I & I Editorial BoardThe European Union, no bastion of political tolerance to begin with, is letting it be known: It will not tolerate conservative parties sweeping into power among its members. Good luck with that. With each new national election, the EU’s power looks weaker and weaker.
The latest example of this comes from Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, a passionate partisan of God, family, culture, and life, whose right-leaning coalition won Italy’s national election in a landslide, despite threats from the EU.
“If things go in a difficult direction, I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland, we have tools,” European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said, in what can only be called a threat.
“We have tools”? This is an election in a sovereign country of which von der Leyen is not a citizen. Her remarks amount to interference with a sovereign nation’s democratic election.
As a warning to others, the EU recently suspended 7.5 billion euros in funding to conservative Viktor Orban’s Hungary due to alleged “corruption,” even though, by the EU’s own data, Hungary is nowhere near the most corrupt country in Europe.
It’s not as if Meloni’s victory came from nowhere. The EU’s leftist bureaucrats have been losing their grip over the continent they once ruled for some time now, but they don’t seem to realize it.
In country after country, moderate conservatives — or, as the left would have it, “far right” politicians — have won elections that undermine the EU’s ability to impose leftist policies on member nations.
Ever since the Brexit vote in June 2016, the EU has watched as multiple countries it thought were safely in the hands of socialist true-believers instead elected “God, family and country” conservatives.
In recent weeks, Britain elevated tax-cutting conservative Liz Truss to be prime minister, while Sweden’s recent elections brought in a new conservative government. Winning candidates have run on platforms limiting immigration, stunning elites across Europe.
“Suddenly, conservatives are winning elections in Europe,” noted Fox News’ Stuart Varney this week. “To the left, this is a five-alarm fire: their political dominance is threatened. Literally for generations, Europe has been a soft-left welfare state run by a soft-left bureaucracy. They jumped down the rabbit hole of Democratic socialism, and now a lot of ’em are going the other way.“
And how.
Which leads us back to the just-elected Italian 45-year-old mother Giorgia Meloni, who will be Italy’s first woman leader, and whose worst sin appears to be that she is utterly unapologetic for her lack of political correctness.
“We will defend God, country, and family,” said the fiery Meloni, in a 2019 speech that suddenly went viral this week, but was then taken down by YouTube for its “content.”
“They said it’s scandalous for people to defend the natural family founded on marriage … to say no to gender ideology,” she added.
“I say the embarrassing ones are not us. The embarrassing ones are those who support practices like ‘womb for rent,’ abortion at nine months, and blocking the development of children with drugs at 11 years of age.”
Because of such comments, the proud admirer of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump has been derided as “far right” and even “neo-fascist” by CBS News and many others on the left.
Now, the Eurocrats in Brussels are running scared. The natives are restless, and they have the votes to put new leaders in. The EU started out as a seemingly harmless organization stressing economic efficiency, trade, and a common currency. Now it’s a socialist octopus, looking to use its tentacles to rule Europe by bureaucratic decree.
Why is this sudden turn to the right happening? Simple. The EU and its member political elites have utterly failed their citizens. Europe is now suffering from absurd “net-zero” green policies that will lead to people literally freezing to death this winter, while their economies and beloved euro currency crash. In Germany, energy prices have shot up by 1,000%, leaving people with awful choices — the same ones the rest of Europe and Russia will have to make.
A sampling of recent dire headlines tell the tale: “Europe’s Economy And Living Standards Are Plummeting,” “European Countries Are On The Brink Of Economic Disaster, OECD Says,” and “Recession clouds gather in Germany, Europe’s largest economy.” The list goes on.
The point is, the EU and left-leaning governments across Europe have failed horribly at delivering stability, prosperity, and peace to their citizens. So, before it’s too late, the citizens are hitting the brakes, voting for the opposition in recent elections.
It’s doubtful that the EU, as it now exists, can survive. It promises paradise, but delivers disaster. As conservatives continue to win elections, as they have in Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Italy, and Britain, the rabidly pro-immigrant, anti-energy, woke-globalist EU will undoubtedly grow weaker and maybe even collapse.
If so, that’s great news for the EU’s struggling member nations, who’ve had enough — but bad news for socialists everywhere.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
“This is an election in a sovereign country of which von der Leyen is not a citizen. Her remarks amount to interference with a sovereign nation’s democratic election.” I&I
Wrong. Sovereignty is a delusion or illusion. EU member nations gave up their sovereignty as independent nation-states as the EU evolved (via various treaties ratified by national votes) into an Empire ruled by Brussels bureaucrats. Italy, Hungary, and the other former European nation-states should face facts, just as Britain did with Brexit. Real independent nation-states would not be battling bureaucratic Brussels overlords. von der Leyen has the tools, because she is like a monarch in the old (pre-WW I) Habsburg Empire ruling over Italy, Hungary, Poland and the other EU vassal states. Expect the EU Empire headquartered in Brussels to fight back with brute force (like NATO bombing Serbia into submission), if economic and other persuasions fail to persuade the vassal states to kneel in submission.
The question yet to be determined:
Is it too late for Europeans to change course and dump socialism peacefully?
The last time the totalitarian socialists (“Fascism IS a form of socialism” – Gentile) controlled most of Europe, there was a lot of death and destruction to remove them from power.
Crime, inflation, invasion, hunger, islamization and power hungry elites “elites” obsessed with controlling the citizenry’s thoughts and speech.. all things Europe has seen in the past.
One would think the Europeans could learn from, and avoid repeating, their historical mistakes.
But just as in the US, history, or more accurately, the rewriting of history,
keeps many ignorant to the lessons of the past, creating fertile ground for leftist propaganda and ideological indoctrination.
And again, just as the left is doing in the US, once control of the powers of government are in their hands, the leftists abuse and misuse that power to criminalize, censor and punish any political thought, action or organizing that stands in opposition to their totalitarian, collectivist ideology.
I remember reading a while back about the differences in the soft, feminized “white socialism” of northern and western Europe and the brutal and despotic “brown socialism” version practiced in most of the Third World.
So it will be interesting to see how both can be practiced at the same time in newly “multicultural” European societies. It’s easy to do socialism in a homogeneous society when everyone is named Johansen and is related to each other. A lot harder when you bring a lot of Walids and Mohammeds into the mix.
I would quote the lyrics Tom Kratman wrote for the EU anthem, but while I personally find them delightful, they would probably be considered uncivil.