ONE big problem with elites is they often fall into the trap of believing fashionable ideas that have no basis in reality.
Look at politics, for example.
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Ever since Brexit and Donald Trump stunned an out-of-touch ruling class, in 2016, many elites have fallen over themselves to promote the idea that we have reached ‘Peak Populism’.
These revolts among millions of disillusioned voters, so they say, have run out of steam while very few people across Europe want to follow the Brits by registering their disapproval of the EU.
But this could not be further from the truth.
Why?
Because only weeks from now the still insular and out-of-touch EU looks set to be hit by the biggest populist wave to date.
Just look at the latest election forecasts across Europe.
While centre-left, green, and liberal centrist parties look set to suffer significant if not major losses, an assortment of national populist and ultra-conservative parties look set for major gains.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s lead in the polls is growing, not falling. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s party is still dominant, as is Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party in Hungary.
In Germany, the Alternative for Germany is still in second place while Belgium’s Flemish Interest also looks set for major gains.
In Austria and the Netherlands, the Freedom parties are likewise topping the polls while in Sweden the Sweden Democrats, which just launched its election campaign with the slogan ‘My Europe Builds Walls’, a reference to the ongoing refugee crisis, is effectively already the kingmaker in Swedish politics.
And nor, by the way, is it mainly being led by older voters who will soon slip over the horizon.
Contrary to all those columnists and commentators who routinely like to dismiss populism as a refuge for pensioners, it’s actually now drawing considerable support from the young.
In Germany, for example, a fascinating new study of some 2,000 young people, aged between 14 and 29, found that 22 percent of them plan to vote for the national populist Alternative for Germany, compared to only nine percent two years ago.
In many other countries, too, populists are drawing support from young Zoomers from Gen-Z and Millennials.
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In France, for example, at the most recent presidential election, the under-35s were more likely than the over-35s to vote for Marine Le Pen, who is also targeting disillusionment with the country’s disastrous experiment with mass immigration.
Like their parents and grandparents, many younger voters are profoundly worried about what mass immigration, the ongoing refugee crisis, and the spread of radical Islamism mean for the future of their liberal societies, including their hard-won rights for women and same-sex couples.
In fact, another recent study found that populist parties are now winning much higher levels of support among LGBT people than they did in the 2000s, many of whom are also deeply concerned about how, if at all, their crucial rights will be maintained if radical Islamism continues to assert itself across Europe.
And nor are these trends confined to Europe.
Only an idiot would try to argue we have already reached ‘Peak Populism’
Though you won’t hear it among the expert class, who comfort themselves by telling each other that populism only appeals to the old, white, working-class, in America Donald Trump is making major inroads among Latino, Hispanic, and African American voters who are utterly fed-up with the woke left and how Joe Biden has completely lost control of their southern border.
While Trump is still leading Biden in six of the seven battleground states that will decide the election in November, many minority voters have watched in horror as elites demand utterly ludicrous policies like ‘defunding the police’, or going soft on crime and drug addiction in major cities, all the while knowing it won’t be them who have to suffer the consequences of these decisions.
Bigger and bolder
Put all this together, then, and only an idiot would try to argue we have already reached ‘Peak Populism’.
If anything, this movement is only getting stronger, not weaker, not least by reaching out to new generations of voters who, like the Brits in 2016, are utterly fed-up with how mass immigration, broken borders, crime, the spread of Islamism, woke ideology and out-of-touch elites are weakening their societies from within.
And as Europe’s rapidly approaching elections will almost certainly reveal, until elites pull their heads out of the sand by both acknowledging and addressing these concerns, the populist wave that’s now engulfing the old parties and politicians will only continue to get bigger and bigger.
Credit Gist New Today News in Newspaper Nigeria Headlines