Many who are tearing their clothes and talking about the danger posed by “fascism” in North America and Europe are reluctant to acknowledge that what so alarms them is in no small measure due to their own conduct. With few exceptions, they console themselves with the notion that Donald Trump’s popularity and the recent rise of “the new right” in Europe are due to the moral and intellectual deficiencies of the electorate on both sides of the Atlantic. This is a contemptuous attitude that, needless to say, serves to further widen the gap that separates them from a growing proportion of their compatriots, especially those who, a generation ago, supported leftist movements.
Once the period of mourning that followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union was over, The militant left lost interest in Marxist economic recipes and chose to wage the fight against the capitalist order on cultural terrain. He would do so by supporting feminism, environmentalism and ethnic movements hostile to the “white” majority. Although this strategy would bring good results, as the left was quick to impose its criteria on the academic world, organizations linked to human rights, the most prestigious media outlets and the entertainment industries, it would also provoke a very strong reaction that is forcing the self-proclaimed progressives to retreat.
The reason is simple. After feeding on his alleged willingness to defend the interests of the working class, lThe left became a purely bourgeois movement. Somewhat ironically, Americans who support Trump and Europeans who vote for “the new right” or, as progressives say, “the extreme right,” are the most harmed by the way economies are evolving in which the most succulent profits go not only to astute financiers but also to the products of elite universities that tend to be leftist. .
“The losers” do not like being treated with contempt by those who attribute patriotism to “racism” or having to pay much more for the energy they consume to “save the planet.” of global warming. Nor do they like the impact of the unrestricted entry into their countries of immigrants with customs and beliefs that are not only very different from their own but also, in many cases, incompatible. With skill, politicians of various types have known how to take advantage of the discomfort caused by the arrogance of “the elites” supposedly illustrated as by the concrete economic problems experienced by the majority.
In the United States and Europe, the issues that most agitate voters are those raised by mass immigration. For some progressives, democratic societies are morally obliged to keep their doors open to all those who for political or economic reasons seek refuge and therefore oppose any attempt to close them. Such an attitude would be reasonable if it were not a matter of hundreds of millions of people who in many cases are not capable of performing useful functions in a developed economy.
In United States, The governors of Florida and Texas managed to weaken those determined to let in all the needy from the rest of the world by sending large contingents of undocumented immigrants to “progressive” cities. Like Chicago and New York, after a couple of weeks, leftist mayors, alarmed by what was happening on the streets of their domains, radically changed their minds.
In Europe, the situation is somewhat different because the differences between the native population and the immigrants, whoThey are mostly Muslim, they are larger than in the United States. Even if religious fanatics constitute a small minority, the fact that some are willing to carry out terrorist massacres and many others to sympathize with them makes peaceful coexistence extremely difficult.
It is therefore understandable that in France, Germany, the Netherlands and even Sweden, groups that make no secret of their desire to expel all those who are reluctant to adopt the norms prevailing in their country of residence are attracting more adherents. Aware that the winds have begun to blow against the militant left, centrists like the American president Joe Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, as well as many Swedes, Germans and Dutch with similar backgrounds, are sliding to the “right”, which, of course, infuriates progressives who believed they were winners of the “cultural battle.”
