Rising European Fascists Welcome Trump Victory
Saturday, 12 November 2016 00:00 By Ryan Harvey, Truthout | Report
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, the largest far-right
party in France, speaks to reporters at a political meeting in Perpignan,
France, February 15, 2014. Under Le Pen, the daughter of the party's
founder, the National Front has moved from the fringe to the center of
French politics by "softening" the party's xenophobic image. (Photo: Pierre
Terdjman / New York Times)
"Today the United States, tomorrow France," former National Front leader
Jean-Marie Le Pen tweeted late Tuesday night, referencing the prophetic
quote attributed to Adolph Hitler. This was as Donald Trump's victory swept
through the world's headlines, exciting many a far-right activist within and
outside of the United States.
Unfortunately, Le Pen is no lone Twitter-fascist, but a popular figure whose
daughter and fellow far-right leader Marine Le Pen is expected to win the
first round of French national elections in April. In the last elections, Le
Pen swept large areas of the country in the first round before being
defeated by large margins in the second.
But this is the year of Brexit and Donald Trump, and France (and Europe)
need not wait until 2017 to anticipate their future. As many have pointed
out, the French primaries, only two weeks away, may well determine the
outcome in the spring. If Alain Juppe succeeds in clinching the Republican
Party's nomination, he stands to beat Marine Le Pen. Any other scenario
opens the gate of possibility for the fascist-right she represents.
France, the target of a number of attacks by Islamic State copycats and a
battleground in the humanitarian crisis facing refugees in Europe, is not
alone in the predicament of having far-right parties poised to make big
gains in fast-approaching elections. Austria, the first EU state to close
its borders to refugees, votes December 4 in a highly contested race that
saw election results from May -- which placed the leftist Alexander Van der
Bellen barely in front -- invalidated due to fraud. Norbert Hofer, who
represents the far-right Freedom Party, lost by a very small margin of just
over 30,000 votes and is expected to win next month.
In the Netherlands, holding its next election in March, the far-right Geert
Wilders is placed for a possible victory as well, representing the
anti-Muslim, anti-EU Party for Freedom. In an echo of Trump's situation,
criminal charges Wilders is facing for hate speech may actually increase his
likelihood to win.
"We are witnessing the same uprising on both sides of the Atlantic," Wilders
wrote Wednesday morning in the conspiracy-site-turned-news-blog Breitbart.
"The Patriotic Spring is sweeping the Western world."
Even while Austrians vote for a party allied with Eurosceptics -- those
political parties within Europe that oppose the European Union either in its
current form or in its entirety -- they still poll pro-EU. But recent public
conflict between Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Austrian
chancellor Christian Kern over the EU-Turkey deal that sealed the Turkish
coastline from refugees attempting to reach Greece shows another side of the
EU's political crisis. This is only the latest sign that this tenuous and
haphazard agreement may fall apart very soon. A disintegration of the deal
with Turkey would likely push European politics further to the margins, with
the left and pro-refugee groups having to face an increasingly angry
reactionary force from the far right. Similar developments last year brought
out the best and worst of Europe and significantly affected the rhetoric
pushing the far right.
Following Brexit and Trump, and especially in the event of the collapse of
the EU-Turkey deal, a Wilders or Hofer victory would further the momentum
pointing in the direction of Le Pen, who has spoken very directly about
staging a Frexit referendum and aligning France along nationalist,
anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant lines.
The European Union would not survive a Frexit, which would sever the
economic union of France and Germany, the two pillars of the Eurozone
project. Germany, the other half of the union's foundation, would be forced
to navigate a post-Euro Europe before it was hoping to. France would find
itself as part of a new coalition of far-right European parties united by
their stances against NATO and the EU, an emerging relationship with the
"Putinsphere," and a general hostility toward democratic institutions,
leftists, refugees and migrants.
The US economy would take a massive dive, having so much of its financial
sector tied up in the debt schemes of the Eurozone. Debts owed to Germany by
the periphery countries would finally be defaulted on, liquidity would dry
up, and most importantly, significant political shifts would drive people
further to the poles of discourse. As Europe's economy tanks, Fascist
parties across the continent currently polling between 3 and 10 percent of
electoral results across Europe would likely surge, as would, hopefully, a
mobilization of the left.
Many of us have been sounding the alarm for some time about the
interconnected nature of this right-wing wave stemming from shifts in the
global economy, rising racism and xenophobia, the crisis facing the EU,
eroding legitimacy of mainstream media and "insider" government, and
resurgent nationalism in the face of a "globalist" agenda. For many (from
both sides of the political divide), conspiracy has taken the place of
researched analysis, and assumption and rumor weigh heavier than fact. These
are signs of the times, and they are pushing far-right politics in places
few expected they could thrive.
With this understanding, the next four years will not happen in a vacuum but
in a highly volatile and rapidly changing global economic and political
order. Trump's association with the Russian oligarchy and Russian state,
increasingly tied to Europe's far-right, will start to matter. While Russian
banks have helped finance Le Pen's National Front, the current Dutch
government is trying hard in the space before March to reverse the results
of an April referendum rejecting the EU's agreement to bring Ukraine further
into the European sphere.
Though Trump spoke against Russia's annexing of Crimea, his strongest
European supporters stand opposite of him on the issue, and his former
strategist Paul Manafort has set his feet firmly in the pro-Russian
Ukrainian political scene. Manafort is now under an FBI inquiry for his ties
to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs with links to both the political and
organized-crime worlds.
On the topic of Putin, Trump's respect for strongmen leaders and his
embracing of conspiratorial ideas about who runs the world will likely
trickle down to the grassroots. We can expect an alliance with the Le Pens
and Hofers of Europe, one that places xenophobic nationalist rhetoric at the
center of its policies, as well as a tighter embrace of the Putinsphere
across Eastern and now Western Europe.
The connection between Russia's defense of the Assad regime, Turkey's
tension with the EU, and the return to nationalist borders in Europe are
significant. Writing in The Guardian, Natalie Nougayrède suggests that "if
Europe sees a new exodus of refugees, Russia will stand to benefit. The
refugee crisis has sowed deep divisions on the continent and it has helped
populist rightwing parties flourish -- many of which are Moscow's political
allies against the EU as a project."
Trump's approach to the Middle East is a bit of a mystery, though he has
made no secret of his desire to ban the entry of refugees from the region
into the US. The situation in Syria, an impasse between the old Western
powers and their allies and a newer alliance of self-declared
"anti-imperialist" states oriented around right-wing ideologies and
authoritarianism (Russia, Syria and Iran), has been a big development as far
as American policies in the region go. Trump's affinity with some of these
powers, and especially with their male leaders, suggests strange
possibilities. We can probably expect an increased alliance with Putin and
Assad against both the Islamic State and the Syrian opposition -- if it
survives the current bombardment in Aleppo -- but such an alliance may stop
short at Iran, a Russian and Syrian ally Trump has long positioned himself
against.
Trump may also try to step back the deal Hillary Clinton negotiated with
Iran, which he called "the worst deal ever negotiated." He has flip-flopped
several times on that issue, both claiming he would "dismantle" the deal,
and also claiming that he would not destroy but "police that contract so
tough they don't stand a chance."
Either way, we can anticipate relations with Iran to return to Bush-era
rhetoric.
We can also expect strange approaches to strongmen like Rodrigo Duterte,
"the Trump of the East," who recently appointed Trump's business partner in
the Philippines, Century Properties Group chairman Jose Antonio, as a
special envoy to Washington for trade, investment and economic affairs.
In Trump's opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) we see not an
analysis of the evils of corporate globalization or a demand for a more
egalitarian trading system in the Pacific Rim, but a hostility toward mutual
benefits among trading partners. The problem with the TPP, as well as with
NAFTA, Trump argues, is that they don't benefit the US enough. Ironically,
most of the world sees agreements like these as only serving the interests
of US corporations and their global trade allies.
Since Trump's campaign has consisted of almost 100 percent rhetoric, one has
very few actual policy positions to look at to analyze possible pathways of
his presidency. In examining his statement on his first one hundred days in
office, one can see most of the rhetoric displayed in the form of
simple-sounding programs. The statement calls for withdrawing from the TPP,
initiating a dispute about NAFTA, banning refugees from all "terror-prone"
regions (read Arabs and Muslims), canceling all US money to UN "climate
change programs" and rounding up two million undocumented people who,
according to Trump, are all criminals.
We can assume, sadly, that many of Trump's domestic policies will be
initiated, regardless of dissent in the House and Senate from minority
Democrats. Republicans in both houses may seek to block a number of Trump's
international policies, specifically those that would damage the profitable
business interests of their lobbyists (such as a NAFTA withdrawal or a trade
war with China) or create harsh divides with allies (the wall along the
Mexican border and perhaps also initiatives that side with Russia against
the EU and NATO).
While the fear of a large-scale ground-war spilling out in the Middle East
or possibly even in Europe is not groundless, a large-scale conflict with
Russia or China seems unlikely. Critics on both sides of the political
divide claimed their opposition candidate would start a war immediately, but
those claims have, for the most part, been cultivated not by fact and
research but by less-than-credible blogs and partisan commentaries. Civil
conflicts among European nations and new military shifts in Southeast Asia
will more likely be the outcome of this new balance, especially if the
European far-right parties consolidate power early next year.
We must remember how quickly economic collapse and recession can breed
totalitarian movements, especially in countries where privileged segments of
the population are used to higher standards of living and special advantages
in relation to the rest of the world. Europe and the US, with their long
histories of both real and mythological prosperity, may be ticking time
bombs. As we enter these next years, those forces aligned with social and
economic justice principles must take very seriously the potential for
another economic crisis.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
RYAN HARVEY
Ryan Harvey is a musician, writer, activist and the cofounder of Firebrand
Records. He spent the month of February volunteering in the refugee
solidarity movement in Lesvos, Greece.
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Rising European Fascists Welcome Trump Victory
Saturday, 12 November 2016 00:00 By Ryan Harvey, Truthout | Report
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. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, the largest
far-right party in France, speaks to reporters at a political meeting in
Perpignan, France, February 15, 2014. Under Le Pen, the daughter of the
party's founder, the National Front has moved from the fringe to the center
of French politics by "softening" the party's xenophobic image. (Photo:
Pierre Terdjman / New York Times)
. "Today the United States, tomorrow France," former National Front
leader Jean-Marie Le Pen tweeted late Tuesday night, referencing the
prophetic quote attributed to Adolph Hitler. This was as Donald Trump's
victory swept through the world's headlines, exciting many a far-right
activist within and outside of the United States.
Unfortunately, Le Pen is no lone Twitter-fascist, but a popular figure whose
daughter and fellow far-right leader Marine Le Pen is expected to win the
first round of French national elections in April. In the last elections, Le
Pen swept large areas of the country in the first round before being
defeated by large margins in the second.
But this is the year of Brexit and Donald Trump, and France (and Europe)
need not wait until 2017 to anticipate their future. As many have pointed
out, the French primaries, only two weeks away, may well determine the
outcome in the spring. If Alain Juppe succeeds in clinching the Republican
Party's nomination, he stands to beat Marine Le Pen. Any other scenario
opens the gate of possibility for the fascist-right she represents.
France, the target of a number of attacks by Islamic State copycats and a
battleground in the humanitarian crisis facing refugees in Europe, is not
alone in the predicament of having far-right parties poised to make big
gains in fast-approaching elections. Austria, the first EU state to close
its borders to refugees, votes December 4 in a highly contested race that
saw election results from May -- which placed the leftist Alexander Van der
Bellen barely in front -- invalidated due to fraud. Norbert Hofer, who
represents the far-right Freedom Party, lost by a very small margin of just
over 30,000 votes and is expected to win next month.
In the Netherlands, holding its next election in March, the far-right Geert
Wilders is placed for a possible victory as well, representing the
anti-Muslim, anti-EU Party for Freedom. In an echo of Trump's situation,
criminal charges Wilders is facing for hate speech may actually increase his
likelihood to win.
"We are witnessing the same uprising on both sides of the Atlantic," Wilders
wrote Wednesday morning in the conspiracy-site-turned-news-blog Breitbart.
"The Patriotic Spring is sweeping the Western world."
Even while Austrians vote for a party allied with Eurosceptics -- those
political parties within Europe that oppose the European Union either in its
current form or in its entirety -- they still poll pro-EU. But recent public
conflict between Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Austrian
chancellor Christian Kern over the EU-Turkey deal that sealed the Turkish
coastline from refugees attempting to reach Greece shows another side of the
EU's political crisis. This is only the latest sign that this tenuous and
haphazard agreement may fall apart very soon. A disintegration of the deal
with Turkey would likely push European politics further to the margins, with
the left and pro-refugee groups having to face an increasingly angry
reactionary force from the far right. Similar developments last year brought
out the best and worst of Europe and significantly affected the rhetoric
pushing the far right.
Following Brexit and Trump, and especially in the event of the collapse of
the EU-Turkey deal, a Wilders or Hofer victory would further the momentum
pointing in the direction of Le Pen, who has spoken very directly about
staging a Frexit referendum and aligning France along nationalist,
anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant lines.
The European Union would not survive a Frexit, which would sever the
economic union of France and Germany, the two pillars of the Eurozone
project. Germany, the other half of the union's foundation, would be forced
to navigate a post-Euro Europe before it was hoping to. France would find
itself as part of a new coalition of far-right European parties united by
their stances against NATO and the EU, an emerging relationship with the
"Putinsphere," and a general hostility toward democratic institutions,
leftists, refugees and migrants.
The US economy would take a massive dive, having so much of its financial
sector tied up in the debt schemes of the Eurozone. Debts owed to Germany by
the periphery countries would finally be defaulted on, liquidity would dry
up, and most importantly, significant political shifts would drive people
further to the poles of discourse. As Europe's economy tanks, Fascist
parties across the continent currently polling between 3 and 10 percent of
electoral results across Europe would likely surge, as would, hopefully, a
mobilization of the left.
Many of us have been sounding the alarm for some time about the
interconnected nature of this right-wing wave stemming from shifts in the
global economy, rising racism and xenophobia, the crisis facing the EU,
eroding legitimacy of mainstream media and "insider" government, and
resurgent nationalism in the face of a "globalist" agenda. For many (from
both sides of the political divide), conspiracy has taken the place of
researched analysis, and assumption and rumor weigh heavier than fact. These
are signs of the times, and they are pushing far-right politics in places
few expected they could thrive.
With this understanding, the next four years will not happen in a vacuum but
in a highly volatile and rapidly changing global economic and political
order. Trump's association with the Russian oligarchy and Russian state,
increasingly tied to Europe's far-right, will start to matter. While Russian
banks have helped finance Le Pen's National Front, the current Dutch
government is trying hard in the space before March to reverse the results
of an April referendum rejecting the EU's agreement to bring Ukraine further
into the European sphere.
Though Trump spoke against Russia's annexing of Crimea, his strongest
European supporters stand opposite of him on the issue, and his former
strategist Paul Manafort has set his feet firmly in the pro-Russian
Ukrainian political scene. Manafort is now under an FBI inquiry for his ties
to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs with links to both the political and
organized-crime worlds.
On the topic of Putin, Trump's respect for strongmen leaders and his
embracing of conspiratorial ideas about who runs the world will likely
trickle down to the grassroots. We can expect an alliance with the Le Pens
and Hofers of Europe, one that places xenophobic nationalist rhetoric at the
center of its policies, as well as a tighter embrace of the Putinsphere
across Eastern and now Western Europe.
The connection between Russia's defense of the Assad regime, Turkey's
tension with the EU, and the return to nationalist borders in Europe are
significant. Writing in The Guardian, Natalie Nougayrède suggests that "if
Europe sees a new exodus of refugees, Russia will stand to benefit. The
refugee crisis has sowed deep divisions on the continent and it has helped
populist rightwing parties flourish -- many of which are Moscow's political
allies against the EU as a project."
Trump's approach to the Middle East is a bit of a mystery, though he has
made no secret of his desire to ban the entry of refugees from the region
into the US. The situation in Syria, an impasse between the old Western
powers and their allies and a newer alliance of self-declared
"anti-imperialist" states oriented around right-wing ideologies and
authoritarianism (Russia, Syria and Iran), has been a big development as far
as American policies in the region go. Trump's affinity with some of these
powers, and especially with their male leaders, suggests strange
possibilities. We can probably expect an increased alliance with Putin and
Assad against both the Islamic State and the Syrian opposition -- if it
survives the current bombardment in Aleppo -- but such an alliance may stop
short at Iran, a Russian and Syrian ally Trump has long positioned himself
against.
Trump may also try to step back the deal Hillary Clinton negotiated with
Iran, which he called "the worst deal ever negotiated." He has flip-flopped
several times on that issue, both claiming he would "dismantle" the deal,
and also claiming that he would not destroy but "police that contract so
tough they don't stand a chance."
Either way, we can anticipate relations with Iran to return to Bush-era
rhetoric.
We can also expect strange approaches to strongmen like Rodrigo Duterte,
"the Trump of the East," who recently appointed Trump's business partner in
the Philippines, Century Properties Group chairman Jose Antonio, as a
special envoy to Washington for trade, investment and economic affairs.
In Trump's opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) we see not an
analysis of the evils of corporate globalization or a demand for a more
egalitarian trading system in the Pacific Rim, but a hostility toward mutual
benefits among trading partners. The problem with the TPP, as well as with
NAFTA, Trump argues, is that they don't benefit the US enough. Ironically,
most of the world sees agreements like these as only serving the interests
of US corporations and their global trade allies.
Since Trump's campaign has consisted of almost 100 percent rhetoric, one has
very few actual policy positions to look at to analyze possible pathways of
his presidency. In examining his statement on his first one hundred days in
office, one can see most of the rhetoric displayed in the form of
simple-sounding programs. The statement calls for withdrawing from the TPP,
initiating a dispute about NAFTA, banning refugees from all "terror-prone"
regions (read Arabs and Muslims), canceling all US money to UN "climate
change programs" and rounding up two million undocumented people who,
according to Trump, are all criminals.
We can assume, sadly, that many of Trump's domestic policies will be
initiated, regardless of dissent in the House and Senate from minority
Democrats. Republicans in both houses may seek to block a number of Trump's
international policies, specifically those that would damage the profitable
business interests of their lobbyists (such as a NAFTA withdrawal or a trade
war with China) or create harsh divides with allies (the wall along the
Mexican border and perhaps also initiatives that side with Russia against
the EU and NATO).
While the fear of a large-scale ground-war spilling out in the Middle East
or possibly even in Europe is not groundless, a large-scale conflict with
Russia or China seems unlikely. Critics on both sides of the political
divide claimed their opposition candidate would start a war immediately, but
those claims have, for the most part, been cultivated not by fact and
research but by less-than-credible blogs and partisan commentaries. Civil
conflicts among European nations and new military shifts in Southeast Asia
will more likely be the outcome of this new balance, especially if the
European far-right parties consolidate power early next year.
We must remember how quickly economic collapse and recession can breed
totalitarian movements, especially in countries where privileged segments of
the population are used to higher standards of living and special advantages
in relation to the rest of the world. Europe and the US, with their long
histories of both real and mythological prosperity, may be ticking time
bombs. As we enter these next years, those forces aligned with social and
economic justice principles must take very seriously the potential for
another economic crisis.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Ryan Harvey
Ryan Harvey is a musician, writer, activist and the cofounder of Firebrand
Records. He spent the month of February volunteering in the refugee
solidarity movement in Lesvos, Greece.
