The coming EU Parliament elections will check the strength and sustainability of the populist wave that has taken over UK and Italy, most of Eastern Europe and some smaller countries like Austria.
After an initial wave with Brexit and the triumph of Five Stars in Italy, the populist trend seems to have peaked. Part of this has to do with the poor government performance of the first wave in Spain and Greece -where the far left Podemos lost votes and Syriza ended implementing an impopular but necessary stabilization program with the IMF-.
Other, without doubt, with the chaotic and protracted drama around Brexit, which pitted Scotland, Ireland and London against the economically declining regions of England. The Brexiteers didn't have a clear plan nor credible leadership to form a government, and turned to a Remainer PM like Theresa May to implement a deal with EU. The result has been a long stalemate and cold feet for business that have been hemorrhaging out of UK for two years already.
According to a comprehensive Financial Times poll in all EU countries, UK and Italy will increase the seats for EU populists, but far short from a working majority able to elect a populist for the position of EU PM. (click to enlarge)
While Spain turned to the moderate social-democratic center-left with PSOE, France -which still has a dominant centrist in power- seems to be wobbling under the street riots promoted by the Yellow Vests anti-European populists.
A closer look by Politico polls show that the moderate center-Right and the center-Left will still hold majorities in the 2019-2024 EU Parliament, with the Liberal centrists as "king-makers" but also needing populist votes to form government.
The growth chart seems to show populists plateauing and moderates bouncing back, most likely as results of Brexit/UKIP, Podemos' and Syriza's fizzling after government and opposition fiascos.
Pro-EU forces hold a healthy 467 majority seats almost doubling Euro-skeptics. All this said, the situation for the coming five years (2019-2024) is fluid, highly dependent on the economy, mostly at the mercy of the US-China trade brinkmanship. Last but not least significant, US anti-EU nationalist Steve Bannon is working overtime propping up Trumpian-esque forces in UK (Brexit-UKIP) Italy (Salvini), France (Gillettes Jaunes), Spain (Vox), Hungary (Orban) and even Brazil (Bolsonaro). Those who underestimate Bannon's impact and power do so at their own peril. Trump might be less ideological and more pragmatic, but Bannon is a man on a mission, and that mission can generate a Second Coming for right-wing populism in EU. Is good to remind those who look down on this phenomenon that the First Coming brought Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and WWII during the 1922-1932 decade, right (pun intended) for the hundred anniversary of the crowning of European fascism that preceded World War II.
The Long View: European history tends to repeat itself. During the 20th century two world wars erupted for the same reasons -nationalism, populism, economic depression, anti-immigration and the perennial antisemitism (particularly in Eastern Europe)-
For most of its history, the United States remained among the few countries where populism never governed. Its unrivaled prosperity along 250 years should at least demonstrate that prosperity at that level can be achieved without the classical populist recipes:
Protectionism - high tariffs - restrictions to trade
Anti-immigration measures
Dictatorial powers vested and concentrated in the Executive
Government - state property monopolies
Large subsidies and government payroll
Closed economy - crony capitalism
Debt default, monetary emission and debasing (devaluations)
These are the reasons why populists around the world unanimously hate international monetary controls (such as IMF or WTO) , free trade and trade agreements. Anything that limits their power and control over "their" people gets in the way of populist governments and politicians.
The rule of law is also resisted by populists by the same reason. Unlike King James I that accepted in 1215 that monarchs had to obey their own laws, populists reject such limitations.
The "will of the people", understood as the "will of the leader of the people" is for populists the only law of the land.
Once they gain enough control, populist leaders invert the governed-government equation: the government chooses the people, not the other way around.
In Peron's Argentina, Castro's Cuba or Mugabe's Zimbabwe, people must join the Leader's Party (usually called on his/her name or as "Revolution" or "People's" Party) to be able to get jobs, subsidies and benefits.
Populists systems require a steady system of patronage (think of Chicago's "Daley machine") that trades jobs for votes on a regular basis. That's how populist leaders get re-elected almost for life. Or, alternatively, they establish a dynastic rule (like North Korea) or a "rotative" scheme to circumvent term limits (like Peron and his wife Isabel, Kirchner and his wife Cristina in Argentina or Putin and his teammate Mevdevev, who rotate as PM and President, with Putin holding power in both positions).
A third way to get the populist regime perpetually in power is the single Party system, like in the case of China, South Africa or Singapore. The original economic model can vary from extreme communism (like China) to freewheeling capitalism (like Singapore). Populism is not ideology-dependent. It can switch and mutate as required (think of Deng Xiaoping "market communism").
To get to this point with the US system it is necessary to change the Constitution drastically, or circumvent it with a vast network of cronyism installed in the three powers to override their "checks and balances". Another component is frequently using "referendums" to impose as law of the land a circumstantial majority. California is a good example of the consequences of the referendum and recall systems.
Bannon and his Alt Right followers want precisely this when they speak of "deep state" in their efforts to make a "political cleansing" of the Federal Government, the Judiciary, the Intelligence and Security cadres.
Traditional Republicans and Democrats might fight those efforts if not out of conviction, for necessity, because they are the "incumbents" to be replaced.
In a pluralistic open economy like the US, private companies create an much more extensive set of multiple interests and can also offer resistance.
Trump, finally, might not be interested in such far-reaching changes in the system, nor be in power long enough. He has neither electable heirs nor reliable allies outside his own family, which creates another obstacle. No cunning wives or younger brothers with popular appeal.
And, of course all these plans ignore the existence of a growing number of rivals and enemies, and a deeply divided electorate. Here, as usual, some additional civil and informed debates about the populist phenomenon:
The debates about legal immigration, paths to citizenship and the status of millions of undocumented long term residents not born in the US territory has been part of the history of a country of immigrants.
Until 1924, when the first Act restricting and selecting immigration was implemented, immigrants from all over the world were actively encouraged to come and settle in the expanding territory of the United States. The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed any resident in America, included free slaves, to put claim over 160 free acres of Federal Land. Ultimately 1.2 million claims were approved and 400,000 acres of federal land became property of residents.
That sounds like a far cry from the current DACA negotiations about protecting from illegality and deportation 800.000 young residents brought as children illegally to the US or the bargaining about building border walls, establishing "merit-based" quotas and prioritizing immigration by countries of origin (creating a new "shit hole" category for the unwanted).
Republican president Theodore Roosevelt advocated for the "melting pot" doctrine, under which all Americans must be willing to adopt and embrace the Constitution and laws of the country, abandoning all allegiances to their native cultures that might stand in the way. This for Roosevelt, included adopting a simple, non-hyphenated "American" identity.
The "melting pot" doctrine remained, however, based as it was in the fact that the United States is a voluntary federation of preexisting independent states which retained a substantial part of their sovereignty and remains open to accommodate new members (from 14 to the current 50+Puerto Rico) based on the oath of loyalty to the law of the land, not ethnicity, religion, culture or country of origin.
Not a minor feat for a 327 million people country that according to scholars includes 11 different cultural "nations" :
"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."
An emotional event that documentarist Alexandra Pelosi filmed in the 50 states:
Under the First Amendment, all people in the US (residents or visitors) are free to speak and practice their religion.
But becoming new US citizens carries also a duty, explicit in that public oath: they must put the US Constitution over any other law and obey the laws of the land regardless of their religious or personal beliefs. Hence, sharia law or any other religious practices remain private and not enforceable on anybody.
Traditionally, "melting pot" meant also learning and using English as a common language -something much easier now that the entire world has adopted English as the "common language of work and trade-.
Ethnic-nationalists on the Left (like La Raza o Black nationalists) or Islamic fundamentalists think otherwise, conceiving the US as a "salad bowl" like the European Union. where "multiculturalism" means keeping separate cultures and norms, and even languages.
Some of them -like the Amish- choose to live in close communities and endogamy to preserve their traditions, others establish ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos.
The "salad bowl" doctrine has historically provoked backlashes, especially when jobs are hard to find.
More recently, White nationalists and White Supremacists have pushed for a "blood and soil" criterion that puts "their" "America First". This means not just prioritizing Americans over immigrants, but those born over those naturalized and those "white" poor over "colored minorities".
The swings between these two un-American doctrines: multiculturalism and ethnic nationalism have been stronger since US elected its first Black president, succeeded by a president who ran in an white nationalist platform.
Both multiculturalism and ethnic nationalism share the concept of backward-looking "identity politics' as opposed to our forward-looking Constitution and are one of the key sources of the current lack of civility:
Midterm elections invite populist politicians to play identity politics to shore their ethnic vote bases increasing the likelihood of "hang up parliaments" and gridlock.
Whichever way identity-based politics weigh in the coming elections, the result will be a more fractured and incivil civil society.
The civil way: make yourself an American
After all, this is a country of self-made people who can even chose (and often do) change their last names to start over again.
The problem with "salad bowls" is on plain sight with the ethnic riots in EU and US. "Blood and Soil" is a civil war solution that US and EU have tried with very well-known consequences. Starting a new one over the monuments of the previous is not a good idea.
Peter Schrag describes this paradox of immigrants against immigrants in his book "Not Fit for Society: Immigration and Nativism in America":
"Our contemporary immigration
battles, and particularly the ideas and proposals of latter-day nativists and
immigration restrictionists, resonate with the arguments of more than two
centuries of that history. Often, as most of us should know, the immigrants who
were demeaned by one generation were the parents and grandparents of the
successes of the next generation."
The "melting pot" metaphor may also be unrealistic: people are not alloys and cultures do not "melt" well in a few years. Becoming a non-hyphenated American is not automatic. It doesn't come with legal citizenship papers. It comes with an open, forward-looking attitude. Learning English and the country's ways. And time, a lifetime of self-building hard work.
The "melting pot" works better if we conceive it as it is: a slow, multi-generational process in which the first generation sacrifices its native language giving a big handicap in the labor market to help the next generation become fully and easily integrated.
Another way to understand how the immigration process has worked for the past 250 years in the United States, is by noticing that each one of the three alternatives is part of the process itself.
When immigrant arrive in large numbers when jobs declines (which tends to be always the case, since US economy drags or propels the rest of the world), the first reaction they provoke is "blood and soil" attacks on the newcomers. It happened with Irish, Germans, Chinese and Mexicans, on top of black slaves forced to live here.
The second phase starts almost in parallel, with the newly arrived immigrants turning their lower-income neighborhoods and adoptive towns into multilingual "salad bowls" while they learn English to communicate with their neighbors and send their children to school.
There, at school and at work starts the "melting pot" phase: immigrant children and adults "melt" together with a long time of hard working, volunteering in wars and taking hard and dangerou
Finally, those who went through the long process feel full-fledged, taxpaying Americans and start complaining about the next wave of illegal immigration.
There is no way around for first-generation immigrants. I'm one of them and we know that very well. We accepted the challenge when we applied and swore to play by the rules of the Constitution.
Members of each immigrant generation can become Americans by following a true and tried set of civility rules: pull your own weight (and your family's), master English, drop the hyphen (hyphens are chains), practice real diversity by joining and share a culture different from your parents'.
And, over all: Don't take the bait of either side of identity politics.
