Europe’s Elections: Right, But Not Far
It’s worth paying careful attention to the significant gains recently by so-called “hard right” parties in the European elections. They tell us something not only about a whole group of kindred nations at this juncture in history, but also about what may happen this November in the United States as well. On the whole, it’s good news that resistance has grown to the progressive juggernaut, which is most conspicuous by the rainbow flags that have sprouted all over the world. That “hard left” movement has been a far greater “threat to democracy” than its opponents, and the threat goes well beyond homosexual and trans questions to many other matters of culture, nationhood, and religion.
Pope Francis and several European bishops have repeatedly warned against the “sirens of populism” and “simplistic solutions” to problems like massive illegal immigration – and the many disorders that inevitably follow. But Sweden – Sweden! – has become the rape capital of Europe, and experiences on average three stabbings a day, a bombing every other day, to say nothing of less spectacular troubles. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to think that maybe something’s wrong with soft immigration policies – to say nothing of the whole post-Christian guilt complex about welcoming the stranger or wanting to preserve national identity.
Sweden is hardly alone in experiencing such problems. Under the circumstances, simplistic solutions – like border walls, incarceration for criminals, and swift deportations – indeed, any real solutions at all, start to look better and better to people in dozens of nations compared to the status quo.
The pope and many bishops – in America as well – tend to view the migrant problems through a very narrow lens, as if even having a border-control policy is basically contrary to the Gospel. Prior to COVID, America was admitting 2 million legal immigrants a year, odd for a supposedly xenophobic nation. Europe, too, had allowed large influxes of legal migrants. Blaming developed countries for not admitting even more, and then blaming them again because they can’t integrate the huge numbers they’ve taken in – as many churchmen do – those are the simplistic solutions based in a kind of religious fundamentalism.