The upcoming elections to the European Parliament (June 6 -9) will be the most consequential expression of popular opinion in the Old World since the Brexit referendum ( June 23, 2016) sealed the departure of Great Britain from the European Union and prefigured a similarly unexpected voter uprising in the New World just five months later –the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.
Unlike American citizens, who get to vote directly for virtually every public office from President to county clerk, Europeans—in their capacity as citizens of the EU—have been intentionally excluded from similar access to real power by a bizarrely evolved constitutional structure designed for the express purpose of protecting the ruling elites from acts of stupidity on the part of voters.
Part of that nefarious design is the European Parliament itself. While its 720 members are popularly elected every five years across the 28 member nations, the EU Constitution limits its authority to vague and complex advisory roles, while the appointed European Commission in Brussels wields the real power.
Nevertheless, the parliamentary elections serve as an outlet for popular frustration, with a potential to send strong messages to the politicians of the member nations who actually are answerable to the voters who elect them. At present there are unmistakable indications that a powerful message will be forthcoming in June.
The bureaucrats in Brussels are already in something of a panic over recent victories in member state elections by individuals and parties deemed to be “undesirables” by virtue of their harsh criticism of EU policies, particularly on immigration. These include Hungary's Victor Orban, Italy's Giorgia Meloni, France's Marine Le Pen, Holland’s Geert Wilders, the Sweden Democrats, Poland's Law And Justice Party, and the Alternative for Germany (AFD), all being routinely demonized as quasi-fascist or neo-Nazi—and like any who dare to question immigration policy, by definition racist.
Illustrative of the alarm bells emanating from the left wing of the European political spectrum is a May 5 article in the New York Times by Roger Cohen entitled “How Dangerous is Europe's Rising Far Right?” Cohen summons the specter of “dictatorship” and poses the question: “If elected. would such parties ever leave office?”
For years the response of the European establishment to the new dissenting populist parties was to try and ban them outright owing to their presumed racist or neo-Nazi roots.” When this tactic failed, attempts were made to deny them any participation in legislative coalitions.
But as their numbers grew in successive elections and the traditional parties’ numbers declined–to a point where in some countries (e.g., Poland, Hungary, and Holland) the new populist parties became the largest in their national legislatures—this strategy also collapsed. Finally, as Cohen's article laments, the populists were gaining acceptance and being “absorbed into the arc of Western democracies.”
As in times past, today there is a compelling similarity between unfolding political themes in Europe and the United States: globalism versus nationalism, elitism versus populism, and the privations of working and middle-class families owing to struggling inflation-ridden economies.
Particularly striking is that, on both sides of the Atlantic, growing voter anxiety over the political, economic, and cultural implications of out-of-control immigration has risen to the top among citizen concerns, despite the racist smear commonly attached to those who speak openly about the issue.
Much like 2016, tensions regarding these issues are mounting as both the U.S. and the EU approach defining elections which have aroused great hopes and fears among polarized populations across the Western world.
For the elitist parties of the Left, the main battle cry being employed to rally voters is the shrill, endlessly repeated mantra that victory by their populist opponents would represent a grave “threat to democracy.” However, the sordid truth behind this bogus claim is that the real calamity feared by the Left is the “threat from democracy.” Leftist icons from Lenin to Alinsky have been crystal clear that elections are always dangerous to the elite few who aspire to control the lives of the many.
So, whenever “deplorables “are allowed to vote there is great risk of catastrophic eruptions such as Brexit or Trump. Accordingly, in the elitist view, the fewer elections the better. Before this year is out, we should have a clearer idea of which conception of democracy will prevail.
Bill Moloney studied history and politics at Oxford and the University of London and received his doctorate from Harvard University. His columns have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Hill, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post and Human Events.