Why is Europe Rejecting Nationalism?
Based on the outcome of the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, many began to hope that a wave of right wing populism would sweep across the West. This, unfortunately, has not been the case. Instead, 2016 and 2017 have showed, for now at least, that Europe will consider but ultimately reject nationalism. I’d have to reluctantly agree with a Washington Post article, “A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of nationalism. For now, though, it’s mostly just that: a specter. It hasn’t been able to move beyond its phantasmological form and actually take power outside of Hungary and Poland.”
It is all too true that nationalism in Europe remains only an apparition which tantalizes us with every election only to dissipate with the victory of yet another internationalist shill for global special interests. Nationalism was rejected in Austria, the Netherlands, and of course in France. In the UK, nationalism was “accepted” in the form of the Brexit referendum, but Theresa May’s government is certainly not an authentic British nationalism.
Across the European continent, nationalist candidates have been routinely losing national elections. Austria’s Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party failed to win the Austrian Presidency in a painfully close election, The Netherlands’s Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom styled himself as the European Donald Trump and had an equally dazzling coif of hair, but got only 13% in the Dutch election, and France’s fiery Marine Le Pen of the National Front ultimately lost in a landslide to an ex-Goldman Sachs executive.
The true specter haunting Europe is multiculturalism and it has gone far beyond phantasmagoria. Multiculturalism and the power structures supporting it can be considered the leading reasons why nationalism routinely fails in Europe. But this doesn’t really get at why nationalism routinely fails to gain serious traction in Europe. What really needs explaining is why so many native European White voters vote for internationalist candidates who openly campaign for the interests of non-Europeans at the expense of their own future.
I think the biggest problem is that European voters do not yet think of immigration, multiculturalism, and ethnic replacement as the supreme and only important issues. The fact is that clear majorities favor discontinuing immigration from Muslim countries and believe France has too many immigrants, but this has not translated itself into a victory by the only party that would pursue policies congruent with these opinions.
One problem is that inevitably, nationalist candidates like Le Pen must take positions on other issues, and these stances may cause them to lose support. For example, nationalist candidates are often also populist which carries with it a bevy of other positions separate from immigration or racial matters. The economic positions of a populist can and do cause traditional conservatives to stray away from these candidates. For example, in France many more traditionally conservative and pro-capitalist voters were repelled from Le Pen due to her advocating leaving the EU and her stance on potentially switching the French currency away from the euro. A poll taken in March showed that overwhelmingly, French voters oppose returning to the franc, and only 37% think the EU has more disadvantages than advantages. They were therefore drawn more to the center-right candidate François Fillon in the first round of voting, and many ended up voting for Macron in the second round.
Another problem facing nationalists is that nationalism is less appealing to people with higher education and incomes. In the second round of voting, Le Pen performed very well among voters with low income, a working-class background, and low levels of education, whereas Emmanuel Macron performed well among voters with the opposite profile: higher incomes, high levels of education, and more elite occupations. These educated classes, with their higher incomes enabling them to shield themselves from the effects of diversity and globalist trade policies, are more likely to worry about the effects of leaving the EU and the euro. Even if they have doubts about the wisdom of utterly transforming France — as many of them do, it’s not their most important issue. These more educated voters are also presumably more likely to resonate with the elite media and its endless moral panics about diversity — as is certainly the case in the U.S. As usual with nationalist candidates throughout the West, the media painted Le Pen as not just advocating poor policies, but as evil.
Additionally, it must be said that Le Pen was not the ideal candidate, providing another excuse for not voting for her. She performed poorly in the debate with Macron. “Snap polling by Elabe for BFM television just after Le Pen had left the TV studios, accusing Macron of ‘lies and aggression.’ found that a clear majority felt the centrist candidate had been the most convincing. Viewing figures said 16.5 million people watched the debate. French media on Thursday declared Macron the winner of a ‘dirty debate.’ Le Pen was criticized for her ‘permanent aggression,’ and even normally sympathetic publications found her ‘unconvincing’” (here).
As noted, the media has firmly opposed all nationalist parties in Europe and was doubtlessly influential in forming the public image of Le Pen and other nationalist candidates. The interests promoted by the media are typically in line with the corporate, globalist elites advocating cheap labor and an expanding consumer population. And, of course, in the case of the substantial Jewish-owned media in France, the UK (here and here), and elsewhere in Europe, the politics of demographic displacement conforms to their perceived ethnic interests.
For example, former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader and the leading voice of British Euroskepticism, Nigel Farage, who was successful in rallying the British people into choosing to leave the EU had his fair share of problems with the Eurocratic media in Britain. According to an article in the Express, “[Nigel Farage] accused the press of highlighting some members of the party with controversial views to try to discredit UKIP as a whole,” and demonizing Farage in the process. “And you’re surprised three years on, when I have to live like a virtual prisoner, that I’m not happy about it? Will I ever forgive the British media for what they’ve done to me? No.” The British media effectively controlled the narrative on UKIP and cherry-picked certain members to detract from the broader cause of British nationalism and Euroskepticism.
Obviously, the same thing happened in the U.S. re Trump. According to a study from Harvard,
Trump’s coverage during his first 100 days set a new standard for negativity. Of news reports with a clear tone, negative reports outpaced positive ones by 4 to 1. Trump’s coverage was unsparing. In no week did the coverage drop below 70 percent negative and it reached 90 percent negative at its peak. The best period for Trump was week 12 of his presidency, when he ordered a cruise missile strike on a Syrian airbase in retaliation for the Assad regime’s use of nerve gas on civilians. That week, his coverage went from 70 percent negative to 30 percent positive. Trump’s worst periods were weeks 3 and 4 (a combined 87 percent negative) when federal judges struck down his first executive order banning Muslim immigrants, and weeks 9 and 10 (a combined 88 percent negative) when the House of Representatives was struggling without success to muster the votes to pass a ‘repeal and replace’ health care bill.
Here, one can see how the media clearly and intentionally skews the tone of their coverage to further their corporate and political interests. When Trump launched the airstrike on Syria (which was applauded by neoconservatives, Zionists, and global elites), the media was more positive. But when Trump attempted to fulfill the campaign promise of the travel ban, the corporate media was outraged. Such a travel ban would be a slight to the dogma of multiculturalism, and the same power structures which support multiculturalism are those which determine media coverage.
Europe is largely in the same situation regarding their media. Coverage of nationalist candidates such as Le Pen, Hofer, Wilders, and Farage, has been overwhelmingly negative.
Wallerand de Saint-Just (a National Front member) was right on when he said, “So it’s us against them. Many politicians do not side with Monsieur Macron but they are against Madame Le Pen. And for the most part, that goes for journalists too, who you can see are against us, against the Front National, because very often they work for media owned by the supporters of Monsieur Macron.” When the media outlets deemed to be credible by the global elites are owned by those very same elites, many of whom have political ties, how can one expect their coverage to be fair and just?
In France, the media’s harsh treatment of the National Front was affirmed by French voters. According to a British news report, “A survey by the French Think Tank Fondapol, which was conducted in March, said 55 percent of French people think that the media treats Ms. Le Pen in a negative light. This compares to just 19 percent of people who think that the media treats Ms. Le Pen’s main rival the leader of En Marche!, Emmanuel Macron, negatively. The survey has revealed that only 15 percent of people believe that the media treats the FN leader positively, which compares to 46 percent of people who think that Mr. Macron is treated favorably.”
Nationalism continues to tantalize but ultimately the results have been disappointing, mainly because international power structures will simply not allow nationalism to manifest itself in a significant way. Indeed, after the French election it was revealed that there was a secret plan to neutralize Le Pen if she had won. ‘freezing’ the political situation by convening parliament in emergency session and keeping the outgoing prime minister in office. Le Pen would have had to ‘cohabit’ with a government and prime minister from a different party, which she could have changed only in the unlikely event of winning a parliamentary majority.”
We should not lose hope though. As more and more Whites wake up to the multicultural specter which haunts their continent, they will turn to nationalism to defend their right to exist and rule over the lands of their ancestors. I am hopeful that, eventually, Europeans will rise up and reclaim their right to determine the fate of their continent by throwing off the shackles placed upon them by the global elites and internationalist financial entities.
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