarily within 20 days.Portugal will hold an early general election on May 18. Prime Minister Luis Montenegro called the snap ballot in March after his minority government led by his conservative Social...

The most dramatic narrative shift in this post-lockdown period has been the flip in the perceptions of government itself. For decades and even centuries, government was seen as the essential bulwark to defend the poor, empower the marginalized, realize justice, even the playing field in commerce, and guarantee rights to all. Government was the wise manager, curbing the excess of populist enthusiasm, blunting the impact of ferocious market dynamics, guaranteeing the safety of products, breaking up dangerous pockets of wealth accumulation, and protecting the rights of minority populations. That was the ethos and the perception. Taxation itself was sold to...

Far-left London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned that the “spectre of a resurgent fascism” threatens the West with the rise of populists in Europe, tech giants rolling back censorship, and the return of Donald Trump to the White House. The leftist Labour Party politician, writing for the Observer, the sister paper of the Guardian, likened the growing rejection of neo-liberal globalist policies in Europe and America to the rise of fascism in the “1920s and 1930s”. “The far right is on the march,” Mayor Khan exclaimed. “From Switzerland and Sweden to Hungary, Austria and Italy, European nations are coming under...

It’s a curious peculiar hallmark of our political moment as conservatives that adhering to principles—steadfastly examining issues through the lens of conservatism and first principles—is now treated as heresy by self proclaimed conservatives, while ideological flexibility and indifference are paraded as virtues. This peculiar attack invariably comes from the populists, those sartorial magicians who don the garments of conservatism when it suits them, only to cast them off the moment they conflict with the “current thing.” These are the ideological chameleons, the political reincarnations of those high school kids who reinvented themselves annually to fit in with whatever clique was...

It has been seven years since Sam Francis died. But the years since his death merely show the accuracy of his insights. Francis’s writing was marked not only by loyalty to the people from whom he came but by an unswerving devotion to telling the truth about the way the world really is, not the way he wished it to be. Francis knew that it was not “morning again in America” but far closer to midnight. Conservatives could not hope to achieve anything by defending elites, as conservatives have done since the French Revolution, since today’s elites are implacably hostile...

Meet historical fascism’s true heirs.In the famous anecdote usually attributed to Bertrand Russel, a scientist lecturing on the earth’s position in the solar system is corrected an old lady who says the earth is actually supported by a giant turtle. When the scientist asked what supports the turtle, she triumphally answered, “It’s turtles all the way down!”Since the Twenties and the rise of Italian Fascism and German Nazism––which eventually become the main referent of the word––the term has become an all-purpose question-begging epithet so promiscuously abused in the Thirties that, as George Orwell said in 1944, “The word Fascism has...

ROME — Europe is experiencing a crisis evidenced by a “wave of populism” that threatens European universality, Pope Francis warned Saturday. In a message to participants in the European Alpbach Forum, an Austrian nonprofit foundation advocating a strong and democratic Europe, the pontiff said that Europe is “experiencing a time of crisis,” a time “in which various populist movements are enjoying great popularity.” In Europe, “as a result of this ‘wave’ of populism, some ideals have vanished and some principles, with regard to behavior towards the weaker members of society, have been sidelined,” he added.

Former President Donald Trump laid out his economic policies and vision for the country at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, promising to keep intact the Affordable Care Act, Social Security and Medicare .“A lot of people are very devastated by what’s happened with inflation,” Trump said in Asheville. “I gave Harris and Biden an economic miracle and they quickly turned it into an economic nightmare.” *** Trump discussed his plans for “No Tax on Tips” and “No Tax on Social Security,” calling out Harris – who vists the state on Friday – for announcing a similar no tax...

Britain’s new prime minister has called on the public to reject the “snake oil charm of populism” as King Charles III outlined the Labour government’s legislative agenda for the coming year, which will include a push to fully ban tobacco, a doubling down on the green agenda, an attempt to “reset” relations with the EU and to advocate for Palestinian statehood. At the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday, King Charles III delivered the “gracious speech from the throne” — more commonly known as the King’s Speech — which sets out the government’s legislative programme for the upcoming parliamentary session....

American conservative media gushed over the nationalist victories in the European Union elections this week. Fox News, Breitbart, Washington Examiner, Daily Wire, The Blaze, and many others celebrated the results. Fox even praised the election as a strong rebuke to “socialism” and “far-left policies.” The American Right didn’t always treat Euro nationalists with adulatory coverage. Not that long ago, conservative outlets would warn about the dangers of these parties and slander them with the same hysteric claims liberal journos deploy. The positive coverage of Euro nationalists is another positive development for the American Right. When I started working at the...

I was invited to debate her at the Oxford Union on Thursday 25th April 2024. The motion was "Populism Is a Threat To Democracy". She argued in favour of the motion. I took the opposition. But there's a lot more going on than the camera's show... .....

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was rebuked as an "elite" during a recent Oxford Union debate, where she argued that populism in the United States is a threat to democracy. Pelosi — a self-described "devout" Catholic — said during the April 25 debate that certain Americans, whom she considered to be "poor souls who are looking for some answers," refuse to accept the answers Democrats give them on particular topics due to their beliefs about "guns, gays, [and] God." Challenging Pelosi's position in the debate about populism, Winston Marshall, a musician who was once a part of Mumford and...

It is the most spectacular trial ever held in Vietnam, befitting one of the greatest bank frauds the world has ever seen. Behind the stately yellow portico of the colonial-era courthouse in Ho Chi Minh City, a 67-year-old property developer stands accused of looting one of Vietnam's largest banks over a period of 11 years. The numbers involved are dizzying. Truong My Lan is charged with taking out $44bn (£35bn) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. Prosecutors say $27bn may never be recovered. The habitually secretive communist authorities have been uncharacteristically forthright about this case, going into minute detail...

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s political advocacy group plans to invest $20 million this year to shape the conservative agenda, an effort to directly counter what Pence had previously described as populism “unmoored to conservative principles.”

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan in an interview Wednesday with the Washington Post bashed former President Donald Trump and “Trump populism,” lamenting that it was now the “establishment.” He said:I am in the minority my party right now. I’m not in the establishment. I’m frankly an anti-establishment Republican. And you, I think you can safely argue — I don’t enjoy acknowledging this — that Trump is the establishment and Trump populism is the establishment and that Trump populism is this more isolationist strain that I think is wrong and dangerous and I don’t support, but that does represent a large...

The European Union is scared -as it should be.The Globalist superstructure of the EU is at odds with the majority of the continent’s population, which is becoming increasingly Conservative and lending its support to populist and nationalist parties. (snip) So Brussels is scared. Unelected EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, I fear mongering in the MSM, warning that parliamentary elections in June voters will flock to rightwing populist parties.While fear mongering, Borrel, in a wonderful case of projection, blames the European shift right on ‘fear’ – and not in the very real widespread rejection of EU’s failed leftist policies.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has claimed populism is a pathway to “defeat for the Republican Party.” Former President Donald Trump, the current 2024 GOP frontrunner, is known for his populist positions, which brought him support from many disenfranchised leftists and independents. Pence made the comments during a Wednesday appearance on “America’s Newsroom” on Fox News. “Well, look, you look at this Republican field, whether it’s my former running mate or some of his imitators, and there is a push in this Republican primary to to move us away from our party’s historic commitment to American leadership on the world...

Former Vice President Mike Pence cast the 2024 election as a fight for the future of conservatism and called on fellow Republicans to reject the “siren song of populism” championed by former President Donald Trump and his followers. “Should the new populism of the right seize and guide our party, the Republican Party we’ve long known will cease to exist and the fate of American freedom would be in doubt,” Pence said in what his campaign plugged as a major speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College Wednesday afternoon. […] Pence linked the right’s populism...

Former Vice President Mike Pence reiterated his call on Republicans to resist what he called the “siren song of populism” during the 2024 presidential race, signaling that it will be his theme throughout his rumored run.Pence issued his plea when speaking during Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s annual “Roast and Ride” fundraiser in Des Moines, Iowa.“I believe we have to resist the politics of personality and the siren song of populism unmoored to timeless conservative principles, and we need to stand firm on the conservative agenda of life and liberty and a commitment to freedom that has always led us to...