While recently in Vienna visiting a memorial to the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand—whose assassination in 1914 precipitated a global conflagration, the dimensions of which none of the participants anticipated or could control until the inferno had burned itself out at a cost of 30 million dead—I reflected upon how suddenly a world can unravel with the most tragic consequences for humanity
Now in the space of just 32 days between the opening of the European Parliament elections and the conclusion of the French national elections, a series of improbable electoral and political events in Europe and the United States has transformed the geopolitical structure of the Western world with ramifications echoing around the globe.
The President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the President of France, and the Chancellor of Germany—the pillars of Western leadership—have all suffered unexpectedly humiliating reverses that either ended their political careers or rendered their continuance in the office highly problematic.
Reaction to the EU and French elections mainly revolved around the striking advances of the right-wing parties, which mainstream media disgracefully fearmongered as "here come the Fascists"—while dismissing legitimate voter grievances as nothing more than thinly disguised anti-Muslim bigotry.
But the underreported and yet most consequential story of this broad-based populist revolt is the dramatic loss of support for the Green parties and their anti-fossil fuel crusade. The Green agenda is much more advanced in Europe than in the United States and Barack Obama‘s long ago prediction that it would “send electricity prices through the roof” is being painfully manifested in family budgets across the continent, a circumstance greatly exacerbated by the loss of cheap oil and natural gas from Russia.
Another element of the general Green madness, stoking citizen outrage, is the ludicrous war on “bovine flatulence “ which the EU bureaucrats regard as a dire threat to the planet that can only be remedied by taxing farmers into abandoning meat production. This ideology-driven campaign has devastated several sectors of European agriculture, which had led to farmers clogging capital cities with thousands of tractors. It was also a decisive factor in the election of Holland's newly formed right-wing government.
Another underlying cause of shifting political tides is the growing unpopularity of the Ukraine war, as revealed by an extensive, newly released poll by the Pew Research Center that showed sharply reduced support for Vladimir Zelensky amidst growing apprehension about the risks of the escalating confrontation with a nuclear-armed Russia.
In most instances the populist revolt has electorally punished ruling parties of the Center and Left to the benefit of insurgent parties of the Right (e.g. France's National Rally, Germany's AFD). But in Great Britain the incumbent party was the Conservatives who therefore bore for the brunt of the voter uprising against the status quo.
Thus it was the Labour party that in terms of parliamentary seats won achieved its best result since Tony Blair's historic 1997 triumph, even surpassing Boris Johnson's “Get Brexit Done “ landslide of 2019. However, paradoxically—owing to the peculiarities of Britain's “first past the post” electoral system, and the split among the Conservatives—Labour’s 33.8% share of the popular vote was the lowest of any victorious party in modern times, actually winning fewer votes than it did in the last two losing elections.
While the decisions of French President Macron and British Prime Minister Sunak to call “snap elections” were seen as colossal blunders, they can be viewed as relatively minor mistakes compared to President Biden's choosing to meet Donald Trump on a debate stage when he easily could have emulated the 1964 strategy of Lyndon Johnson, who refused to debate Barry Goldwater owing to the latter’s “dangerous extremism.” The resulting 90-minute nationally televised disaster will now be seen as one of the greatest unforced errors in modern political history.
The aftermath of this unprecedented event finds the Democratic party in utter disarray, with panicking media and other elites pressuring Biden to withdraw as a candidate or even resign the Presidency. Biden has resolutely refused to step aside and pointed to support from significant numbers of voters and the backing of some political leaders who see his continuance as the “least bad” of several messy options.
Shortly after the conclusion of the monumental calamity sparked by the murder of the Austrian Archduke and his wife in the remote Balkan city of Sarajevo, the philosopher Oswald Spengler published the opening volume of his prophetic history The Decline of the West. Now, a century later, shortsighted and unaware political actors are adding ominous new chapters to that tragic saga.
William Moloney studied history and politics at Oxford, 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.