America's Latest Export: The Conspiracy Theorists Crazies have crossed the Atlantic and QAnon is now in Europe–by Mark Scott

If you don't know what QAnon is this is how wikileaks divines the cult - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon.

At first glance it’s not a natural fit. The U.S. conspiracy theory — now with millions of acolytes worldwide — alleges a vast deception to undermine U.S. President Donald Trump. It blends anti-government, anti-lockdown and anti-Semitic rhetoric with unfounded beliefs about a vast pedophile ring run by the global elite. Its followers adhere to a quasi-religious belief that a great savior — aided by “Q,” an anonymous government insider from whom QAnon gets its name — will protect followers from the dark forces behind the conspiracy.

In the U.S., discussion about QAnon has broken into the political mainstream. When Trump was asked to disavow the group at a recent town hall event, he first said he knew “nothing about QAnon” but then added: “I do know that they are very much against pedofiles.

Despite its digital roots, this conspiracy based, populst, ultra -right-wing QAnon has extended its reach into the real world, with attendees at protests against anti-coronavirus measures and supportive of conspiracy theories spreading its talking points across Europe, the U.S. and other parts of the world.

Read more at: QAnon goes European – POLITICO

EU Elections: The US (Trump and Steve Bannon supported), Russian, and European Ultra-Right Wing disinformation networks discovered in Europe

'Vast' far-right disinformation networks discovered in EU

Read more at:
https://p.dw.com/p/3IrBu

The Netherlands: Will the Netherlands’ Rising Far-Right Star Survive the Scrutiny of Success? - by Frida Ghitis

Will Thierry  Baudet, Far-Right Populist eventually survive?

Dutch voters delivered a shock in last week’s provincial elections, which also determined the makeup of the upper house of parliament.

The outcome deprived Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s governing coalition of a majority in the Senate, giving the largest share of seats to a relatively new far-right party led by an ostentatious pseudo-intellectual, Thierry Baudet.

The victory by Baudet’s Forum for Democracy party, or FvD, however, is not proof that the Netherlands has taken a sharp rightward turn. The parliament is highly fragmented, and the political landscape is in flux, but the Netherlands remains a nation characterized by compromise. The question going forward is whether Baudet will manage to persuade more Dutch voters to follow him to the right, or whether his new celebrity status will make them look more closely at his views and turn away after discovering they do not share them.

After his party jumped from just two seats to 13, Baudet declared in his victory speech, “We stand here in the rubble of what was once the most beautiful civilization,” adding, “Minerva’s owl spreads its wings at dusk.” An allusion to imagery used by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the term promptly started trending on social media in the Netherlands. To some, it was another preposterous display by the 36-year-old former academic, who has accused the government led by Rutte’s center-right Freedom and Democracy party, or VVD, of allowing “people with cultures completely different from ours” to enter the country. To others, it was a sign of a renewed nationalist push in a struggling European Union.

To be sure, Baudet scored an impressive victory. But a significant portion of his support came from former backers of another populist figure, Geert Wilders, who saw his Party for Freedom drop from nine to five seats in the upper house.

Rutte’s VVD lost just one seat, for a second-place finish, but his four-party coalition, which had only a thin majority in the Senate, lost seven. The other big winner was the Green Left party, which jumped from four to nine seats. Rutte retains a majority in the lower house and, with it, the prime minister’s office. But it is clear that Dutch politics is changing and becoming far more fragmented. The new upper house will comprise a record number of political parties, diminishing the power of the traditional political formations.

Baudet’s support was notably weak in some major cities, which remain bastions of the tolerance for which the Dutch are known. In Amsterdam, Baudet’s FvD finished in an embarrassing sixth place, behind the animal rights formation, Party for the Animals. The Green Left remains the largest there.

One reason for Baudet’s surprise win was the way he brazenly leveraged a deadly attack in the city of Utrecht two days before the elections. The attack by a Turkish-born man who killed three people is being investigated by police as a possible act of terrorism. Other parties suspended campaigning, but Baudet saw an opportunity to make his case. Without conclusive information on the motive for the shootings, Baudet immediately blamed the government’s immigration policies. His FvD did not fare well in Utrecht, interestingly, but it finished first in Rotterdam, a city with a large Muslim population.

Read more at: Will the Netherlands’ Rising Far-Right Star Survive the Scrutiny

Brexit: Anti-EU and Trump admirer Nigel Farage criticised for saying he will keep EU pension-by Hannah Summers

The Guardian reported that Nigel Farage has sparked outrage by refusing to give up his taxpayer-funded EU pension after Brexit, asking: “Why should my family suffer?”

It is understood the 53-year-old former Ukip leader will be entitled to an annual pension of £73,000 when he reaches the age of 63.

The pension could be part-funded by Britain’s estimated £50bn Brexit “divorce bill”, which Farage has criticised as too large, leading to accusations that the MEP for South East England was a “shameless hypocrite”.

Farage defended the arrangement when challenged on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show. Asked if he would accept the EU pension money, he replied: “Of course I would take it. I have said that right from day one. Why should my family and others suffer even more?”

Note EU-Digest: What a hypocrite !

The Netherlands: Ollongren calls on Populist Rightwing politician Baudet to debate racism in parliament, not police station

Interior minister Kajsa Ollongren has urged Thierry Baudet to air his grievances in a public debate after the Forum voor Democratie (FvD) leader filed a police complaint against her claim that he was failing to tackle racism in his party. Baudet announced his decision to seek legal redress against Ollongren for ‘defamation’ in a press conference on Sunday that lasted less than four minutes, without giving the half-dozen journalists present any chance to ask questions. In a public speech in Nijmegen on Friday, Ollongren attacked Baudet for not condemning a party colleague Yernaz Ramautarsing, after the latter claimed in a TV interview that people from non-white races had lower IQs. ‘The latest spin-off of populism goes beyond the point where Wilders stops,’ said Ollongren. ‘Baudet’s party seems to be obsessed with one of the few taboos that I adhere to as a progressive liberal: talking about race in political debate.’ She went on: ‘Baudet claimed this was a scientific debate. He didn’t want to get involved in it. In other words, he allowed blatant discrimination on grounds of race by one of his party colleagues to go unchallenged.’ Baudet said in his brief statement that Ollongren had crossed a line by accusing him of committing an offence. ‘Racism is judging people on the basis of their appearance or origin and we do not do that in any way,’ he said. On Saturday the FvD leader tweeted a picture of himself at a police station with his fellow FvD MP and criminal lawyer Theo Hiddema, who is representing him in the case.

Read more at DutchNews.nl: Ollongren calls on Baudet to debate racism in parliament, not police station http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2018/02/ollongren-calls-on-baudet-to-debate-racism-in-parliament-not-police-station/

Dutch Interior minister Kajsa Ollongren has urged Thierry Baudet to air his grievances in a public debate after the Forum voor Democratie (FvD) leader filed a police complaint against her claim that he was failing to tackle racism in his party. Baudet announced his decision to seek legal redress against Ollongren for ‘defamation’ in a press conference on Sunday that lasted less than four minutes, without giving the half-dozen journalists present any chance to ask questions.

In a public speech in Nijmegen on Friday, Ollongren attacked Baudet for not condemning a party colleague Yernaz Ramautarsing, after the latter claimed in a TV interview that people from non-white races had lower IQs. ‘The latest spin-off of populism goes beyond the point where Wilders stops,’ said Ollongren. ‘Baudet’s party seems to be obsessed with one of the few taboos that I adhere to as a progressive liberal: talking about race in political debate.’ She went on: ‘Baudet claimed this was a scientific debate. He didn’t want to get involved in it. In other words, he allowed blatant discrimination on grounds of race by one of his party colleagues to go unchallenged.’

Baudet said in his brief statement that Ollongren had crossed a line by accusing him of committing an offence. ‘Racism is judging people on the basis of their appearance or origin and we do not do that in any way,’ he said. On Saturday the FvD leader tweeted a picture of himself at a police station with his fellow FvD MP and criminal lawyer Theo Hiddema, who is representing him in the case.

Interior minister Kajsa Ollongren has urged Thierry Baudet to air his grievances in a public debate after the Forum voor Democratie (FvD) leader filed a police complaint against her claim that he was failing to tackle racism in his party. Baudet announced his decision to seek legal redress against Ollongren for ‘defamation’ in a press conference on Sunday that lasted less than four minutes, without giving the half-dozen journalists present any chance to ask questions. In a public speech in Nijmegen on Friday, Ollongren attacked Baudet for not condemning a party colleague Yernaz Ramautarsing, after the latter claimed in a TV interview that people from non-white races had lower IQs. ‘The latest spin-off of populism goes beyond the point where Wilders stops,’ said Ollongren. ‘Baudet’s party seems to be obsessed with one of the few taboos that I adhere to as a progressive liberal: talking about race in political debate.’ She went on: ‘Baudet claimed this was a scientific debate. He didn’t want to get involved in it. In other words, he allowed blatant discrimination on grounds of race by one of his party colleagues to go unchallenged.’ Baudet said in his brief statement that Ollongren had crossed a line by accusing him of committing an offence. ‘Racism is judging people on the basis of their appearance or origin and we do not do that in any way,’ he said. On Saturday the FvD leader tweeted a picture of himself at a police station with his fellow FvD MP and criminal lawyer Theo Hiddema, who is representing him in the case.

Read more at DutchNews.nl: Ollongren calls on Baudet to debate racism in parliament, not police station http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2018/02/ollongren-calls-on-baudet-to-debate-racism-in-parliament-not-police-station/

Read more: Ollongren calls on Baudet to debate racism in parliament, not police station - DutchNews.nl

Poland: Warsaw lawmakers pass Holocaust bill to restrict term 'Polish death camps'

Polish Holocaust Death Camp

Polish lawmakers approved a bill on Thursday that would impose jail terms for suggesting Poland was complicit in the Holocaust, drawing concern from the United States and outrage from Israel, which denounced "any attempt to challenge historical truth."

Poland's ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) says the bill is needed to protect Poland's reputation and ensure historians recognize that Poles as well as Jews perished under the Nazis. Israeli officials said it criminalizes basic historical facts.

The Senate voted on the bill in the early hours on Thursday and it will now be sent to President Andrzej Duda, who has 21 days to decide whether to sign it into law.

The president has not said whether he will sign the bill, but has suggested he sympathizes with its aims. He told state television on Monday: "The matter needs to be explained calmly, but we absolutely cannot backtrack."

The bill would impose three years prison sentences for mentioning the term "Polish death camps," although it says scientific research into the Second World War would not be constrained.

Israel "adamantly opposes" the bill's approval, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

"Israel views with utmost gravity any attempt to challenge historical truth. 

No law will change the facts," ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon said on Twitter.

Israeli Housing Minister Yoav Galant, one of several cabinet ministers to denounce the bill, told Israel's Army Radio that he considered it "de facto Holocaust denial."

The bill has come at a time when right-wing, anti-immigrant parties like PiS have been in the ascendancy in Europe, especially in the former Communist countries of the east. EU officials have expressed alarm over the PiS administration in Poland, which they say has undermined the rule of law by exerting pressure over the courts and media.

The socially conservative, nationalist PiS has reignited debate on the Holocaust as part of a campaign to fuel patriotism since sweeping into power in 2015.

The U.S. State Department said the legislation "could undermine free speech and academic discourse" and Washington was concerned about the repercussions it could have "on Poland's strategic interests and relationships."

Read more: Warsaw lawmakers pass Holocaust bill to restrict term 'Polish death camps' - World - CBC News

The Netherlands: Trump Fan, Opportunist, Rightwing, Dutch Populist Politician Wilders says: "Russia is 'no enemy', ahead of Moscow visit - by Peter Teffer

Opportunist and Populist Dutch Politician Geert Wilders

Russia is "not an enemy" to the Netherlands, Dutch anti-EU politician Geert Wilders said in an interview published on Wednesday (22 November), ahead of a visit to Moscow in the New Year.

The far-right opposition MP, who leads the second-largest party in the lower house of the Dutch parliament, said there was "hysterical Russophobia" to which he wanted to provide a counter-narrative.

"Russia is not our enemy, and we should not make it one," he told Dutch weekly magazine Elsevier. "Russia is on our side."

Wilders said it was understandable that Russia feels threatened by the expansion of the northern Atlantic alliance Nato.

"I'm a big fan of Nato and of the Americans, but Russia has a good point here," he said.

The interview comes ahead of a visit early next year of Wilders to Moscow, which has been behind several attempts to undermine the EU and is under sanctions because of the invasion of Crimea and support for insurgents in Ukraine.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: Geert Wilders named Dutch politician of the year - Criteria, Choice And Results Questionable

Geert Wilders: Is he really so popular?

Netherlands: Populist anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders was Monday named Dutch politician of the year in a television poll that came on the heels of his conviction for discrimination.

The 53-year-old charismatic leader of the Freedom Party (PVV) got 26 percent of the 40,000 votes cast in the poll conducted by NPO1 public television.

"I thank the Dutch who elected me the politician of 2016," Wilders said in a tweet. His party's fortunes have been steadily rising in the approach to legislative elections in March.

A December 11 survey by the respected Maurice de Hond Institute found that if elections were held now, the PVV would pick up 36 out of the 150 seats in the lower house of parliament, making it the biggest single political group.

It is the fourth time Wilders has been chosen as Dutch politician of the year thrice. His previous wins were in 2010, 2013 and 2015.

In a ruling earlier this month, Wilders was found guilty of discrimination against Moroccans but acquitted of hate speech over remarks he made at an election rally in March 2014.

He had asked supporters whether they wanted "fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands." When the crowd shouted back "Fewer! Fewer!" a smiling Wilders answered: "We're going to organize that."

But how accurate are all these polls being analyzed and publicized?

Looking at this particular poll about Wilders and other similar polls around the world, one can not escape the feeling that these polls not always tell the real side of the story. 

The mainly corporate controlled and profit motivated media around the world is not interested in providing objective news, but rather wants to achieve high ratings and maximum exposure, through populist and sensationalist news reporting.

In the case of naming Wilders  the Netherlands most popular politicians, the headline does not really reflect a true picture of the actual situation. 

Wilders got only 26 percent  of the total vote, this also means that 74% of those voted did not like him. In fact that is very close to three out of 4 people not liking him. Popular politician - not really.

Certainly not something Mr. Wilders or his party can brag about.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: Geert Wilders - PM of the Netherlands in 2017 ?

Will  Geert Wilders ever become the PM of the Netherlands?

To read the complete report click here.

Is History Repeating itself?: End of History 2.0, beginning of gloom ?

The collapse of the Soviet Union and its allied Communist regimes in Europe was hailed as the ultimate triumph of Western liberal democracy and capitalism. Francis Fukuyama, the American academic, called it the “end of history” arguing that the West had finally—and for good—won the battle of ideologies. Scenes of joy swept Western capitals; darkness at noon had lifted! Hallelujah. Anyone caught expressing scepticism or urging humility risked ridicule and humiliation.

Twenty-five years later, we seem to be looking at another “end of history” episode. Except that this time it is playing out not in Moscow, Budapest and Warsaw but in the heartland of Western democracy and  capitalism – London, Washington, Paris, Rome and Berlin. The same remorseless cycle of ideological boom and bust that brought about the demise of Communism is now paying a visit to the capitalist West. Liberal democracy and capitalism—the two great pillars of self-proclaimed Western supremacy—are in deep crisis, spawning in its wake a politics of rage and hate on either side of the Atlantic.

It’s by far the gravest crisis since the Second World War, and threatens the post-War political and economic stability the West has come to take for granted. Economy is already in a tailspin and political and social stability hangs in the balance. There’s a worrying erosion of public confidence in the political class and democratically elected representatives—in effect in parliamentary democracy itself. Demagogues are taking over, prompting fears that power might be shifting from Parliament on to the streets, reminiscent of the 1930s Germany. That may be an exaggeration, but it’s hard to escape a growing sense of public contempt for mainstream politics and a desperate search for alternatives even if it means plunging into unchartered waters.

It is a culmination of years of pent-up grievances exacerbated by the fall-out of the 2008 financial crash whose worst victims were the poor. But what happened next was like rubbing salt into the wound. While millions of middle and working class people lost their jobs and had their homes repossessed, pushing them further into poverty for no fault of theirs, those responsible for the crash—bankers and their cronies in government and elsewhere—got away with it. There was much hand-wringing, mea culpas, and talk of market reforms. A new 21stcentury brand of “capitalism with a human face” was promised, but nearly a decade later it is pretty much business as usual with obscene salaries and bonuses still very much the norm in the corporate sector.

Meanwhile, globalisation has failed to work for the vast majority of lower, middle and working classes. Its promised benefits have bypassed them while benefitting big corporations and a small urban elite. Globalisation was sold to the public as a bold mission to bring the world closer to the mutual benefit of everyone, by breaking down trade barriers and promoting the idea of effectively a single world market. But it was really always about developed nations gaining access to lucrative new emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere. And about Western companies being able to save labour costs by outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries—India, China, Bangladeshi, Sri Lanka, etc. Even Britain's Labour Party’s ultra-Left  leader Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign T-shirts, which sell for up to £17 a piece, were made by “slave labour” in Bangladesh who were paid just 30 pence an hour.

Globalisation has also led to increased economic disparities and a widening of the rich-poor divide as its benefits have not been equitably distributed; and blue-collar workers especially find its gains outweighed by losses. This has got conflated with anger over other issues like racial discrimination, immigration (the Brexit vote was driven solely by concerns over large-scale immigration from other EU states), and corruption in high places completing the image of a system that is not working for ordinary people.

“A big factor in the anger and frustration that people are feeling today… is the realisation that regardless of who is formally elected, an insular ruling elite is actually in power, pursuing a technocratic agenda that serves the interests of rich and well-connected insiders rather than the public,’’ wrote  Steve Hilton, a former adviser to David Cameron, in The Times.

So, when an insurgent pretender promises to bring “our jobs back home”, bring down immigrant numbers, and crack down on corporate greed, people cheer them seduced by the idea that someone is “listening” to them and speaking their language. (We had a glimpse of it in India in the 2014 elections.) In Europe, the anti-establishment mood has been fuelled by European leaders’ strutting and confused response to the Eurozone and refugee crises—the former resulting in massive job losses and welfare cuts; and the latter igniting xenophobia. Like globalisation, the EU is also deemed as a failed project. Both have had the opposite effect of their intended aim. As Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has argued, the EU was intended to foster unity and a sense of shared interests but, instead, it has ended up causing distrust and grievances. Ironically, even its poorer constituents (the ex-Communist East European nations) which have benefited enormously from their EU membership by way of subsidies and the right their citizens enjoy to settle and work in other member states are not happy, accusing Brussels of bullying.

But to cut to the chase, trying to find specific causes for the crisis gripping the West is to miss the wood for the trees. The short point is that an exhausted West has run out of tricks in the face of a new emerging global order; and an increasingly assertive citizenry not willing to be taken for granted. There is a feel of decay that it cannot remain business as usual for too long. If someone, somewhere is contemplating an “End of History 2.0” thesis, time to rush it out.

Large swathes of middle-class Americans and Europeans are willing to take a punt on anyone who doesn’t sound like a conventional politician. The Trump-isation of American politics, the Brexit vote, and the increasing appeal of populist right-wing figures such as Marie Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and groups like Alternative for Germany (APD) in Germany are a manifestation of this crisis. According to The Economist, “populist, authoritarian European parties of the right and left now enjoy nearly twice as much support as they did in 2000, and are in government or ruling coalition in nine countries”.  This is no mid-summer madness that has suddenly seized millions of people; nor is there a right or left-wing conspiracy to destabilise the West.

How did it happen?

It is a culmination of years of pent-up grievances exacerbated by the fall-out of the 2008 financial crash whose worst victims were the poor. But what happened next was like rubbing salt into the wound. While millions of middle and working class people lost their jobs and had their homes repossessed, pushing them further into poverty for no fault of theirs, those responsible for the crash—bankers and their cronies in government and elsewhere—got away with it. There was much hand-wringing, mea culpas, and talk of market reforms. A new 21stcentury brand of “capitalism with a human face” was promised, but nearly a decade later it is pretty much business as usual with obscene salaries and bonuses still very much the norm in the corporate sector.

Meanwhile, globalisation has failed to work for the vast majority of lower, middle and working classes. Its promised benefits have bypassed them while benefitting big corporations and a small urban elite. Globalisation was sold to the public as a bold mission to bring the world closer to the mutual benefit of everyone, by breaking down trade barriers and promoting the idea of effectively a single world market. But it was really always about developed nations gaining access to lucrative new emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere. And about Western companies being able to save labour costs by outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries—India, China, Bangladeshi, Sri Lanka, etc. Even Labour Party’s ultra-Left  leader Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign T-shirts, which sell for up to £17 a piece, were made by “slave labour” in Bangladesh who were paid just 30 pence an hour.

Globalisation has also led to increased economic disparities and a widening of the rich-poor divide as its benefits have not been equitably distributed; and blue-collar workers especially find its gains outweighed by losses. This has got conflated with anger over other issues like racial discrimination, immigration (the Brexit vote was driven solely by concerns over large-scale immigration from other EU states), and corruption in high places completing the image of a system that is not working for ordinary people.

“A big factor in the anger and frustration that people are feeling today… is the realisation that regardless of who is formally elected, an insular ruling elite is actually in power, pursuing a technocratic agenda that serves the interests of rich and well-connected insiders rather than the public,’’ wrote  Steve Hilton, a former adviser to David Cameron, in The Times.

So, when an insurgent pretender promises to bring “our jobs back home”, bring down immigrant numbers, and crack down on corporate greed, people cheer them seduced by the idea that someone is “listening” to them and speaking their language. (We had a glimpse of it in India in the 2014 elections.) In Europe, the anti-establishment mood has been fuelled by European leaders’ strutting and confused response to the Eurozone and refugee crises—the former resulting in massive job losses and welfare cuts; and the latter igniting xenophobia. Like globalisation, the EU is also deemed as a failed project. Both have had the opposite effect of their intended aim. As Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has argued, the EU was intended to foster unity and a sense of shared interests but, instead, it has ended up causing distrust and grievances. Ironically, even its poorer constituents (the ex-Communist East European nations) which have benefited enormously from their EU membership by way of subsidies and the right their citizens enjoy to settle and work in other member states are not happy, accusing Brussels of bullying.

But to cut to the chase, trying to find specific causes for the crisis gripping the West is to miss the wood for the trees. The short point is that an exhausted West has run out of tricks in the face of a new emerging global order; and an increasingly assertive citizenry not willing to be taken for granted. There is a feel of decay that it cannot remain business as usual for too long. If someone, somewhere is contemplating an “End of History 2.0” thesis, time to rush it out.

Read more: End of History 2.0, beginning of gloom

EU: Will Populist Parties Run (Ruin) Europe? - by Judy Dempsey

Populism and Nationalism, two destructive political forces

Populism is on the rise in Europe but is unlikely to win enough votes to run Europe. Yet the risk that populism will run Europe by proxy is real if mainstream governments do not address the phenomenon’s underlying causes.

Leaders of the center-right and center-left are racing to embrace right-wing populist demagoguery in the hope of catching a few votes. This tactic does not pay off, as Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico discovered in Slovakia’s parliamentary election on March 5. His embrace of the right-wing anti-immigration card boosted far-right parties more than his own. If voters want xenophobia, they will choose the real thing.

But Fico’s experience does not seem to be persuading mainstream politicians to stop chasing right-wing populism. Governments’ responses to the refugee influx are paralyzed by a fear of populism’s rise in upcoming elections.

Worse still, populists are framing the way in which the refugee challenge is debated. These fears are blocking the emergence of alternative solutions, in turn giving populists even more ammunition. If mainstream politics does not recapture the debate with alternative proposals and a vocabulary that reflects its principles (those that have held Europe together), it will put itself at the mercy of a populist minority.

Contrary to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s boldest dreams, illiberal national populists will not run Europe anytime soon. In many countries, the shrinking center still just about holds. But this should provide little comfort. Populists don’t need to run Europe to ruin it. Of course, the poison works best in countries where authoritarian populists control the government. The proudly illiberal regimes of Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice Party, would fail to meet the Copenhagen criteria for acceding EU states.

But populists do not need to control the government to feed on and fuel a new age of fear in Europe: fear of the Other (especially Muslims) and fear of global competition. Populists’ seemingly easy answers—pull up the national drawbridge to keep Muslims and competition out—put pressure on terrified establishment elites and drag political culture to previously unseen lows, depriving policymaking of the oxygen of reason.

This trend is now also threatening to engulf Germany, so far one of the last islands of liberal democratic normalcy. If you want to know what a neurotic Germany feels like, take Bavarian Minister President Horst Seehofer as a harbinger of things to come. Not a pretty prospect for the dream of a self-confident liberal Europe in the twenty-first century.

Populist parties already run many European countries. Look at Central and Eastern Europe, where populists formally make up the government, or at France and the UK, where they set the tone of the political debate to a greater or lesser degree. There are reasons to believe that populist and other fringe political forces will increasingly shape Europe’s political landscape and polarize it along liberal versus illiberal or globalist versus territorialist dividing lines.

But the real question is not whether populists are likely to grab power in one or two more EU member states—although a French presidency led by the far-right National Front’s Marine Le Pen would be the end of Europe as we know it. The real (and currently materializing) threat is that so-called mainstream parties will gradually give up their fundamental principles of human rights, civil liberties, equality, and openness out of panic fear of a populist surge.

The rise of populism is sometimes a high but inevitable price to pay for a firm policy of not bowing to external pressures. The right-wing Alternative for Germany versus Chancellor Angela Merkel is a case in point. Perhaps Europe needs to accept this price. And instead of seeking to accommodate populists, Europe should try to mobilize those large parts of society that have lost not only confidence in the elites but also the belief that the stakes in today’s politics are high. If liberal democracy and open societies fall in Europe, it will happen by default, not because of an outright rejection by the people.

Read more: Judy Asks: Will Populist Parties Run Europe? - Carnegie Europe - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace