For over a decade, Donald Trump’s many enemies have been asking themselves how was it possible for such an obnoxious character to reach the top of what Benjamin Disraeli called “the greasy pole” and then set about behaving like the all-powerful CEO of Planet Earth Inc, threatening foreign bigwigs who disobey his orders with ruinous tariffs or, in the case of Iran, with a military bludgeoning. To find an answer to this overwhelming question most only needed to look in the mirror. They would then have understood that Trump owed everything to the behaviour of members of his country’s longstanding political and intellectual elites who never made a secret of their contempt for those who did not share their often outlandish prejudices. Large numbers of North Americans ended up supporting Trump because he was certainly different from the standard-issue politicians that they had had to put up with for so many years.
Similar changes are taking place in other parts of the world. Here in Argentina, Javier Milei rules the roost despite his frequently uncouth nuttiness because his political rivals, beginning with the Peronists, have proved to be such a sorry lot. In Europe, the centrist establishment that has been in power since World War II is sinking fast because more and more people have come to the conclusion that its members are incompetent and self-absorbed and that, as well as betraying the electorate time and time again, they have done an enormous amount of damage In Japan, Sanae Takaichi’s conservatives have just swept the board in the legislative elections after waging a vigorous campaign in favour of traditional values and against creeping wokeism and increased immigration, especially by Muslims. The Japanese see what is happening in Western Europe and do not like it one bit.
Trump and other politicians who hope to emulate him are reactionaries. They tell their compatriots that they want their countries to go back to what they were half a century or so ago before the rot set in, hence the promise to make them “great again” by getting rid of recently added elements. However, while this wins them plenty of votes, restoring something akin to the old order so many yearn for will be anything but easy. Those who are profitting from the malaise that afflicts much of the world have yet to spell out what they would do to improve matters.
To achieve anything really positive, those already in power or rapidly approaching it would have to find ways to reverse the precipitous fall of the birth rate. The economic and social consequences of mass sterility are beginning to make themselves felt. Though in Western countries and Western-adjacent Japan it remains rather higher than in South Korea and China, both of which seem collectively determined to empty themselves three or four generations from now, it is far too low to enable the populations to replace themselves.
To make the situation most “advanced” countries face even worse, attempts to stop the population shrinking by importing millions of people from more philoprogenitive regions of the world who, by doing jobs the locals thought beneath them, would allegedly contribute enough to save generous pension schemes from going broke, have had many negative effects. As should have been foreseen, “multiculturalism” has balkanized what were once high-trust societies; a quick glance at history should have warned those who thought it would solve their manpower problems that disparate cultures rarely mix well. In Europe and Japan, calls for the expulsion of those who are overly reluctant to fit in continue to get louder.
In the United States, the demographic situation is rather different. Most unauthorised immigrants come from societies whose values are broadly compatible with those of the host country. However, while Trump’s determination to boot most of them out continues to enjoy popular support, the rough methods employed by ICE agents are putting many people off and providing Democrats in places like Minneapolis with opportunities to berate him for his authoritarian behaviour. Activists have been more than happy to make the most of them.
Nonetheless, Trump’s aggressive policy is having a strong effect in Europe where talk of “remigration” – the deportation of entire communities – is no longer taboo as it was barely two years ago. The “Overton window” – which refers to the range of ideas which are deemed fit for public discussion by respectable men and women at any given moment – has widened enough to include it. As far as a growing number of people are concerned, their country’s very survival is at stake and unless something drastic is done very soon the future of its native inhabitants will hardly bear thinking about. Not surprisingly, the sense of foreboding, the feeling that the present situation is untenable, that is hanging over Europe makes it more likely that the upheavals so many fear really will take place.
European leaders, whether they are on the way out or are eagerly waiting to assume command, now agree that their part of the world’s “holiday from history” has come to an end so everyone will have roll up his or her sleeves and buckle down to work or, if that prospect seems alarming, prepare to face whatever fate has in store for sensitive folk in an unforgiving world. After three-quarters of a century in which they outsourced their collective defence to the US, they now find themselves on their own with a revanchist Russia breathing fire on their Eastern marches.Though those in charge of almost all European governments swear they will spend far more on the military in the next few years, they prefer not to mention that this would entail spending much less on welfare, which would cost them votes, and that in any event their economies are doing badly.
Just how governments in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and elsewhere will get out of the hole into which their countries have dug themselves by relying on the US for defence, handing out costly entitlements for political reasons and committing themselves to sharply reducing the use of fossil fuels is anybody’s guess. Their presumed inability to do much seems likely to bring down those who are currently in office, but those elected to replace them will immediately confront the same problems that did for their predecessors. As there are no signs that any of them have come up with palatable solutions to the really difficult ones, the next few years seem certain to be unpleasantly eventful in Europe and much of the rest of the world.
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