A Big Wednesday for 'Populists' on Both Sides of the Atlantic

In Washington, the dim performance of Robert Mueller, in the hearings House Democrats insisted on, took the last air out of the Collusiongate balloon. The notion that Donald Trump would be hounded out of office has been revealed as the fantasy it always was.

In London, Boris Johnson met with the queen and left Buckingham Palace as her 14th prime minister. He proceeded to No. 10 Downing Street and reiterated his promise to deliver Brexit -- British exit from the European Union -- by the statutory deadline of Oct. 31.

Some observers will depict these two events as steps forward for populist politics, personified in the two exotically coifed Anglopshere leaders. President Trump has been saying nice things about Johnson for more than a year now, and Johnson has been praising Trump (and conveniently forgetting disparaging comments he made years ago).

But they're not really clones. Trump was a real estate developer and a reality TV show host. Johnson worked as a journalist, as editor of the weekly London Spectator at age 35 and as a highly paid columnist for the Telegraph till last Monday. Trump famously doesn't read books. Johnson has written over 10 of them, including a novel and a biography of Winston Churchill.

Many Johnson critics regard him as a buffoon who wisecracks his way through serious difficulties and masquerades as a P.G. Wodehouse-style befuddled aristocrat. My sense is that he cultivates this persona, complete with references to ancient Greek philosophy, to make what might otherwise be pedestrian politicking distinctive and memorable.

It also bears remembering that Johnson was elected mayor of London in 2008 and re-elected in 2012, as a Conservative in a city that has usually voted Labour; and that the city prospered -- and crime dropped -- during his years in office. For all his fusty oratory, he supports metropolitan values like gay rights and celebrates the metropolis' rapidly increasing ethnic diversity.

All of which he considers consistent with his support for Brexit, in the campaign running up to the June 2016 referendum and today. More British citizens voted in that clearly worded referendum than in any other election in the nation's history, and they approved of leaving the European Union by a solid 52 to 48 percent margin.

As I noted in 2017, Brexit in Britain, like Donald Trump in the United States, sparked a political realignment, with the capital pitted against the countryside; the elites ensconced in the very largest metropolitan areas versus small-town traditionalists and their former partisan opponents in beleaguered mining and manufacturing centers. London (and Scotland) voted 60 percent against Brexit, the rest of England 57 percent in favor.

By endorsing Brexit, the Eton and Oxford graduate Johnson opted for the countryside, just as Trump did, even when riding down an escalator on Fifth Avenue. Globalist elites responded with scorn -- until the votes were counted. Then, far from taking defeat in sportsmanlike stride -- as Richard Nixon did in 1960, to take just one example -- they went to work trying to undermine the legitimacy of the result and reverse it by fair or foul means.

The voters on the winning side were racists, they claimed, voting to suppress people of color, manipulated by crafty Russians, old people resisting the future. In America, they bogged down the Trump administration by blocking appointments and promoting lengthy investigations of far-fetched charges. In Britain, the unelected civil servants on whom Prime Minister Theresa May relied worked with unelected European Union leaders to block Brexit from ever happening.

Some establishment types may really believe that Trump is Hitler and that Brexit will plunge Britain into another Great Depression. Most of them drip with contempt for ordinary citizens and, astonishingly, seem to think it entirely healthy and consistent with democracy to overturn the decision of the voters. They're sure they're better than ordinary people.

Those attitudes are unjustified. Johnson's three top Cabinet appointees are of Muslim, Hindu and Jewish ancestry: Nationalism doesn't mean white supremacy. He's looking for advice not from unelected civil servants but, reportedly, from Dominic Commings, mastermind of the 2016 Leave campaign, who has repeatedly outstrategized them.

Politically, Johnson's in no position to break his promise to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31, with or without an EU agreement. He brushes aside establishment predictions of economic disaster (all wrong so far) and talks of what his "amazing country" will do once freed of undemocratic EU ukases, like its member states' ban on genetically modified crops. Power is shifting. How far, we shall see.

It's happening so fast, it's difficult to compose a definitive thread.......
but the overwrought global push for open borders has turned the globe into Trumpland nationalists.

Trump's Nationalism routed globalism all over Europe. Trump-like nationalist candidates swept to victories in the UK, France, Italy, Hungary, Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands. The new EU political stars are Salvini, Le Pen, Farage and Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Bolsonaro in Brazil. All are in talks to form a team of international nationalist leaders....and Trump is the acknowledged world leader..

<><> Mette Frederiksen: the anti-immigration left leader set to win power in Denmark. Under her leadership, the SD have called for a cap on “non-western immigrants”, for asylum seekers to be expelled to a reception centre in North Africa, and for all immigrants to be forced to work 37 hours a week in exchange for benefits.

<><> In France, President Emmanuel Macron's party suffered an embarrassing defeat to nationalist Marine Le Pen.

<><>In the U.K., Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage won a landslide victory in the EU Parliament,
leading a Trump-like party that was established just six weeks ago.

<><>It was evident Boris Johnson, the Trump-like former mayor of London, would emerge as the new prime minister of Britain.

<><>In Italy, Matteo Salvini's nationalist party became one of the leaders
of the EU Parliament, winning an astounding 28 seats.

<><> Opposition conservatives prevail in Greek local election runoffs Reuters. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ leftist Syriza party suffered its first major defeat in years to the conservative New Democracy party in last Sunday’s European Parliament vote, prompting him to say he would call an early election. The snap election is expected to take place on July 7. On Sunday, the seats of the mayor of Athens and the district governor for the wider Athens area were the top prizes up for grabs in the runoffs of local elections. Results showed New Democracy candidates winning both seats, handing the conservatives another boost before Greeks return to vote in the expected election next month.

<><> Austrian Vice Chancellor vows to fight the Islamic “population exchange” JIHAD WATCH ^ | MAY 4, 2019 1:00 PM | CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS Posted on 5/5/2019, 4:57:18 AM by robowombat Austrian Vice Chancellor vows to fight the Islamic “population exchange” “Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache alluded to the impact of mass migration and demographic changes on the country, saying his party would fight against ‘population exchange'”.

<><>Australia Election Results: Prime Minister Scott Morrison Seizes a Stunning Win The Failing New York Times ^ | 5/18/2019 | Damien Cave Posted on 5/18/2019, 7:05:23 PM by Beave Meister SYDNEY, Australia — Scott Morrison, Australia’s conservative prime minister, scored a surprise victory in federal elections on Saturday, propelled by a populist wave — the “quiet Australians,” he termed it — resembling the force that has upended politics in the United States, Britain and beyond.

<><>Elections in India - Voters Reject Handouts! Indian News Sources ^ | 5/19/2019 | Me Posted on 5/19/2019, 9:29:06 AM by Republic_Venom If any of you are watching the end of the elections in India (https://www.republicworld.com/livetv) ......and looking at the exit polls, looks like the voters have re-elected the incumbent PM. He, like Trump, was hounded by the media and liberal elite. The surprising results from the exit polls is that the poor and destitute in India voted for him and not the parties that were offering hand-outs and uber-socialist sops. Australia rejected the liberals, now India has...so has Brazil.

<><>Boris Johnson has been elected new Conservative leader in a ballot of party members and will become the next UK prime minister.He beat Jeremy Hunt comfortably, winning 92,153 votes to his rival's 46,656. The former London mayor takes over from Theresa May on Wednesday. Boris wasted no time-----he appointed pro-life conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg to his all-star cabinet alongside Patel, Leadsom and Raab. In victory, Johnson promised to energise the country. "We are once again going to believe in ourselves."

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