Trump-Style Candidates Rising in Europe
The Breitbart headlines said it all.
There was this out of France:
And this out of Belgium:
Belgium’s Anti-Trump Leader Resigns After Suffering Right Wing Election Victory
The bottom line? As is true in the United States, rank-and-file average Europeans have had more than enough of the globalist/socialist agenda, and in the style of America’s former President Donald Trump, they want out.
If anything is missed here it would be that conservatism has been on the rise for decades. In 1960, having just nominated the moderate GOP Vice President Richard Nixon for president, the GOP convention’s delegates suddenly leapt to their feet when Arizona’s Senator Barry Goldwater, the Mr. Conservative of his day, took the podium for a speech, a speech in which he, in instantly famous style, growled: “Let’s grow up conservatives!”
Four years later Goldwater himself was the nominee, defeating the GOP Establishment’s New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. From the get go Goldwater was facing a losing battle. Barely a year earlier the nation had been traumatized by the assassination of the young and beloved Democrat President John F. Kennedy. The astute and decidedly liberal Lyndon Johnson had succeeded JFK, and the country was in no mood for more change.
As the GOP stared the coming defeat in the face, on October 27, 1964 a flare of light for conservatives shot across the political sky. Actor Ronald Reagan appeared on national television to deliver a speech for Goldwater titled “A Time for Choosing.” In which, among other things, Reagan said:
This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down — [up] man’s old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
While Goldwater did indeed still lose in a 44 state pro-Johnson landslide, Reagan’s speech launched his own political career, with immediate calls for him to carry the conservative cause into the next (1966) election for Governor of California. The state GOP Establishment fought Reagan and his conservative followers, putting up the moderate GOP Mayor of San Francisco George Christopher. Reagan won going away, moving on to the general election and defeating liberal Democrat incumbent Governor Pat Brown.
And with that, the conservative cause was seriously on the move, triumphant in 1980 with Reagan’s 44 state landslide over the Democrats’ President Jimmy Carter.
There’s more, of course. But the central point here is that from Goldwater’s lonely scolding in 1960 — “Let’s grow up conservatives!” — to Reagan’s two landslide victories to the Trump 2016 win and his seriously possible repeat victory in 2024 — the conservative movement has flowered, becoming a serious force in American politics to this day.
And without doubt, its leader today is former President Trump.
So back to those headlines out of Europe. As with the conservative, now Trump-led cause in America, the conservative movement in Europe has had the same slow, gradual move to success. No better example is the gradual rise of Margaret Thatcher inside the UK’s Conservative party. It took a while, but eventually she was the decidedly strong Prime Minister Thatcher.
As this is written the decidedly conservative Nigel Farage is upending the British establishment of our day. Farage is the “architect” of “Brexit” — the move to get Britain out of the European Union. He left the Conservative Party over the issue — a quintessential “Establishment vs. Outsiders” battle.
A few days ago, Farage announced he was returning to elective politics waving the banner of the Reform UK party. Which is to say, the decidedly conservative Farage is yet again shaking up British politics. As Trump has shaken up American politics.
And this time around, as the news stories suggest, there is a similar Trump-style revolt gaining steam inside other European countries, with France, Germany, Italy, and Belgium among them.
All of which is to say, Donald Trump has emerged as the leader of a global movement, with others around the globe following in his footsteps.
And while Americans are understandably focused on their own 2024 election, it is safe to say the undercurrents of that election are flowing across Europe.
In two words: Buckle in.
READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord:
The Curious Trump Tie: Alito’s Flag and Merchan’s Trial
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