Jim Goad writes:
Nationalist movements across Europe likely feel as justified in their gripes and grievances as anyone else does. They’re concerned about real things that the press and most politicians ignore—about Muslim schoolchildren bullying indigenous European kids, about being indentured to a European Union that is more autocratic than democratic, and about how their financial overlords want to smash every border and erase all cultural identity and are willing to ostracize, defame, and even jail anyone who so much as complains. They worry that the European Union is hell-bent on obliterating anything that is truly European.
France is the country that originated the practice of using the terms “left” and “right” to denote political orientations. But by modern standards, its national hero Charles Martel would be a far-right extremist serving time for Islamophobic hate crimes. And people who merely want to keep France, well, somewhat French are demonized as barbarians at the gates rather than the gates’ defenders.
That’s a complete inversion of reality. It’s not far right or even far out—it’s completely upside down.
