The word “populism” is being used to explain almost every trend or event of 2016, including Brexit, the election of Donald Trump as America’s next President, and shifts in French, German, Italian, Dutch, and Austrian politics. … Reducing everything to “populism” is ignoring the real issues that motivate people. To […] Read more »
How Vladimir Putin Became the Oracle of the East
Immediately following the annexation of Crimea and the tragedy of flight MH17, the West largely regarded Vladimir Putin as a dangerous international pariah. But two years later, following the sweeping success of demagogues world-wide, Putin has emerged as a new oracle of the East, leading the charge for the new […] Read more »
How Will Donald Trump Handle Europe’s Populist Right?
Like the advance of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, the spread of conservative populism across Europe stalled at the gates of Vienna last weekend. The failure of Suleiman the Magnificent to capture the city in 1529 proved a turning point that marked the end of Ottoman expansion into […] Read more »
The urban-rural divide that bolstered Trump isn’t just an American thing; it’s prevalent in Europe, too
What shaped European politics over the past two years might appear to some like a revolution of rural Europe rising up against the establishment and economic winners. … In northern Europe’s biggest countries, the rural-urban divide appears to have shaped Europe in 2016. There is no reason to assume that […] Read more »
Trump’s Victory and the Rise of White Populism
It will take weeks or months to fully parse Donald J. Trump’s upset presidential victory, but his campaign was driven, at least in part, by the dramatic rise of a new kind of white populism. … I have spent the past year investigating the rise of that new kind of […] Read more »
Behind 2016’s Turmoil, a Crisis of White Identity
Call it the crisis of whiteness. White anxiety has fueled this year’s political tumult in the West: Britain’s surprising vote to exit the European Union, Donald J. Trump’s unexpected capture of the Republican presidential nomination in the United States, the rise of right-wing nationalism in Norway, Hungary, Austria and Greece. […] Read more »