Trumpism Across the Pond

The Republican civil war ignited by Donald Trump is just one battle in a Western-world war between those who cherish national sovereignty and those who desire ever-closer economic and political union between the nations of the world.

Great Britain is among the clearest examples of how the struggle in the United States is reflected overseas. Just as sovereignty issues related to trade and immigration are creating a fault line in the GOP, Britain’s possible departure from Europe is tearing the Conservative Party apart.

The U.K. will hold an in-or-out referendum on its membership in the European Union in June, the culmination of a long struggle to regain its sovereignty that could sound the death knell for the quasi-totalitarian European project. Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron is defending the interests of his corporate donors and imploring the British public to vote to stay in the E.U.

But Cameron is facing a full on revolt from half of the party grassroots as well as a significant number of Conservative Members of Parliament. Among them are high-profile party members, including London Mayor Boris Johnson and at least six cabinet ministers, who support the “Brexit” — Britain’s exit from the E.U. “I want a better deal for the people of this country … to save them money and to take back control,” Johnson said.

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Tory grassroots activists are angry, as Cameron campaigned repeatedly on renegotiating the U.K.’s status in the E.U. but failed to secure anything other than superficial gestures from the E.U. government. That’s no surprising, because as long as London remains a vassal to Brussels, the U.K. does not have the legal power to meaningfully renegotiate anything. Indeed, Cameron campaigned also on reducing net immigration to the U.K., but this pledge soon fell apart as immigration quotas to the U.K. are in fact decided in part by Brussels, and not London.

Cameron, a pro-E.U., Establishment Tory, initially ruled out giving the British people a say over their own future in their own country. But in the face of the immense threat to British society unleashed in the form of the 2015 Muslim migrant crisis, national sovereignty and borders have become the burning political question in the U.K., one Cameron could no longer afford to ignore.

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If any of this sounds vaguely familiar, it should. The current fight for the soul of the Conservative Party is the same fight unfolding within the GOP. As all-American as Donald Trump’s excesses, bluntness and general bombastic attitude may seem, his meteoric rise is anything but, reflecting concerns of people across the West.

Establishment Republicans, liberals, and moderates alike loathe the prospect of a Trump presidency, explaining away his success as a result of his ability to “exploit” Americans’ “fear” and “anger.”

But implicit in this pathologically out-of-touch analysis is the suggestion that the legion of Trump supporters chanting “USA” at event after event are at best decent but small-minded people who are all worked up over nothing — and perhaps bigoted racists as well.

[lz_bulleted_list title=”Rebels Against the Establishment”]U.K.: Boris Johnson,Conservative Party faction|USA: Donald Trump, Republican Party faction|France: Marine Le Pen, Front National|Poland: Beata Szydło, Law and Justice Party|Sweden: Jimmie Åkesson, Sweden Democrats|Hungary: Viktor Orbán, Fidesz[/lz_bulleted_list]

If mass immigration didn’t go hand-in-hand with decreasing job opportunities and decreasing wages for native workers, Americans wouldn’t be protesting it. If the fruits of “free trade” deals weren’t the complete erosion of the American manufacturing base and the shipping of jobs overseas, the Trans Pacific Partnership deal wouldn’t have to be snuck through in a lame duck session of Congress, as now seems likely.

The truth is that mass illegal immigration and bad free trade deals — and the shrinking opportunity for the working and middle class they’ve caused — are but symptoms of the same disease eating away Western societies across the world: globalization.

It is the same disease against which a rising number of right-wing nationalist and populist politicians across Europe have begun to take a stand: Marine Le Pen of the Front National in France; Beata Szydło and the Law and Justice Party in Poland; Jimmie Åkesson and the Sweden Democrats in Sweden; Viktor Orbán and Fidesz in Hungary; and the Conservative revolt in Britain. The rise of Donald Trump in the United States is just our example of the people having had it with the Establishment.

Left versus right is so 20th century. The political conflict of the 21st century is between sovereigntists and globalists. If the GOP doesn’t adapt to this new reality, it will cease to be relevant.