Much to the dismay of the European elites, the people of Europe appear to be resolutely rejecting the status quo. Right-wing parties are gaining ground in almost every European state as a reaction to the consistent failures of the establishment statists. Economic stagnation plagues much of Europe and shows no sign of improvement despite extensive, record busting stimulus packages that promised to return the continent to steady growth and alleviate much of the harm caused during the pandemic and the financial crash of 2008.
This right-wing, anti-establishment revolt runs much deeper; voters feel ignored and chastised for believing what were considered common sense opinions just a decade ago. The most pertinent example is immigration. Many European countries have spent the last decade taking vast swathes of migrants from under-developed countries whilst insisting to the populace that this is the correct position and that if you question the levels then the implication is that you harbor racist opinions. This was never a sustainable position to hold since the establishment never truly wanted to control immigration and it was inevitable that people were going to lose patience. These elections are the vassal through which voters expressed that impatience.
France recently held elections where the right-wing party National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, won the first round of voting with 33% of the vote, in the process seemingly destroying the Ensemble Alliance led by the cougar lover, Emmanuel Macron. In a typical display of their complete lack of self-awareness, the mainstream media reported that France’s “far right” were celebrating a huge lead with the “far right” close to complete dominance in the French parliament.
In the second round of voting that just took place, the National Popular Front party and Ensemble Alliance came first and second after forming a controversial alliance to keep out National Rally. The alliance worked by tactically choosing to stand down over a hundred candidates in select seats where the split vote would ensure the National Rally candidate’s win. So, the election has left the leftist parties, ranging all the way to the communist party, with a majority but it should be made very clear, this is not a stable alliance. On policy, National Popular Front are very left wing and want price controls, huge increases in the minimum wage, and to reverse the pension age increase. Whereas Ensemble Alliance, Macron’s party, are much more centrist, so whether their alliance can work beyond keeping out National Rally is questionable. I predict that almost nothing will get passed and a stalemate will take hold until new elections are held.
There are many more examples of mainstream media outlets implying in their reporting that National Rally is a fascistic, racist revolution that will bring authoritarianism to France unseen since the mid-twentieth century. Yet, the authoritarian left has now won but did the media call them “far left”? No, they call them the radical left or left-wing firebrands. This has been the media playbook for the last decade where any entity that is outside the establishment is berated for supposed racism, xenophobia, homophobia—whatever bigotry it may be—despite the vast numbers of individuals that support these movements who don’t harbor a hateful bone in their body and hold views that a decade ago were considered completely normal.
In their quest to quash any views that are outside the mainstream, the BBC continually slip up amplifying their true intentions; like when a BBC presenter said that Nigel Farage was using his “customary inflammatory language” for which she was only forced to apologize, nothing more. A report came out that storied how the BBC are afraid to talk about any of the issues surrounding immigration, stating that some people within the BBC are scared of “what language to use” and that they are petrified of accusations of racism. The average voter’s view on immigration are simple; they think immigration is totally fine if it is controlled and the numbers are not too huge to encourage proper integration. This was the normal view a decade or two ago and immigration was low down the list of concerns for voters during elections when the number of immigrants coming in was below six figures. To suggest that this is difficult to cover without saying something that could be seen as actual racism is entirely deluded. The BBC is choosing to make no attempt to understand the views of the average person, instead opting to smother and suppress the characters that amplify these views on the national stage. Reform UK is as popular as it is because the Conservative Party has spent the last decade saying they will lower immigration whilst never making a true attempt and suggesting there are racial undertones to criticism targeted at their failure on the issue; this is the case for many of the so called far-right parties around Europe, so one can only hope and pray that the establishment will remain in a state of illusion.
The reason one should walk through these events is to discover the process by which the mainstream self-destructs. It appears that the mainstream elites have an utter disdain for any ideas that are outside their worldview with an obstinance that could lead to their own demise. In today’s world, the establishment loves excessive multiculturalism, excessive twisting of science, mass immigration, excessive government spending, excessive money printing, and many other things the average voter has an instinctual inkling are wrong but feels coerced into silence for a fear of being shunned from society for being bigoted, ignorant, or amusingly uninformed. You can only attempt these types of tactics for so long until people start losing their patience and rebel against the status quo; this rebellion is what is happening across Europe.
I would posit that there is somewhat of a cycle that the mainstream goes through where they latch onto certain ideas that are manifestly unpopular but due to their lofty positions, they continually fail to realise the unpopularity of their own positions. They find themselves in a state of highly amusing shock when their ideas are rejected whilst carrying out zero self-reflection that it was their own fault. These cycles provide an incredibly positive outlook for libertarianism. It shows that the mainstream grip on the positions of power can be loosened and weakened from their own doing, far from the scenarios many in the libertarian movement perceive where the state only ever encroaches further and no opportunity ever arises because people show no sign of being open to alternative ideas. The establishment, by its very nature, is incredibly volatile. This is not to say that when these moments of opportunity come along that they are easy to exploit; rather, these opportunities do in fact exist when too many think they never come around.
The establishment is full of failed ideas that they have a vice-like grip around. They have shown zero signs of ever letting go and this is an incredible advantage for the cause of liberty. Whether they self-destruct through harmful economic plans or unpopular and incredibly deranged cultural plans matters not to us. The point is they are self-destructing.
Libertarians need to recognize that these opportunities exist and that we just need to continually grow our cause every time these events occur. It need not be huge leaps in progress; that is unrealistic. But a truly powerful and effective libertarian movement succeeds by building a competent base from which it branches out. This means exploiting tools like social media and alternative sources of information like Reform UK are doing extremely effectively. I have witnessed attempts from those who seek to advance liberty to use these tools and I am happy there is an awareness of their potential, but we need to prioritize quality over quantity. Too many instances occur where committed libertarians, especially in the United Kingdom, attempt to use these tools and completely misunderstand that no content is better than low quality content. No one will be convinced by a website that is difficult to use or a video that is low quality; it is simply counterproductive. Effective and high-quality grassroots methods are best suited for continually exploiting the successive failures of the state and its establishment actors. Again, success will not be an overnight thing so once libertarians in the United Kingdom realize this unavoidable reality then we will make tangible progress veering the country off the road to serfdom.
