Mending Walls

Christopher DeMuth

Jewish Review of Books | 2018

What does the election of Donald Trump have to do with Brexit and the formation of EU-dissident governments in Italy, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic? Popular nationalism. The popular nationalists all combined grievances ranging across the traditional left-right political spectrum into fervent anti-establishment movements. They all shocked the political experts by gaining the support of large pluralities, sometimes majorities, of national electorates. Finally, each movement was organized around the proposition that the local ruling class was really part of a transnational elite that ignored the interests and values of their own countrymen.

Image courtesy of The White House

View More