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Why the rise of Nationalism worldwide?

By Victor Davis Hanson, Townhall:

(My thoughts in bold / parens)

What is going on with the unending Brexit drama, the aftershocks of Donald Trump's election and the "yellow vests" protests in France? What drives the growing estrangement of southern and eastern Europe from the European Union establishment? What fuels the anti-EU themes of recent European elections and the stunning recent Australian re-election of conservatives?

Put simply, the middle classes are revolting against Western managerial elites. The latter group includes professional politicians, entrenched bureaucrats, condescending academics, corporate phonies and propagandistic journalists.

What are the popular gripes against them?

One, illegal immigration and open borders have led to chaos. Lax immigration policies have taxed social services and fueled multicultural identity politics, often to the benefit of boutique leftist political agendas. (and knifings, beheadings, acid-throwings, bombings, running down people with trucks)

Two, globalization enriched the cosmopolitan elites who found worldwide markets for their various services. New global markets and commerce meant Western nations outsourced, offshored and ignored their own industries and manufacturing (or anything dependent on muscular labor that could be replaced by cheaper workers abroad).

Three, unelected bureaucrats multiplied and vastly increased their power over private citizens. The targeted middle classes lacked the resources to fight back against the royal armies of tenured regulators, planners, auditors, inspectors and adjustors who could not be fired and were never accountable.

Four, the new global media reached billions and indoctrinated rather than reported. ('firefighters' *spit*)

Five, academia became politicized as a shrill agent of cultural transformation rather than focusing on education -- while charging more for less learning. (Evergreen State College, for example)

Six, utopian social planning increased housing, energy and transportation costs. (wind turbines. giving homes to the homeless WITHOUT accountability)

One common gripe framed all these diverse issues: The wealthy had the means and influence not to be bothered by higher taxes and fees or to avoid them altogether. Not so much the middle classes, who lacked the clout of the virtue-signaling rich and the romance of the distant poor.

In other words, elites never suffered the firsthand consequences of their own ideological fiats.

Green policies were aimed at raising fees on, and restricting the use of, carbon-based fuels. But proposed green belt-tightening among hoi polloi was not matched by a cutback in second and third homes, overseas vacations, luxury cars, private jets and high-tech appurtenances. (Bernie, gore, Pelosi, Michael moore, most Hollywood actors, the permanent 'climate change' bureaucracy)

In education, government directives and academic hectoring about admissions quotas and ideological indoctrination likewise targeted the middle classes but not the elite. The micromanagers of Western public schools and universities often preferred private academies and rigorous traditional training for their own children. Elites relied on old-boy networks to get their own kids into colleges. Diversity administrators multiplied at universities while indebted students borrowed more money to pay for them.

In matters of immigration, the story was much the same. Western elites encouraged the migration of indigent, unskilled and often poorly educated foreign nationals who would ensure that government social programs -- and the power of the elites themselves -- grew. The champions of open borders made sure that such influxes did not materially affect their own neighborhoods, schools and privileged way of life.

Elites masked their hypocrisy by virtue-signaling their disdain for the supposedly xenophobic, racist or nativist middle classes. Yet the non-elite have experienced firsthand the impact on social programs, schools and safety from sudden, massive and often illegal immigration from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia into their communities.

As for trade, few still believe in "free" trade when it remains so unfair. Why didn't elites extend to China their same tough-love lectures about global warming, or about breaking the rules of trade, copyrights and patents? (Because communism / socialism. Free Pass!)

The middle classes became nauseated by the constant elite trashing of their culture, history and traditions, including the tearing down of statues, the Trotskyizing of past heroes, the renaming of public buildings and streets, and, for some, the tired and empty whining about "white privilege."

If Western nations were really so bad, and so flawed at their founding, why were millions of non-Westerners risking their lives to reach Western soil?

How was it that elites themselves had made so much money, had gained so much influence, and had enjoyed such material bounty and leisure from such a supposedly toxic system -- benefits that they were unwilling to give up despite their tired moralizing about selfishness and privilege?

In the next few years, expect more grassroots demands for the restoration of the value of citizenship. There will be fewer middle-class apologies for patriotism and nationalism. The non-elite will become angrier about illegal immigration, demanding a return to the idea of measured, meritocratic, diverse and legal immigration.

Because elites have no answers to popular furor, the anger directed at them will only increase until they give up -- or finally succeed in their grand agenda of a non-democratic, all-powerful Orwellian state.

townhall.com/columnists/victor…

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I would also add groups like #BLM and Antifa- the Enforcement arm. Just like the Brown Shirts.

I've been saying this for a long time and the proof has come out in this election just past: the Left is all about FEAR.

In another person's journal here on DA I saw one example of it (and my apologies to that person for repeating it here without asking): One of his (her?) in-laws, apparently someone fairly young and indoctrinated in FEAR, stated that they believed a drone would be coming to put a bullet in her head the day Trump is inaugurated.

It seemed a bit much to me. I don't know. I've been saying for several years now that they are teaching children to live in FEAR of the weather. I expect the day to come when older, more informed people such as myself are making a stop somewhere along the road- and the Millennials who might be at that stop, are quaking in FEAR because of the light rain coming down outside- because a tornado might whip out of it and kill them all on the spot (despite the FACT that tornado numbers keep falling as the world warms- you kinda need COLD air masses to mix with the warm...). 'man-made' global warming, dontchaknow. Another FEAR tactic.

And I have noticed that since Trump won, the SJW types have gotten increasingly ugly in tone. I've blocked a whole series of the scum since the last two weeks. One had the courtesy to block me before-hand, because he knows I can blow away any argument he has to make- although most of his arguments consist of screaming the same things over and over and over and over and over and over and over- well you get the point. He doesn't know much and that is because the Elites have done quite well in dumbing down much of the Millennial generation.
My apologies to those Millennials who can actually think for themselves - you Know who you are. I talk to a lot of you.

In any case I wished to bring in a snippet of the following article from American Thinker, to back up what I have just been saying.

These things are Obvious to us. While they are completely Oblivious to them.

'Watching the Snowflakes Melt'

'Watching videos of SJWs, black, white and oh so very red, has struck me with something I hadn’t noticed before. Many of these poor kids are genuinely scared. We’ve been using the word “indoctrinated” for years, but seeing the results of the indoctrination on their faces is horrifying nevertheless. I came of age in the Reagan era. Liberal kids back then disliked Ronald Reagan, maybe even hated him -- but they didn’t think either his election or his reelection meant that they were going to die. Many of the current crop of snowflakes really do believe the end is nigh. They are dangerous in the way that cornered animals are dangerous -- well, at least they may be when they can manage to stop crying.

Facts, thank God, are facts. There is no serious question of who has the better grasp of reality here. The evidence that right and truth are on our side is overwhelming. The progressives themselves confirmed the authenticity of the Wikileaks emails on at least three occasions. We can point at DNC involvement in the rioting -- we have video. Progressives, on the other hand, have little but rhetoric and accusations. The sudden parade of women who claimed to have been molested by Donald Trump. The Muslim student who claimed to have been threatened on the street. The anonymous swastika spray-painted on a wall somewhere. Trump said occasional bad things. Hillary really did bad things. The saying and doing are different, at least in a sane world. However, if you are twenty years old, systematically educated to find reasons to be offended, and tucked into the comfortable safe space of your echo chamber -- then accusations are indistinguishable from truth. The suggestion that we should put the interests of the people who are already in America ahead of the interests of millions who, for whatever reason, want to come to America is indistinguishable, to snowflakes, from calling for the gunning down of children in the streets. These kids don’t assume the odd swastika they run across on the way to the vape shop is the work of a mildly anti-social but basically apolitical thirteen-year-old (the sort of people who have always scrawled graffiti on American walls and sidewalks) but imagine it the product of invisible neo-Nazi boogeymen. Yes, they are genuinely scared -- they have swallowed the big lie whole. While one may feel a certain human pity for their naivete, nobody who needs a puppy and a coloring book to staunch the flow of tears has any right to expect to be taken seriously by an adult. An inability to cope with a reality one doesn’t like is not a virtue – it is an indication of a precarious state of mental health.

All these kids have is the ridiculous, unhealthy, teletubby world that has been constructed for them by the media and the American educational system. They have been systematically brainwashed for political reasons -- a crime on such a scale there are hardly any words for it.

The Ugliness of the Left is going to get worse before it gets better- if it is EVER capable of getting better.

The next 8 years are going to be interesting to say the least.