Posts Tagged ‘Green Parties (EU)’

LinkSwarm for October 4, 2024

Friday, October 4th, 2024

A crippling dock strike gets the can kicked past election day, Hurricane Helene wrecks havoc on the highlands, illegal alien crime flourishes, two bombing plots aimed at “diversity” are thwarted, Texas A&M ditches woke classes, more Diddy dirt, and Japanese gamers aren’t onboard with Ubisoft’s “black samurai.”

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Striking Dockworkers Agree to Take a Measly 62 Percent Raise and Not Spoil the Election for Democrats.” How convenient.
  • “America Last: After Spending $640 Million On Migrants And Billions Abroad, FEMA Suddenly ‘Broke.'”

    The Biden-Harris administration’s ‘America Last’ policies have left the country vulnerable. Between draining the strategic petroleum reserve, sending hundreds of billions in cash and equipment to Ukraine (such as electrical transformers that are now needed for Hurricane Helene), and FEMA spending $640 million to help migrants, the agency tasked with emergency preparedness is now ‘broke,’ and doesn’t have enough money to get through hurricane season which typically lasts through November.

    The agency is being stretched as it works with states to assess damage from Hurricane Helene and delivers meals, water, generators and other critical supplies. The storm struck Florida last week, then plowed through several states in the Southeast, flooding towns and killing more than 160 people.

    Mayorkas was not specific about how much additional money the agency may need, but his remarks on Air Force One underscored concerns voiced by President Joe Biden and some lawmakers earlier this week that Congress may need to pass a supplemental spending bill this fall to help states with recovery efforts.

  • “This woman blasted Joe Biden live on NBC – she has family that has been trapped in NC for days and says FEMA is nowhere in sight. Why haven’t President Biden or Vice President Harris called a major press conference and/or landed on the ground in towns that were wiped off the map by last week’s flooding?”
  • Indeed, there are a lot of reports that some government agencies are actively hindering private rescue and relief efforts in North Carolina. “Let’s begin with this terrible report of a man who used his own helicopter to rescue stranded people above Asheville, N.C., and who was told if he continued, he would be placed under arrest.”

    Also: “We have medical teams trying to access Burnsville (elevation 2,700ft) and Black Mountain. Authorities are threatening arrest. I’m gonna keep this short & simple; something is very wrong here.”

    Also: “NEW – Federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has shut down aid flights into Western North Carolina. A NOTAM has been issued by the FAA that won’t allow anyone not approved by the state to fly aid missions.”

    Plus a slate of 18-wheeler tire slashings in multiple locations that’s hopefully not government sanctioned. Hopefully…

  • Trump announces that Elon Musk is providing free Starlink terminals to areas affected by hurricane Helene.
  • Musk will also be a Trump’s October 5 rally in Butler, PA, the same site as the attempted assassination attempt against Trump.
  • One pollster thinks Trump could win swing states by a landslide.

    The Trafalgar Group released a poll on Wednesday showing Trump has increased his lead in the vital swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

    The recent poll shows Trump beating Harris by 2.2 points in Michigan, with Trump scoring 47.5% of the votes to Harris’s 45.3%.

    On August 31, the Trafalgar Group had Trump beating Harris 47% to 46.6%, a lead of only 0.4%.

    Trump is winning in Wisconsin as well, topping the Kackler by 47.1% to 46%. The poll had Trump at 47.3% to Harris’s 46.2%.

    “These numbers are the best we’ve seen for Trump in this election cycle. If this momentum holds, he could easily win by a significant margin,” a polling source stated.

    In Pennsylvania, which many pundits believe Harris needs to win, Trump is up, with 47.5% of the vote, compared to Harris’s 45.3%.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Texas Congressman Confirms Thousands of Murderers, Rapists Entered the Country Illegally.”

    The Biden-Harris administration has allowed well over half a million illegal aliens with criminal histories to enter the United States.

    U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-23) published the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data on social media platform X.

    According to the newly released information, 662,566 noncitizens on ICE’s national docket have criminal histories. These numbers include 13,099 murder convicts, 15,811 sexual assault convicts, and 13,423 weapon offense convicts.

    “We’ve known for far too long that the Biden-Harris border crisis poses a direct threat to Americans,” Gonzales said in a press release. “The truth is clear—illegal immigrants with a criminal record are coming into our country.”

    The Texas congressman asserted that beyond the disturbing new data, it should also serve as a “wake-up call” for the federal government and cities across the United States that keep sanctuary policies in place.

    Gonzales first requested the data on March 13 when he penned a letter requesting answers to several illegal immigration questions to President Joe Biden and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

    Of the seven million reported cases on ICE’s docket, the letter requested information on how many noncitizens were charged with a crime by a municipality. Additionally, the letter asked how many were noncitizens convicted of a crime and released into U.S. communities.

    Over six months later, Gonzales has finally received a response.

    Sure seems like Gonzales has been a lot more active on this issue since Brandon Herrera primaried him…

  • Another side effect of Biden-Harris open borders policy: An explosion of illegal alien prostitution networks.

    As ‘Border Czar’ Kamala Harris visited the southern border for a photo-op on Friday, alarming new revelations also emerged showing that far-left Democrats in the White House rolled out the red carpet to 650,000 migrants with criminal records. This has already fueled chaos nationwide, including a new report of an “explosion in migrant prostitution” networks across America.

    A newly leaked law enforcement document obtained by New York Post journalists shows that the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua has exploited desperate migrant women into sex trafficking networks across eight states.

    At least eight states have seen an explosion in migrant prostitution since the gang laid down roots in the US, with authorities in Texas, Nevada, Illinois, California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey and New York now fighting to curtail the sex trade, the memo shows. -NYPost

    The Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been linked to sex trafficking in eight states including New York.

    In New York City, police sources told the NYPost that Tren de Aragua gangsters are recruiting their members and victims straight out of city-run migrant shelters.

    In the Big Apple, Tren de Aragua is trying to recruit foot soldiers to force women into sex trafficking — in the hopes that it will become a main source of income for the gang, according to the leaked memo.

    Funny how we didn’t see or hear a single story about Tren de Aragua prior to the Biden Administration, and now they seem to be everywhere.

  • Speaking of sexual slavery, a Yazidi woman captured by the Islamic State was just rescued…in Gaza. From the river to the sea/No sex slave shall be free…
  • “A paralegal at a New York City district attorney’s office has been arrested after he attempted to make an explosive to bomb a migrant shelter located across from his apartment, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday.” See, here in Texas, we just want to deport illegal aliens, not blow them up…
  • “Philadelphia: Muslim teen hoped to make bombs for terror group, planned LGBTQ parade jihad massacre….Muhyyee-ud-din Abdul-Rahman, 18, of West Philadelphia, not only had bomb-making materials, that were found in the trash at his home, he had tested bombs in the woods behind his home and had likely considered an attack on Philly’s LGBTQ community.” Funny how some of the Democratic Party’s vibrant diversity wants to blow up other parts of the Democratic Party’s vibrant diversity…
  • John Kerry admits that the First Amendment is a huge barrier to forcing leftist views down people’s throats. “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence. What we need is to win…the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.” If anyone you know is committing #Wrongthink, be sure to report them to the Ministry of Love…
  • Iran hit mostly Jack and Squat in its missile attack on israel, though it did evidently hit one airbase hanger.
  • “Hamas Commander Killed in Israeli Strike Led U.N. Refugee Agency Teachers’ Union.” [Fateh Sherif] was responsible for coordinating Hamas’ terror activities in Lebanon with Hezbollah operatives, as well as Hamas’ efforts in Lebanon to recruit operatives and acquire weapons.”
  • MSM media outlets fell all over themselves to praise dead terrorist scumbag Hassan Nasrallah.
  • Israel hits a Russian airbase in Syria. One wonders what Russian’s adventures in Syria have gotten them other than some dead mercenaries and weapons sales.
  • “Russia Captures Vuhledar: After Over 800 Vehicle Losses and Over Two Years of Trying.”
  • “The Babylon Bee filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Monday after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of “deepfake” laws that target outlets that publish satire and parody.”
  • Virginia high school teacher fired for refusing to use tranny pronouns awarded $575,000. Make them pay.
  • Albania wants to createa microstate in their own capital for “Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order” for the moderate Sufi Muslim sect. “His hoped-for Muslim state in Tirana, the capital of Albania, will be a Vatican-style sovereign enclave that will control territory the size of five New York City blocks and will allow alcohol, allow women to wear what they want and not impose lifestyle rules.” Not the worst idea I’ve heard this year. At least they could sell postage stamps…
  • “A&M to Deactivate ‘LGBTQ’ Studies Minor and Social Justice Certificate.”

    A Texas A&M spokesperson has confirmed that the university will deactivate 38 certificates and 14 minors, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies minor.

    The A&M spokesperson told The Battalion that the official list of deactivated programs will not be public until it appears before the Faculty Senate on October 14. A university statement cited low enrollment as the reason for deactivating the programs.

    However, Theresa Morris, the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, said that the LGBTQ Studies minor was among those ending.

    An official in the Department of Communication & Journalism also confirmed that certificates for both Communication, Diversity and Social Justice and Communication & Global Media are being deactivated.

    Additionally, the director of Marketing and Communications in the College of Performance confirmed that the certificates for popular culture and performing social activism were also in the deactivation process.

    This comes after State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) repeatedly called DEI courses and the LGBTQ studies minor an “outrageous abuse of tax money” and examples of “taxpayer-funded indoctrination.”

    Good. Maybe students will be forced to choose a major that adds to the world rather than tearing it down with social justice.

  • “Lawsuit Accuses Democrat State House Candidate of Not Paying Vendors. House District 80 Democrat candidate Cecilia Castellano is already under investigation by Attorney General Ken Paxton in a separate voter fraud case.”

    A lawsuit filed in Tarrant County is accusing a Democrat running for the Texas House of Representatives of failing to pay her vendors and subcontractors in the business she operates.

    House District 80 candidate Cecilia Castellano, who operates Azteca Designs and Construction, allegedly failed to provide proper compensation for work done by one of Azteca’s subcontractors, the Glass Doctor of North Texas, according to the suit.

    Glass Doctor had entered an agreement to work on a project with Azteca in November 2023, where the subcontractor was slated to earn $49,643.36, according to the filing. Later, Glass Doctor was tasked with replacing damaged glass installed by another subcontractor for an additional $18,487.77.

    However, Glass Doctor says the payments never arrived.

    Plaintiffs instead painted a picture of Azteca going out of their way to avoid providing the payments, claiming the project was “not built pursuant to written plans” and back-charging Glass Doctor to fix work done by a third party.

  • “Fort Bend County Judge KP George Indicted Over Fake Racist Messages. Warrants indicate George may have attempted to conceal evidence.”

    Fort Bend County Judge KP George has been indicted on misdemeanor charges related to faked racist messages on social media but could face felony charges over an alleged attempt to hide evidence.

    A grand jury indicted George last Thursday in relation to a scheme in collaboration with Taral Patel, his former chief of staff and now Democratic candidate for county commissioner. Patel was indicted on four felony and four misdemeanor charges after investigators tied him to fake social media and email accounts used to make offensive posts and circulate falsified polls.

  • “Netflix Cancellations Skyrocketed After Founder Donated, Endorsed Harris. Netflix cancellations went through the roof after co-founder and chairman Reed Hastings endorsed and donated to VP Kamala Harris.”
  • Following up on last week’s Diddy arrest story, the accusations just keep piling on, with 120 more sexual abuse claims, including 25 from minors. If even 10% of these claims are true, how did he get away with such massive abuse for so long? Who does he have dirt on?
  • “[German] Green Party co-chairs Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour are stepping down. The move could make things even harder for Germany’s fractious coalition government. Germany’s Green Party is going from crisis to crisis. Three days after regional elections in the eastern state of Brandenburg delivered a stinging defeat to the party, its entire leadership has resigned. Now, the party will have to choose a replacement at its party conference in November.”
  • My my, hey hey/Disney cancels the movie about Rei.
  • Who could possibly be pissed off about a historical game starring a black samurai? Well, for starters, Japanese gamers.
  • “Kamala Announces Construction Of ‘Murderers Only’ Express Lane At Southern Border.”
  • “School Shooters Distance Themselves From Tim Walz.”
  • “Hezbollah Reaches Out To U.S. For Advice On How To Govern With A Dead Leader.”
  • “Young Hezbollah Recruit Can’t Believe He’s Already Made Regional Manager.”
  • OK, I’m awake!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • I’ve been unemployed for one year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar.





    Also, a hearty thanks to everyone who has already donated.

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions | 2 Comments »

    Why Dutch Farmers Revolt

    Thursday, August 4th, 2022

    Those who get all their news from the MSM may be unaware that Dutch farmers are staging a revolt against attempts to seize their land and force them out of farming.

    Americans should start paying closer attention to the ongoing farmer protests in the Netherlands, which this week transformed long swaths of Dutch highways into what looked like a post-apocalyptic warzone: roadside fires raging out of control, manure and farming detritus heaped across highways, traffic stalled for miles, and massive protests across the country in support of the farmers.

    Why is the Netherlands, of all places, experiencing such unrest? Americans need to understand what’s happening over there because the ruinous climate policies that triggered these protests are precisely what President Joe Biden and the Democrats have in mind for the United States.

    Specifically, Dutch farmers are protesting a government plan to cut fertilizer use and reduce livestock numbers so drastically that it will force many farms out of business. Earlier this month, farmers used tractors and trucks to block highways and entrances to food distribution centers across the country, saying their livelihood and way of life are being targeted by the government.

    And they more or less are. The ruling coalition government claims its radical plan, pushed by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who branded the protests “unacceptable,” is part of an “unavoidable transition” to improve air, land, and water quality.

    “Unavoidable” because European elites have decided their virtue signaling transcends the rights of mere peasants to earn a living and feed people.

    The goal is to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia, which are produced by livestock but which the government is labeling “pollutants,” by 50 percent nationwide by the year 2030.

    The only way to do that, many Dutch farmers say, is to slaughter the vast majority of their livestock and shutter their farms. The government knows this and admitted as much earlier this year, saying in a statement, “The honest message … is that not all farmers can continue their business,” and that farmers have three options: “Becoming more sustainable, relocating or ending their business.”

    The genesis of the scheme was a court ruling from 2019 that said the Dutch government’s plan for reducing nitrogen emissions violated EU laws protecting its Natura 2000 network of supposedly vulnerable and endangered plant and animal habitats — basically a bunch of EU-governed wildlife preserves. These sites span the EU, covering 18 percent of the bloc’s land area and 8 percent of its marine territory.

    To protect these wildlife preserves, Dutch farmers are being told they must submit to their government’s ruinous emissions plan.

    But the Natura 2000 preserves are only part of the story. European leaders such as Rutte are environmental ideologues who want to transform global food production and eliminate private land ownership, and he sees an opportunity in this court order to reshape agriculture and land use in the Netherlands.

    Indeed, Rutte — a walking embodiment of the Davos Man if there ever was one — is a big proponent of the United Nations’ “Agenda 2030” and its Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to squeeze farmers and ranchers around the world in order to reduce “emissions.” The policies that flow from these goals, such as drastically reducing the use of fertilizer, contributed to the recent economic collapse of Sri Lanka, which triggered mass protests that toppled Sri Lanka’s government and ousted its president earlier this month.

    Last year, Rutte spoke to the World Economic Forum about “transforming food systems and land use” at Davos Agenda Week, announcing that the Netherlands would host something called the “Global Coordinating Secretariat of the World Economic Food Innovation Hubs,” whose job would be to “connect all other food innovation hubs.”

    In Davos-speak, that means agricultural production and the supply of food will be centrally controlled by intra-governmental bodies and “stakeholders” consisting mainly of the world’s largest food corporations and international NGOs. Private farms and independent farmers will be a thing of the past, supplanted by global bodies making decisions about how much and what kinds of food are produced. The private sector and the independent farmers will have no place in the future that the UN and the WEF are planning.

    Dutch farmers understand this. They know Rutte and his ministers want above all to eradicate their farms and way of life. But they’re not going down without a fight.

    And fighting they are:

    How bad is it? One farmer says he’ll have to get rid of 95% of his herd.

    In the Netherlands, dairy farmer Martin Neppelenbroek is near the end of the line.

    New environmental regulations will require him to slash his livestock numbers by 95 percent. He thinks he will have to sell his family farm.

    “I can’t run a farm on 5 percent. For me, it’s over and done with,” he said in a July 7 interview with The Epoch Times.

    “In view of the regulations, I can’t sell it to anybody. Nobody wants to buy it. [But] the government wants to buy it. And that’s why they [have] those regulations, I think….”

    There’s a sword of Damocles hanging over them: the possibility of compulsory seizure of property by the government.

    NOS Nieuws reported that Christianne van der Wal, the country’s minister of nature and nitrogen policy, has not ruled out expropriating land from uncooperative farmers.

    According to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service, the Dutch government has said its approach means “there is not a future for all [Dutch] farmers.”

    You would think that with the world facing the prospect of widespread famine later this year, that the the commissars might pause their radical, agriculture-destroying policies until that problem is dealt with.

    You would be wrong.

    And the Dutch government seems to be escalating their violence at the same time Dutch farmers are hanging themselves.

    This Dutch farmer thinks the real reason is that radical left-wingers want to get rid of all animal products.

    The Dutch farmer revolt is especially important, since a lot of leftwing environmental activists want to import the same seizure tactics here.

    This week news broke that congressional Democrats had finally reached a deal on the largest piece of climate legislation in American history. The bill is a tax-and-spend cornucopia of some $369 billion for wind, solar, geothermal, battery, and other industries over the next decade, along with generous subsidies for electric vehicles and incentives to keep nuclear plants open and capture emissions from industrial plants.

    After pretending to oppose Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s climate legislation, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin relented this week, clearing the way for the bill to proceed. Senate Democrats say the bill will allow the U.S. to cut greenhouse emissions by 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 — matching up nicely with the UN’s “Agenda 2030.”

    Understand that the Senate bill isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. Climate activists and ideologues are working at the highest levels to transform not just the global food supply, but the nature of private property and property rights, all in the name of saving the planet. What Rutte and his government are doing to Dutch farmers, Schumer and Biden are planning to do to American farmers and American industries.

    So pay attention to the roadside fires and blocked highways and mass civic unrest in places like the Netherlands and Sri Lanka. America is next.

    Overstatement? Probably. But you know that a lot of Democratic politicians and environmentalists see such radical actions as a model to implement here.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Regulation, video | 11 Comments »

    EU Election Results

    Wednesday, May 29th, 2019

    From this side of the pond, the EU election results may seem somewhat baffling. Populist parties gained ground at the expense of centrist and traditional parties, but so did the Greens. This doesn’t fit our traditional left-right political schemas.

    In the UK, Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party captured the most EU parliamentary seats. “Mr Farage’s party won 29 seats, the Lib Dems 16, Labour 10, the Greens seven, the Tories four, the SNP three, and Plaid Cymru and the DUP one each.” Those are disasterous results for Labour and the Tories. UKIP was wiped out and entirely replaced by the Brexit Party. The Liberal Democrats coming in second was a result I do not think was foreseen by anyone, nor the Greens doing better than the Tories. The colossal stink of the inability to deliver Brexit that clings to the Tories and Labour helped both Liberal Democrats and Greens, both being so far from power and out of the spotlight the last few years. Faced with parties run by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, “Vote them all out!” must have seemed like a coldly rational choice.

    Some interesting results in Scotland:

    In Scotland, the pro-Remain SNP won the biggest share of the vote, with just under 38%, giving it three MEPs.

    The Brexit Party came in second place with a significantly lower percentage – 14.8% – followed by the Lib Dems with 13.9% and the Tories with 11.6% – meaning each party has one seat.

    But Labour only received 9.3% of the vote – a loss in vote share of 16.6% – leaving it with no MEPs in Scotland for the first time.

    It’s hard to say what these results indicate for UK domestic politics going forward, as traditionally MEP elections have been very poor indicators of the next general election. But the giant Brexit cockup is hugely hurting both Tories and Labour.

    On the results from Europe as a whole:

    1) The mainstream parties of the center-Left and center-Right (or so-called legacy parties) continue a decline that has now been going on, at different speeds in different countries, for several decades. Italy’s Christian Democrats fell apart in the 1990s; its post-Communist socialists more recently; Berlusconi’s once-dominant Forza Italia fell into single figures this time; and the socialists are still struggling, at 22 percent. In this election, Italy’s insurgent populist partners — the League and the Five Star Movement — got 51 percent of the total vote between them, and they’re not getting a divorce. It was a less happy story in Germany where the two main parties in the “Grand Coalition” — Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU and the Social Democrats — both lost ground compared with their performance in 2014, scoring only 45 percent jointly when they would once have been in the high seventies. France’s traditional parties of government almost disappeared from the results, all scoring in single figures. And so on. The most dramatic collapse of the centrist parties was in Britain, where the governing Tories fell to below 10 percent. But that story will get fuller treatment elsewhere.

    2) Where the center retreated, however, the populist Right did not always occupy the abandoned position. National populists (which is the approved non-hostile term for describing them) advanced moderately and consolidated their previous gains substantially in the elections. Victor Orban’s Fidesz won 52 percent of the votes in Hungary. Poland’s Law and Justice party held off a multi-party attack from an organized left-wing coalition and won a majority that suggests it will win the forthcoming national elections. France’s National Rally — the latest name for the populist Right party led by Marine Le Pen — narrowly defeated the populist-centrist party of President Macron in France. (Populist-centrism may be a novel concept, and it may prove to be an unsuccessful one, but it’s the best description yet coined of Macron’s ambiguous politics.) The political success of Italy’s populism we outlined above. And in the United Kingdom, the populist Euroskeptic party, titled with stunning simplicity the Brexit party, went from its foundation five weeks ago to become the largest U.K. party in the European Parliament, with 32 percent of the national vote and 29 MEPs. But it hopes to be leaving Parliament soon.

    Populism suffered no major defeats anywhere — unless you count (and you shouldn’t) Denmark, where the People’s Party share of the vote was halved because the more respectable social democrats adopted their tough migration policy. On the other hand, populism didn’t win as many votes as the populists had hoped and as the Left and the media had feared. In particular, populists fell well short of taking control of the European Parliament or, as we shall see, even weakening the control of it exercised by the reigning centrist duopoly of Christian and Social Democrats.

    3) If the center retreated and the Right advanced only so far, European Liberals (the ALDE parliamentary group) and Greens occupied the vacant ground. Greens became the second party in Germany and the third party in France; Liberal Democrats became the surprise second-place winners, after Nigel Farage’s Brexit party in Britain; and both parties did well throughout the western half of Europe. Their success is not a mystery. Progressive middle-class voters wanted more idealistic commitments to policies such as combatting climate change and opening borders than the cautious center always provided. In addition, such voters were alarmed by what they saw as the national-populist threat to the European Union — a greatly exaggerated one in reality since none of the populists outside the U.K. want to leave the EU, merely to restrain it. All the same, these voters turned out to support the EU, too, which in the U.K. explains the rise of the Lib Dems as a response to the Brexit party.

    As Australian elections proved, green policies are popular right up to the point that someone tries to implement them.

    Cutting to the chase:

    The moderately conservative EPP will struggle to keep its preeminence within the centrist coalition because the ALDE and the Greens are ideologically closer to the socialists than to themselves; Greens within the European Parliament and Germany itself will want to use their newfound power to phase out fossil fuels, which will be resisted by coal-producing Poland and Eastern Germany; the more progressive Euro-parliamentary majority may want to press sanctions on Viktor Orban for violating “European values,” but the success of populists in half of Europe means that he now has more allies in that conflict; and, above all, President Macron has enthusiastic supporters among the ALDE liberals in the European Parliament for his ambitious integrationist projects that the Germans and other Northern European governments fear they will be asked to finance.

    And these projects are indeed formidable: to centralize the power and sovereignty of 27 nation-states in European institutions without solving their existing democracy deficit; to replace their independent budgetary arrangements with a single European fiscal policy without the power of tax collection; to create a common European defense structure separate from NATO without increasing anyone’s defense expenditure; to replace fossil fuels with renewables to solve climate change without massive regulation, and a realistic plan to prevent a huge rise in energy costs for industry and consumers. This is the hubris of government, but its costs always fall on others. It is sometimes said that the error of socialists is not that they have no faith in capitalism but that they have almost boundless faith in it. They think it can bear any burden they place on it and still stagger on delivering the goods. Modern European statesmen feel the same way about their citizens. The populists remind them they’re wrong. And they haven’t gone away.

    One moderating effect on an “radical center” is the fact that the structure of the EU leaves very little actual power in the hands of the EU Parliament. My suspicion is that if the EU Parliament wanted to phase out fossil fuels faster than the real rulers of the EU think wise, those policies would just magically not get implemented.

    As I’ve stated before, the future of EU politics probably looks a lot like the Northern League-Five Star alliance in Italy: Moderately populist, in favor of both low taxes and a large welfare state, guaranteed to remain popular right up until the inevitable economic crash.

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    Posted in Elections, Foreign Policy | No Comments »