Donald Trump’s victory confirms that the post-Cold War liberal consensus in America is over and the revolution of common sense is here to stay. Now, with the rise of populist parties and leaders once dismissed by Europe’s elite, that revolution appears to have crossed the Atlantic.
Thirty years after the United States and Europe tore down the Iron Curtain, the countries of the continent are dismantling another barrier: the cordon sanitaire. And for that, they have Trump to thank.
While conservatives remain focused on solving domestic issues and prioritizing America first, they should also support their European allies.
For decades, the European Union and its member states have maintained an anticompetitive political system. Parties on the left and right have refused to form coalitions or even to vote alongside so-called far-right parties, no matter how many millions of votes those parties receive. This system has crushed the representation of common sense in the EU, silencing voters concerned about unchecked migration, the EU’s overreach, and the continent’s ongoing economic struggles.
As recently as 2019, nearly every EU party erected a firewall against representatives of the Identity and Democracy group — the predecessor of today’s Patriots for Europe. This bloc, which includes France’s National Rally and Italy’s Lega, was excluded from key committee posts, blocking them from influencing policy.
Over the past five years, the political tide has shifted in the opposite direction. After rebelling against the literal cordon sanitaire imposed by public health elites in 2020, common-sense Europeans are now fighting the metaphorical one. Parties like the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, Spain’s Vox, and Hungary’s Fidesz are gaining electoral support and toppling failed governments.
The rise of Patriots for Europe represents the strongest symbol of this reinvigorated populist movement — one fueled in part by Donald Trump’s political revolution. While European patriots deserve credit for their movement, it likely would not have gained momentum without Trump leading the global charge over the past decade. His success exposed the incompetence of the globalist elite and provided leaders worldwide with a playbook for securing their borders and challenging the cultural dominance of the woke left.
At the Patriots for Europe party summit in Madrid earlier this month — and again at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London — conservative leaders gathered and praised Trump as their brother in arms.
Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s Vox Party, praised Trump for dismantling USAID, which he believes funded media outlets that “demonized” his movement. Contrary to media claims that Europeans fear Trump’s tariffs, Abascal argues that “the Green Deal and the confiscatory taxes of Brussels and socialist governments” pose a far greater threat to his country’s prosperity.
Beyond admiration for Trump, the prevailing sentiment in Europe is hope. His victory is fueling a wave of momentum for populist conservative leaders determined to challenge the European Union, dismantle wokeness, and curb mass migration into their countries — and they know it.
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Rally party, calls Trump’s victory a “global tipping point” and says that “everybody understands that something has changed.”
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban sums it up simply by saying: "Yesterday we were the heretics. Today we are the majority.”
By advancing common-sense policies that serve the public good, Trump has made clear the deep divide between liberal elites and everyday Americans. European leaders see the same divide in their own countries and believe the time has come to go on offense — finally breaking through the cordon sanitaire imposed by the elites.
Right now, Patriots for Europe is the third-largest group in the European Parliament. With elections approaching, the momentum from Trump’s success could be a decisive factor in expanding their influence, both in their home countries and in Brussels.
This is good news for the United States. While conservatives remain focused on solving domestic issues and prioritizing America first, they should also support their European allies as they dismantle the stagnant oligopoly that has controlled Europe for too long.
Leaders such as Orban, Abascal, and Geert Wilders are not only more pro-America than Europe’s current socialist ruling class, but they also want to make their countries stronger, which means relying less on America’s resources for their security and defense. It is vital that our NATO allies in Europe bear greater responsibility themselves for the defense of Europe.
That’s just common sense. And that’s the spirit animating both sides of the Atlantic. As President Trump wields a sledgehammer against decaying institutions in the United States to make America great again, he has a new host of allies across the ocean picking up their own tools to make Europe great again. As they break down the doors of the halls of power in Brussels, Americans are cheering them every step of the way.
Former Biden White House communications director and CNN contributor Kate Bedingfield proved unable Monday to refrain from employing the kind of violent rhetoric that many suspect originally set the stage for the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Bedingfield was on a panel commenting on the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee when CNN talking head Anderson Cooper showed a clip from President Joe Biden's recent interview with NBC News' Lester Holt.
In the clip, Biden complained that the press had broken with tradition and finally discussed his decrepitude rather than continuing to lay into his opponent.
"Why don't you guys ever talk about the 18 to 28 lies he told?" Biden asked Holt. "Where are you on this? Why didn't the press ever talk about that? 28 times. ... I had a bad, bad night. I wasn't feeling well at all. And I had been — well, I'm not going to make any — I screwed up."
'That was not the phrase that I meant.'
Cooper subsequently wondered why Biden had himself proven incapable of pushing back against Trump's supposed lies during the debate, then noted recent polling that "does not look good" for Biden.
Bedingfield seized upon Cooper's comments as an opportunity to talk Democratic strategy, emphasizing that Biden has made clear he is "not going to step down."
"So, at some point Democrats have to decide that they want to try to win this election and turn their fire on Donald Trump," added Bedingfield.
Bedingfield immediately realized that her natural choice of militaristic language with regard to Trump was imprudent, especially just days after a radical literally turned his fire on the former president.
"I shouldn't have said 'turn their fire.' I apologize," Bedingfield said as the other panelists chuckled amongst themselves. "That was not the phrase that I meant. They need to turn their focus on Donald Trump."
The "War Room" account for the Trump campaign highlighted Bedingfield's comments, noting, "Former top Biden staffer and current CNN contributor Kate Bedingfield just said Democrats need to 'turn their fire on Donald Trump' — days after a deranged lunatic shot him in a failed assassination attempt. Democrats just can't help themselves."
Bedingfield replied, "I immediately caught myself and apologized — it was intended as a turn of phrase to mean focus on him, but I agree it's absolutely inappropriate in this moment."
Former Acting Director of U.S. National Intelligence Richard Grenell clapped back, writing, "Not only in this moment."
While Bedingfield apparently managed to keep from publicly slipping up for at least one full day following the rally shooting, some of her fellow travelers alternatively wasted no time vilifying Trump.
The New York Times' print edition of Sunday Opinion ran an op-ed Sunday condemning the wounded Republican, stating in bold on a dark, full page depicting a silhouette of Trump's head, "He failed the tests of leadership and betrayed America. Voters must reject him."
'We urge voters to see the dangers of a second Trump term.'
The op-ed from the Times' editorial board, first published digitally last week, claimed that Trump is a man "as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the Republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great."
According the piece advanced by the Times in print just hours after Trump was shot and after his supporter, the heroic former fire chief Corey Comperatore, was murdered, "He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people. Instead of a cogent vision for the country’s future, Mr. Trump is animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him."
The Times' editorial board added, "We urge voters to see the dangers of a second Trump term clearly and to reject it."
Kathleen Kingsbury, the Times' opinions editor, suggested in an essay that "there is no connection between our prior decision to run this editorial package in print and Saturday’s incident — we would have changed our plans if we could have," reported the New York Post.
While the timing of the Times' op-ed may have been accidental, MSNBC analyst David Corn's vilification of Trump Sunday in the leftist blog Mother Jones was fully intentional. Corn stressed, "Only one of the candidates in the 2024 contest incited a violent assault on the US Capitol to overturn an election and still threatens American democracy. What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, does not change that."
CNN commentator, former Jan. 6 committee member, and Biden booster Adam Kinzinger wrote roughly 24 hours after Trump was shot, "The Trump campaign and surrogates will try to intimidate Biden supporters from going after the former President politically. Do not let up. Trump is a threat to democracy and he must be stopped."
Sunday afternoon, Vox published an article entitled, "Yes, it's still fair to call Trump a threat to democracy."
"In the wake of this weekend's assassination attempt, however, some have called on partisans to do more than this: They have suggested that we must not merely condemn violence, but also avoid rhetoric that could hypothetically inspire it," wrote Vox's Eric Levitz.
Levitz figured he'd instead double down, writing, "Donald Trump really does present a threat to the norms of liberal democracy and the welfare of millions of US residents."
Levitz was joined in attacking Trump over the weekend by former George W. Bush speechwriter and Atlantic editor David Frum.
Frum wrote, "Fascist movements are secular religions. Like all religions, they offer martyrs as their proof of truth. ... The Trump movement now improves on that: The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance."
"Those who stand against Trump and his allies must find the will and the language to explain why these crimes, past and planned, are all wrong, all intolerable — and how the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet's trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy," added Frum.
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Spain has been roiled in recent days by the leftist regime's controversial scheme to remain in power. Thousands of conservatives, federalists, and other patriots took to the streets of Madrid Thursday to protest Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's socialist-secessionist pact, which lawmakers and judicial groups have indicated violates not only Spanish law but the separation of powers.
The 2023 Spanish general election in July saw the conservative People's Party make massive gains in the Spanish parliament, leading all other parties — of which there are many — with over 33% of the popular vote. It also grabbed far more seats than the ruling party, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE). Despite these gains, the People's Party still did not net enough seats in the Congress of Deputies to form a government, even with the support of other right-of-center parties such as the Vox Party.
In the months since, the country has been in a form of parliamentary limbo, facing the prospect of a snap election should interparty negotiations prove fruitless.
In a scramble to secure another term, Sánchez, leader of the PSOE, struck a deal with Catalan separatists. To ensure that conservatives couldn't form a government and restore order, Sánchez promised Together for Catalonia, also known as Junts, that those who took part in the failed and violent secessionist attempt in 2017 would be granted amnesty — meaning fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and others who sought Spain's breakup would get a free pass. In exchange, Junts need only pledge its support for Sánchez's Spanish Socialist Workers Party.
A September poll showed that 70% of Spaniards opposed amnesty for the secessionists. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have taken part in anti-amnesty protests in the weeks since.
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The Guardian reported that approximately 7,000 people gathered outside the PSOE headquarters in Madrid earlier this week to protest the deal. Some protesters called Sánchez a "criminal" and a "dictator."
Junts, the National Basque Party, and the Canarian Coalition confirmed Thursday that they'd back the leftist ruling party, reported Reuters.
This will be enough to provide Sánchez with a majority in the Spanish parliament's 350-member Congress of Deputies.
"We have managed to secure a majority that will make possible the investiture of Pedro Sanchez," said Felix Bolanos, acting minister for parliamentary relations.
Concerning the deal with the separatist faction, Bolanos said, "We have very far apart and different positions, but this deal means we are doing our best to understand each other. Spain and Catalonia deserve that."
Socialist officials have attempted to spin the desperate ploy to stay in power as an effort to address historical grievances, reported the New York Times.
Santos Cerdán, a negotiator with the PSOE, said the deal was "a historic opportunity to resolve a conflict that could — and should — only be resolved politically."
"Our aim is to open the way for a legislature that will allow us to progress and build an open and modern society and a better country," added Cerdán.
Reuters reported that judges and conservative lawmakers have indicated that Sánchez's promise of amnesty violates not only Spanish law but the separation of powers.
In addition to possibly flouting Spanish law, the PSOE will now be at the mercy of the Junts, which will continue to squeeze the socialists for concessions in exchange for its support.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative People's Party, responded to the deal, writing, "We are facing a challenge to our democracy that requires the reaction of Spanish democrats, without distinction of ideology. We will use all constitutional resources to counteract those that want to weaken it. Spanish democracy will prevail."
"Sánchez has surrendered to the demands of the separatists. They want the resignation of the Spanish people, but they are not going to have it because Spain does not surrender," said Feijóo.
Spain's two leading right-wing parties have called for "civil resistance" but stressed the need for peaceful demonstrations, reported the Times (U.K.).
Feijóo, likely mindful of the events of 1936, when socialist-fostered instability drove the nation to civil war, said, "The response to this attack on the foundations of our democracy must start from more democracy and must therefore be firm, but calm. I appeal to responsibility and that any mobilization be peaceful. Nothing and no one should break our coexistence.
The confirmation of the amnesty agreement sparked protests across the country.
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Battle in Madrid. Spanish patriots want Pedro Sanchez arrested.\n\n#Spain #Madrid #Spanish #Protesters #Socialist #Riot #Protest #Nationalist— (@)
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While the right-wing protests appear to have been largely peaceful, leftists have not reciprocated.
On Thursday, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, one of the founders of the Vox Party and former People's Party of Catalonia leader, was shot in the head in broad daylight. Vidal-Quadras has been a vocal critic of the amnesty agreement, having written Thursday on X, "The infamous pact between Sánchez and Puigdemont that crushes the rule of law in Spain and ends the separation of powers has already been agreed. Our Nation will thus cease to be a liberal democracy and become a totalitarian tyranny. We Spaniards will not allow it."
He is reportedly in stable condition.
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