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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2009
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 OPINION 
19

Shift to Right in Europe Bodes Ill for US Dems

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(Newser) – The global recession has sparked a conservative, anti-immigrant impulse in Europe—see the right’s victory in European Parliament elections—and US liberals should take notice, Michael Lind writes for Salon. Though “it would be a mistake to read too much into the elections” as the “European Parliament has more symbolism than power,” Lind writes, the tide is turning. “Symbolism counts for something.”

Lind thinks “there is no reason to fear the replacement of democracy by dictatorship in today’s Europe,” as happened during the Great Depression. But voters are clearly rejecting the liberal internationalism that has supplanted Marxist dogma in leftist circles. Anti-immigrant rhetoric may come from racism, but it is “likely to seem commonsensical to many non-racist voters.” In the US, the Dems should take notice.

People walk through a gangway at the European Parliament building in Brussels.
People walk through a gangway at the European Parliament building in Brussels.   (AP Photo)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy.   (AP Photo)
Continental employees from France, whose jobs are under threat, protest in Hanover, Germany.
Continental employees from France, whose jobs are under threat, protest in Hanover, Germany.   (AP Photo)
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If Larry Summers and Tim Geithner succeed in identifying the Democrats too closely with Wall Street, then the moribund Republicans might be revitalized as a vehicle for anti-establishment populism—not Hitlerian, but Jacksonian. -

American progressives may reconsider their flirtation with an idealized social democratic EU and try to connect with older American center-left traditions. - Michael Lind

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19 comments
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Robert_Dada
Jun 9, 09 4:16 PM CDT
Though the Republicans are in complete disarray, ignore your opposition at your own peril. Reply
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+2
Cat-Lover
Jun 9, 09 4:22 PM CDT
No harbinger foretells any similarity in the U.S. and the E.U. The E.U. is too convoluted to be or stay aimed in any direction for any period of time. The Democrat administration today is announcing broad-sweeping programs, while going over every piece of legislation passed over the past 16 years, to make everything fit into its plan for change we believe in and need. Europe speaks a different language, as it were. Reply
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+2
SBS
Jun 9, 09 4:28 PM CDT
What I have heard about these elections is that they are a return to nationalistic feelings in Europe. Many people there are not happy with the European Union and feel a return to individual countries would serve them better. Reply
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+1
RobN
Jun 9, 09 4:52 PM CDT
It seems to me that this is just further proof of the cyclical nature of politics. Whatever party is in power when things go to hell gets turned out in favor of the other one. It's not so much a liberal or conservative shift as it is people hating the way things are and hoping the other side, whichever it is, can do better. Reply
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+5
Snowleopard
Jun 9, 09 5:10 PM CDT
this more of a shift to the center than a shift to the right. there's no way europe would give away some of it's more popular socialist programs like universal healthcare. Reply
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+2

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