[PJ] How could Marine Le Pen have lost in a landslide?Why, after the Brits chose Brexit, and Americans chose Trump, did the Dutch fail Wilders, and the French fail Le Pen?
How could a country that has been hit by several major terrorist attacks in recent years, and that has undergone a more profound social transformation owing to Islamic immigration, vote for business as usual?
Wilders, buoyed by the Brexit and Trump victories, said that 2017 would be a "Year of the Populist." So far, alas, it's not turning out that way.
Yes, there are positive signs. The Sweden Democrats are on the upswing. And Wilders did gain seats in the Dutch Parliament.
But if you've witnessed the reality of Islamization in cities like Rotterdam and Paris and Stockholm, you may well wonder: what, in heaven's name, will it take for these people to save their own societies, their own freedoms, for their own children and grandchildren?
I'm not the only one who's been obsessing for years over this question. I've yet to see a totally convincing answer to it.
One way of trying to answer it is to look at countries one by one. For example, the Brits and French feel guilty about their imperial histories, and hence find it difficult to rein in the descendants of subject peoples. The Germans feel guilty about their Nazi past ‐ and the Swedes feel guilty about cozying up to Nazis ‐ and thus feel compelled to lay out the welcome mat for, well, just about anybody. The Dutch, similarly, are intensely aware that during the Nazi occupation they helped ship off a larger percentage of their Jews to the death camps than any other Western European country, and feel a deep need to atone.
Postmodernism, of course, is a factor. According to postmodern thinking, no culture is better than any other ‐ and it's racist to say otherwise. No, scratch that ‐ other cultures are, in fact, better than Western culture. Whites, by definition, are oppressors, imperialists, and colonialists, while "people of color" are victims.
And Muslims are the biggest victims of all.
| Update at 12:50 p.m. EDT from the internet for the record (no link): |
Over 50% votes needed to win
Macron (EMA) 66.1% 20,753,797
Le Pen (FN) 33.9% 10,644,118
| I'm sure there's a way to do tabs, but I haven't any idea how to accomplish that here. Sorry. |
