Trump Is Not an Anomaly; Europe Shows He's the Norm

Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has some fascinating if truly terrifying analysis of recent European election results. Writing for The Liberal Patriot, Olsen predicts — nay, doomsays — that within the next 20 years, “most of the West will be governed by a conservative-populist coalition not unlike what Donald Trump has created in America.”

Before you accuse Olsen of being alarmist, consider his analysis, which takes a sobering look at recent election results in Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, and Austria. They all show coalitions between populist and center-right parties gaining vote-share over similar coalitions on the left. And for those centrist coalitions that manage to block populists from power, Olsen argues that the nature of those coalitions — too fractious to govern effectively — ultimately discredits those coalitions with voters.

What’s more, when the center becomes increasingly a place where politicians become irrelevant, Olsen sees center-right politicians partnering with populists, if for nothing else, for their own political survival — think Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham here in the U.S.

Olsen’s conclusion: “It’s increasingly clear that we are not experiencing a populist moment; we are living in a populist age. Traditional parties came to life to answer the political disputes of their eras. If they want to survive as more than powerless specters in the new era, they must provide relevant and successful answers to the disputes of today. If they do not—and so far, none have—national populism will likely be to the 21^st century what social democracy was to the 20^th.”