A Political Revolution is Taking Place.
Much has been made of the Steve Bannon campaign to “repeal and replace” the dead weight in the Republican caucus in the United States Senate.
Removal of the Republicans running for re-election who are obstacles to true reform of the system and the policy positions of the President is precisely on point for what is needed in our body politic.
Bannon and the reform candidates will have success in removing senators who simply are bound to the “swamp,” and as we have seen it is no doubt now an ocean. This will put an end to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce using $80 million per election cycle to support alleged Republicans who are embedded in the corrupt system we are trying to overthrow.
This movement has substantial evidence that we are on the right path. Sebastian Kurz, the “Whiz Kid,” who, at the age of 31, appears to be headed to the leadership of the Austrian government. His conservative People’s Party won 31.7% of the vote while the runner up was the Chancellor’s Social Democrats with 26.9%.
Kurz has said he would consider a coalition with the Freedom Party. Together they support:
Stop rescue missions of refugees in the Mediterranean
Cut EU influence on the day to day governing of Austria
Higher standards of integration before granting citizenship
Foreign benefits ban for 5 years
Why is this agenda successful? It is in large measure due to the immigration of refugees in 2015 to the tune of 1% of the 8.7 million population in Austria. The populist movement in Austria grew in large measure because many there thought the country was being overrun by illegal immigrants. And, the 1% of population of refugees is one of the highest in Europe.
Does this agenda sound familiar? It should. It is a nationalist movement that is grounded in the populist success and will transform Austria in the same way the Bannon agenda here will give our voters the opportunity to transform America and give Donald Trump a Congress that will move his agenda forward.
Let us turn to Italy. Next year that country has an election. It is apparent that the 2 leading candidates will be Luigi Di Maio, also 31 years of age, who leads the upstart 5-star movement in Italy, and Matteo Renzi, the former Prime minister. He is 42. The trend is toward a more nationalist agenda and this movement is likely to build a set of policies similar to Kurz in Austria and Trump in the United States. There is also the Northern League that is an anti-euro and anti-immigrant party that won 18 seats in Parliament in the 2013 election.
Germany now has as its third largest Bundestag party a group that is openly anti-immigration and offers itself as Islamophobic Alternative for Germany. The party now has 13% of the votes and more than 90 seats in the German Parliament, the Bundestag. In 2013, they could not even get the 5% required to get seats in the Parliament.
France, of course, had a major shift toward the right when Marine Le Pen and her National Front won nearly 34% of the vote in May’s presidential election, an impact unheard of in earlier Socialist- dominated French elections.
Hungary has an ultra-nationalist movement referred to as The Movement for a Better Hungary. It is the second largest party in the legislature, but is ironically taking a back seat to the Prime Minister who is intensely anti-immigration.
Greece had The Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi Party, finishing third in the 2015 election. They won 7% of the vote and 18 seats in Parliament. As reprehensible as this movements, it is time to recognize that mainstream politics is moving to the right and the literal collapse of the Greek economy led to this scary movement gaining traction. It is time for the mainstream parties to change their intransigent views on socialism and move toward capitalism as the bedrock of strength for Greece and stronger anti-immigration policies as other European nations are now moving toward as noted here.
Sweden has been victimized by its liberal immigration policy. We have heard about crimes and rapes of women and when the President discussed this and the Swedish government objected, we saw the next say a crime wave that was not effectively controlled by the Swedish authorities. As is the case with Macron in France, Trudeau in Canada, Merkel in Germany and other leaders caught in the trap of old ways of thinking, Sweden has also hidden its collective head in the sand.
As a result of this breakdown of personal safety for the Swedish people, the anti-Islam Freedom Party has made considerable growth under Geert Wilders. This party now has 20 seats in Parliament.
The Sweden Democrats, an ultra-right group now has 48 seats in the Swedish Parliament.
Bulgaria has the nationalist United Patriots Party, another growing party wanting to protect its borders, due to the reckless behavior of the European Union and a number of leaders on the Continent.
Slovakia has the growth of The People’s Party Our Slovakia, a party that has been a strong response to the European refugee crisis.
It now has 14 seats of the 150 in parliament.
Europe is reflecting the United States. Both groups have a populist nationalist movement facing the old-line political system. It is time for new blood as we are seeing throughout Europe and in the leadership in Austria and perhaps Italy, with vibrant growth in legislatures across Europe with voters saying No More Ignoring the Voters of this Nation, in the nations cited above.
Compassion for the citizens of a nation should be the first priority of the branches of government in any nation. That is the message we are hearing and that is where true compassion lies, not will illegal aliens or sanctuary cities that protect criminals at the expense of the indigenous population.
Let the campaigns begin.
#MikeSiegel
