Religion & Liberty Online

5 takeaways from the European Union last election

Rubber Wall? Although populists have won in many countries — Salvini in Italy, Le Pen in France, Farage in the United Kingdom, Nationalists in Belgium, Law and Justice in Poland, and Orban in Hungary — everything points out that little will change in the distribution of power and in the political dynamics within the European Union. The European unification project is authoritarian, and the European Parliament is a decorative body, practically irrelevant.  The Eurocrat establishment is a rubber wall, no matter how strong you punch them, they will punch you back. The real power lies with the bureaucrats in Brussels, and these are insulated from any consequence that electoral shocks can cause. To the extent that populists decide to fight by rules designed to ensure the crushing of any dissent, they will never win. Moreover, they are much divided, and there is no popular majority supporting them — at least not yet.

Are young people subversive? Unlike in the United States, a significant portion of young people supports anti-establishment parties.  Salvini’s League, the Belgian Nationalists, and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally — the French nationalist star is the 23-year-old Jordan Bardella–, for example, were able to make deep inroads among the younger voters. As a matter of fact, the leftist newspaper Le Monde reported that the number of young people identified as supporting right-wing views has grown in a dramatic way in France. While many young Americans seem to be calling for a new Josef Stalin to guide them – they might well vote for an Uncle Joe next election –, the young Europeans are going in another direction.

And Brexit? By capturing a third of the vote, the performance of the months-old Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party was a Sunday night’ major surprise. What does this mean for the unfolding of the political ‘telenovela’ started in 2016? Nothing!  The United Kingdom will not find a way out soon or later of the confusion it had gotten in when the ruling elites decided to cheat the people through a referendum – Brexit — that everyone thought they knew the outcome beforehand. Well, they did not know, and the mess is going on.

Is it a transgender bathroom, baby? The roaring defeat of the Social-Democrats in Germany and the surge of the Greens across Europe show that a more radical cultural left-turn is an irreversible now. The Greens are advocates the whole radical cultural agenda and politically correct authoritarianism. Ideas associated with the old left such as the defense of the working class and better wages has been buried for good. Now, the dispute on the left-wing camp will be to see who can spell the greatest number of genders and to see who hates the white Christian heterosexual white man more.

Conservatives? Not that “conservatives” like Angela Merkel are a big deal. As far as economic issues are concerned, she is on the left of the former German Chancellor and social-democrat leader Gerhard Schröder, and on the left of the communist parties of the 1980s in cultural matters. Even so, she is still called conservative and is, without a shadow of a doubt, the queen of the Eurocracy. The European Union was created to contain Germany; nowadays, the German ruling elites control Europe. These same “conservative” elites have as their primary desire to be the gravediggers of Christian Europe, and they are winning.

Homepage photo: WikiCommons

Silvio Simonetti

Silvio Simonetti is a Brazilian lawyer, graduated in international affairs from the Bush School at Texas A & M University. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Acton Institute. Silvio loves history and the Catholic Church.