Political realignments are long in gestation, face huge obstacles to their achievement, and are easy to divert or subvert. All mainstream parties have needed to do is offer some modest concessions to the forces of discontent and they dissipate. Ross Perot’s support evaporated when Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton (in that order) got control of spending and undercut Perot’s signature issue: the runaway budget deficit. Perot shrank faster than the deficit. That little episode explains why American third parties are known as the wasps of political history: They sting and they die.
So why are realignments suddenly galloping to fruition throughout the Western world?
The Economist magazine has no doubts on the matter. (Does it ever?) Anti-immigrant populist parties are exploiting fear, mostly about the current surge of migrants into Europe, to rise in the polls. The British magazine brings together Donald Trump, France’s Marine Le Pen, and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban on a sinister sepia-tinted cover to illustrate the dark threat of “populism.” The Economist has finally found a moral panic it likes.
Alas, the magazine’s explanation is too simple by half.
