This was by far the most accurate description of current Western Europe, anywhere. Walking thru England, Germany or France the past decade, the vast changes spurred by mass migration were evident everywhere. Now it is impossible not to realize, it is all coming to a head.
Merkel's embrace of Open Borders, like her Climate policy, will eventually destroy her legacy, but Germany might escape the same fate. Last week even Chancellor Merz saw the writing on the wall. He announced 1.3 million Syrian migrants must leave Germany, return home and rebuild Syria, as German's rebuilt, post WWII. In a nation that has long refused to deport even violent criminal migrants, the announcement nearly shook the ground.
Merz evidently realizes the days of Germany's traditional Parties successfully painting the AfD as modern day Nazis are over. Led by a lesbian, married to a non Western woman, with children, if the AfD are Nazis, they are not very good at it.
Walking around London these days, there is a distinct feeling of traversing a powder keg. Once prim, proper and sophisticated, today parts of London resemble a dystopian movie. Jewish soccer fans were recently banned from cheering an Israeli soccer team "for their own protection". The revelation the mass rape of hundreds of poor English girls by Pakistani migrants was covered up for a decade, by scores of government officials, so as not to impede multiculturalism, seems to have been the last straw. Many English are openly seething. "Farage" once a bad word, now feels inevitable.
Like lousy Climate policy, it has slowly dawned on many Europeans mass migration was a horrendous idea. The notion countries could not survive without ever expanding, imported populations has been debunked, especially with the advent of AI. Switzerland, with the highest living standards and the best healthcare in the world, seems destined to soon legally cap their population. Other nations will follow. Political parties that remain devoted to shoving ever more migrants down voter's throats, will eventually go the way of the Dodo, where ever they may exist.
In the US, many are realizing Biden was our Merkel, minus the chemistry degree and the support hose. Our Climate mania is ending. While Trump's deportation tactics are rubbing many the wrong way, only lousy Rep messaging is saving Dems from political slaughter, spurred by their disguised, but near religious reverence for Open Borders.
Dems seem to believe if they wail loud enough, Americans will not notice Dem de facto immigration policy is, any non violent world resident who arrives on US soil, should be allowed to stay forever, no valid asylum claim or economic self sufficiency required. Like Europe, that will work, until it does not.
The smaller European parties inevitably form coalition governments with the larger more mainstream parties who then select the PM. I’m far from convinced that the end result is all that different from the various factions that form within our own 2 party system. In some ways I prefer that our coalitions form before I vote rather than after.
I think it’s a mistake to try and split this a progressivism vs populism. It’s voters choosing between politicians who insist on doubling down on policies they view as harmful and politicians who campaign on doing away with them. Right or left politicians should recognize the following simple truths.
1. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the backbone of economic prosperity.
2. Assimilation is what separates an immigrant from an invader.
3. Live and let live will eventually win the day on most social issues. Forcing people to pretend a man who wishes he was a woman is no different than an actual woman, is the polar opposite of live and let live.
Your so called “progressives” are on the wrong side of these issues while your so called “populists” are on the right side. This is why they will always come out on top of a lesser of two evils decision.
We may end up seeing right-wing populist party take over a major European nation in the near future. If it is National Rally in France, then that country will likely face a balance of payments crisis if the party sticks to its current platform. France already has a high deficit and has one of the earliest retirement ages in Europe and both the far right and far left are being grossly irresponsible by suggesting it be lowered further.
Alternative thesis that fits these results better: anti-establishment, heterodox parties of both the left and right won at the expense of center-left and center-right parties. These parties dominated social media spaces better than moderate opposition, across the board.
Which message (centrist vs. anti-establishment) is naturally louder, angrier, and more paranoid? The latter. (That includes loud, strident wokeness, btw, which we saw rise stratospherically a few years before all this)
What emotional appeals get the most clicks, and are therefore more promoted by social media algorithms? Appeals to anger, paranoia and loud heterodoxy.
What is monetized by social media companies? Clicks. (And personal data harvested from clicks)
What is the one force uniformly at work in the exact same fashion across all the diverse, heterogeneous cultural and economic sensibilities of all these countries across the globe? It is the technology of social media and the algorithm, multiplied a billion-fold by the constant surveilling, psychologically influential presence of the smartphone.
You may be tempted to call it the ‘age of populism’—but the more accurate title would be ‘age of the algorithm’, wherein moderate establishmentarians square off against a technological foe they have no answer to, yet. (Shades of the early years of the telegraph and the radio)
This was by far the most accurate description of current Western Europe, anywhere. Walking thru England, Germany or France the past decade, the vast changes spurred by mass migration were evident everywhere. Now it is impossible not to realize, it is all coming to a head.
Merkel's embrace of Open Borders, like her Climate policy, will eventually destroy her legacy, but Germany might escape the same fate. Last week even Chancellor Merz saw the writing on the wall. He announced 1.3 million Syrian migrants must leave Germany, return home and rebuild Syria, as German's rebuilt, post WWII. In a nation that has long refused to deport even violent criminal migrants, the announcement nearly shook the ground.
Merz evidently realizes the days of Germany's traditional Parties successfully painting the AfD as modern day Nazis are over. Led by a lesbian, married to a non Western woman, with children, if the AfD are Nazis, they are not very good at it.
Walking around London these days, there is a distinct feeling of traversing a powder keg. Once prim, proper and sophisticated, today parts of London resemble a dystopian movie. Jewish soccer fans were recently banned from cheering an Israeli soccer team "for their own protection". The revelation the mass rape of hundreds of poor English girls by Pakistani migrants was covered up for a decade, by scores of government officials, so as not to impede multiculturalism, seems to have been the last straw. Many English are openly seething. "Farage" once a bad word, now feels inevitable.
Like lousy Climate policy, it has slowly dawned on many Europeans mass migration was a horrendous idea. The notion countries could not survive without ever expanding, imported populations has been debunked, especially with the advent of AI. Switzerland, with the highest living standards and the best healthcare in the world, seems destined to soon legally cap their population. Other nations will follow. Political parties that remain devoted to shoving ever more migrants down voter's throats, will eventually go the way of the Dodo, where ever they may exist.
In the US, many are realizing Biden was our Merkel, minus the chemistry degree and the support hose. Our Climate mania is ending. While Trump's deportation tactics are rubbing many the wrong way, only lousy Rep messaging is saving Dems from political slaughter, spurred by their disguised, but near religious reverence for Open Borders.
Dems seem to believe if they wail loud enough, Americans will not notice Dem de facto immigration policy is, any non violent world resident who arrives on US soil, should be allowed to stay forever, no valid asylum claim or economic self sufficiency required. Like Europe, that will work, until it does not.
"Dem de facto immigration policy is, any non violent world resident who arrives on US soil, should be allowed to stay forever"
The "non-violent" qualifier is giving Democrats way too much credit.
I'm jealous of the Europeans having so many choices of parties to support.
Glad to see a piece by Henry Olsen here. I'm a liberal, and he's a conservative, but I find some of his ideas very appealing.
The smaller European parties inevitably form coalition governments with the larger more mainstream parties who then select the PM. I’m far from convinced that the end result is all that different from the various factions that form within our own 2 party system. In some ways I prefer that our coalitions form before I vote rather than after.
I think it’s a mistake to try and split this a progressivism vs populism. It’s voters choosing between politicians who insist on doubling down on policies they view as harmful and politicians who campaign on doing away with them. Right or left politicians should recognize the following simple truths.
1. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the backbone of economic prosperity.
2. Assimilation is what separates an immigrant from an invader.
3. Live and let live will eventually win the day on most social issues. Forcing people to pretend a man who wishes he was a woman is no different than an actual woman, is the polar opposite of live and let live.
Your so called “progressives” are on the wrong side of these issues while your so called “populists” are on the right side. This is why they will always come out on top of a lesser of two evils decision.
We may end up seeing right-wing populist party take over a major European nation in the near future. If it is National Rally in France, then that country will likely face a balance of payments crisis if the party sticks to its current platform. France already has a high deficit and has one of the earliest retirement ages in Europe and both the far right and far left are being grossly irresponsible by suggesting it be lowered further.
Alternative thesis that fits these results better: anti-establishment, heterodox parties of both the left and right won at the expense of center-left and center-right parties. These parties dominated social media spaces better than moderate opposition, across the board.
Which message (centrist vs. anti-establishment) is naturally louder, angrier, and more paranoid? The latter. (That includes loud, strident wokeness, btw, which we saw rise stratospherically a few years before all this)
What emotional appeals get the most clicks, and are therefore more promoted by social media algorithms? Appeals to anger, paranoia and loud heterodoxy.
What is monetized by social media companies? Clicks. (And personal data harvested from clicks)
What is the one force uniformly at work in the exact same fashion across all the diverse, heterogeneous cultural and economic sensibilities of all these countries across the globe? It is the technology of social media and the algorithm, multiplied a billion-fold by the constant surveilling, psychologically influential presence of the smartphone.
You may be tempted to call it the ‘age of populism’—but the more accurate title would be ‘age of the algorithm’, wherein moderate establishmentarians square off against a technological foe they have no answer to, yet. (Shades of the early years of the telegraph and the radio)