I see a couple familiar names here and I apparently joined in 2019 and why I have not been around I'm not sure except that since March 2020, I left the DEM party of some 60 yrs and registered Independent. I am following Trump, DeSantis and others I'm hearing a lot about like Condoleezza Rice for Gov of Calif and even President in 2024. Glad I found the forum again.
That is awesome news, @Joy Martin , and you will find that there are still a lot of independents in this forum, and many who also follow Trump. Welcome back !
Now in addition to populist political gains in France, Portugal and Italy, the Sweden Democrat Party--a right-wing populist party--has made significant gains in Sweden's parliament with the slogan: Make Sweden Great Again! Sound familiar?
I could sense a global populist surge when Trump took office. It seemed that for a bit, apathy and resignation were shaken off.
It now seems to be people watching their culture disappear in a wave of immigration combined with the energy problems Europe is seeing stemming from the reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine...as a result of the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders in violation of an agreement signed in the late H.W. Bush administration.
Too late to do anything about that unless people have the stomach for rounding them up and sending them back.
But if it is stopped, the culture can recover as the next generation is assimilated. That is what happened here in the 1920s when immigration to the U.S. was essentially halted, at least in large numbers, while the immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were assimilated. That ended with Ted Kennedy developing the idea that people from other nations "deserve the right to come to the U.S.", one of many ideas that despicable man developed during his lifetime