Author: fredalanmedforth

France’s National Rally gets Bardella-boost in polls, outshining Le Pen

Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen. Screengrab X

New polls in France showed National Rally (RN) President Jordan Bardella gaining traction, outperforming even his political mentor and de facto party leader Marine Le Pen.

While the findings were broadly positive for RN with the French presidential elections still two years away, Bardella’s rising popularity could stir tensions within the party, especially as Le Pen — long positioned as its frontrunner — has been barred from standing by a court ruling.

Both Le Pen and Bardella consistently scored between 32 per cent and 35 per cent in first-round voting intentions across multiple scenarios.

Bardella, just 29 years old, has emerged as a formidable second-round contender, according to the new IFOP survey released on May 5.

Some other polls even suggested he could win by a significant margin against centrist figures such as former prime minister and Horizons party founder Édouard Philippe or fellow former PM Gabriel Attal of the Renaissance party.

In head-to-head matchups, Bardella was projected to defeat Attal (52 per cent to 48 per cent) and Republicans party interior minister Bruno Retailleau (53 per cent to 47 per cent), while tying with Philippe.

By contrast, Le Pen, tested only against Philippe, would lose, 48 per cent to 52 per cent.

That development was potentially politically explosive. Le Pen has spent decades reshaping the RN, even ousting her own father from the party to achieve this, while positioning herself as a legitimate presidential candidate.

Her prospects for 2027 were put in jeopardy due to her conviction for embezzling European Union funds on March 31, giving her a five-year ban from holding public office pending an appeal in summer 2026.

Although party officials publicly maintained she remained their preferred candidate and expressed confidence in her appeal, Bardella’s polling numbers may cause some to reconsider.

On the centre-right, Retailleau was the strongest performer for the Republicans but would struggle to surpass 10 per cent if Philippe entered the race.

The left remained fragmented. Two figures — de facto leader of La France Insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon plus either MEP and Place Publique party member Raphaël Glucksmann or left-wing French MP François Ruffin — appeared capable of making an impact.

According to the IFOP poll, in a Mélenchon versus Glucksmann scenario, Glucksmann lead slightly (15 per cent to 13 per cent). When Mélenchon was pitted against Ruffin, he held a narrow edge (12 per cent to 10 per cent).

Still, volatility remained high: Some 28 per cent of respondents said they had no intention of voting in the second round of the presidential election. The robustness of the IFOP survey was underscored by its large sample size, approximately 10,000 participants.

Bardella’s appeal has been rooted in his youth, media fluency and ability to connect with younger voters. A TikTok sensation with millions of followers, he has helped modernise the RN’s image. His working-class background in the suburbs of Paris enhanced his outsider credentials in a political landscape often dominated by elites.

Critics, though, have warned that his lack of experience — he has never held major office — could prove a liability in a presidential campaign.

While Le Pen has spent decades building political capital, Bardella’s rapid ascent may be seen as premature.

Nonetheless, the RN was now closer than ever to the Élysée Palace, driven by public concerns over immigration, security, and the economy.

Yet the second round remained the party’s major hurdle, with France’s traditional “republican front”, a broad anti-RN alliance, still capable of blocking a right-wing presidency.

Some French observers speculated that the poll was made intentionally with this discord in mind, as it was commissioned by Conservative billionaire Pierre-Édouard Stérin.

According by the news magazine Journal Du Dimanche on May 3, tensions within RN were already rising before the survey.

https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/05/frances-national-rally-gets-bardella-boost-in-polls-outshining-le-pen/

Crimes of rape have tripled in six years across Spain

Jefatura Superior de Policía Nacional en Aragón – Google Maps

Spain has seen an alarming rise in sexual violence over recent years, culminating in a record-high number of rapes, which reached 5,206 incidents in 2024, according to new official statistics from the Ministry of the Interior.

With an average of 14 rapes per day across the country, the figure nearly triples the 1,878 cases reported in 2019 when five daily incidents were reported. The upward trend has remained consistent year-over-year since 2018, aside from a brief dip during 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Regional breakdowns show that communities like Catalonia, Madrid, and Andalusia report the highest numbers, although increases have been noted throughout all regions of Spain. Cases involving minors, nightlife-related assaults, and attacks perpetrated by groups of offenders are also on the rise. The grim reality presented by these numbers translates to a woman being raped every hour and 45 minutes in Spain.

Remix News reported in November last year on a La Rázon report that revealed 91 percent of those convicted of rape in Catalonia are foreigners, with immigrants comprising just 17 percent of the region’s total population.

When it comes to sexual assault and rape combined, 64.2 percent of inmates are foreign nationals.

As reported by El Español, the rapid increase in sexual violence has overwhelmed specialized police units such as the Family and Women’s Care Units (UFAM) of the National Police and the Women-Minor Teams (EMUME) of the Civil Guard, both reporting understaffing and resource constraints. Officers within these units indicate that they are working beyond capacity, often handling a significantly higher workload than a decade ago without adequate support, training, or compensation.

Government officials have partly attributed this increase to more women coming forward and make no reference to the dramatic rise in mass immigration into Spain over the past decade. However, the continuous surge raises difficult questions about the effectiveness of initiatives such as the “Only Yes Means Yes” law, designed specifically to curb sexual violence.

Elena Ramallo, a Spanish campaigner battling violence against women, took to social media to criticize the El Español report for failing to address an obvious factor.

“Not a single reference in the entire article to the identity of the aggressors,” she wrote.

Police unions, however, have cited multiple factors contributing to this trend, including what they describe as “influence from cultures that undervalue women,” deteriorating societal values, and growing youth gang violence. The unions called for preventive measures, such as education on consent and bolstering police resources to cope with the epidemic.

Amid mounting public and political pressure, calls are intensifying for the Spanish government to strengthen institutional responses, not just through symbolic campaigns but by significantly investing in personnel, specialized training, and improved victim support initiatives.

https://rmx.news/article/crimes-of-rape-have-tripled-in-six-years-across-spain/

Islam or Israel? Where can minorities live?

Something must have gone wrong with the great multicultural celebration, as the BBC described the new Syrian Caliphate in December.

What could go wrong, wasn’t the EU reopening its embassy in Damascus? It was still December and the optimists of will at the BBC and the European foreign ministries certainly couldn’t foresee what would happen.

It didn’t take a genius. You just need to know something about history, religion and the Middle East and maybe have read Huntington instead of Fukuyama to know that minorities in Islam, to use the old Algerian slogan, have only two choices: the suitcase or the grave.

After the massacres of Alawites (at least 1,800 dead in 72 hours), the new Islamic masters of Damascus have moved on to chase away another minority: the Druze, a small esoteric community scattered across Lebanon, Syria and Israel that has never hurt a fly.

So far, hundreds of Druze have been killed in the silence of the media, European chancelleries and the UN (if the victim is not Islamic, the UN does not speak up).

Gerard Russell in his book, “Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East”, describes the Islamist destruction of some of the oldest religions in the region. The Yazidis, victims of a genocide ten years ago; the Kakais and the Shabak, whose ancestors were fire worshippers; the Alawites and the Druze, whose tradition is anchored in Greek philosophy; the Mandaeans, the last Gnostics on earth, the heirs of the Nestorians and the Jacobites.

Muslims in Syria have just marched against the Druze and Jews, declaring jihad against both communities. They shout: “Khaybar Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad has returned. Listen, listen, O Druze! Listen, enemy of Islam: war and fire. There is no peace!”.

Because radical Islam is the same everywhere. Just look at the shocking similarities between the terrorist forces who kidnapped the Syrian Druze and the Hamas terrorists who kidnapped the Israeli Jews on October 7.

The international community must unite against radical Islam before it is too late.

The Islamists lined up the Druze and forced them to shave their mustaches. For the Druze, growing a mustache is a religious obligation. The West must truly begin to be afraid of these barbarians.

But Christians are also persecuted in Syria.

And as usual, sans the European chatterboxes (who have just given 6 billion euros to the Syrian butchers), Israel intervened to defend the Druze, who begged for help from the Jewish state.

The French, once “defenders of Eastern Christians,” were busy during the last 24 hours signing a 30-year agreement with the Al Qaeda-led Syrian regime for the development of the port of Latakia.

At the origin of the massacres of the Druze in the last few hours is a fake video in which a Druze leader attacks Muhammad. “Blasphemy”! The same laws that some European governments now want to bring back to Europe to protect Islam after an Iraqi Christian refugee was murdered in Sweden.

Europe should have listened to the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, Emil Nona, who told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera:

“Our sufferings are the prelude to those that you, Europeans and Westerners, will suffer in the near future. Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here. You must reconsider our reality in the Middle East, because you welcome an ever-increasing number of Muslims into your countries. You are in danger. You must make strong and courageous decisions, even at the cost of contradicting your principles. You think that all men are equal, but that is not true: Islam does not say that all men are equal. Your values ​​are not their values. If you do not understand this soon enough, you will become victims of the enemy you have welcomed into your home”.

But Europe doesn’t want to understand. And now I fear it is too late.

israelnationalnews.com/news/407888

UK: Locals plead for closure of migrant hotel as ‘loitering’ asylum seekers ‘ask for money and look in people’s windows’

AI

Residents living near a migrant hotel outside Chesterfield are calling for its closure after two years of housing asylum seekers.

Locals claim the migrants are making their lives a misery with increasing antisocial behaviour.

Complaints include noise, litter and groups of men loitering, asking for money and looking through windows.

Residents say they were “not consulted” when the site reopened under a Home Office contract.

There are also concerns about safety on a nearby trail, with warnings circulating on Facebook about men following women through the park.

In December 2023, a 27-year-old resident of the hotel was arrested on suspicion of possessing explosives, though he was later released on bail.

Police stated that nothing found at the site posed any danger to the public.

Shannon Freeman, 31, told the Daily Mail: “We see the comings and goings. They have been on the street looking through people’s windows. We got cameras, and that seemed to stop.

“I have been here since this street was built three years ago, and the asylum seekers have been here for two years. They were fine at first. It is only in the last six months that they have started to behave in a bad way.”

Gary Cook’s family used to own the hotel, but it changed hands a number of times before the contract with the Home Office.

He said: “I think there are about 80 blokes in there and it has lowered the value of the houses around here and it is not great for the hotel.

“I think it is totally run down now. So it will be hard to get over the stigma and turn it back into a hotel. It is not an ideal scenario. It is a shame to see it laid to waste.”

Chelsea Lodge, 23, a mother of two, stated: “I have come off the bus three times, and they have been running up asking for money.”

Marina Tamasauskas, 41, said: ‘I am not racist, but they are causing problems.

“They have been loitering on the streets. One of the blokes was filming out the windows.”

https://www.gbnews.com/news/migrant-crisis-hotel-asylum-seekers-chesterfield-close-local-problems

France: Resignation of the Vice-President of the University of Lyon-2 after his statements glorifying Hezbollah

Universität Lyon II – Google Maps

The University of Lyon-2 is currently the subject of heated debate. Willy Beauvallet-Haddad announced on Monday May 5 that he would be stepping down from his executive positions at the university, i.e. from his posts as Vice-President for Human Resources since 2018, for Finance since 2021 and as Vice-President of the Board of Directors, which he has held since February 2025. However, he will remain a lecturer in political science, as Le Point reports.
With his resignation, Willy Beauvallet-Haddad hopes to ‘reduce the pressure on the institution and protect the interests of the institution in a particularly problematic context that it is undergoing’, he wrote in a message to his colleagues. He refers to ‘harassment’ and a ‘public vilification campaign’ following ‘his personal statements on the situation in Palestine and Lebanon’.

Willy Beauvallet-Haddad has been at the centre of turmoil for several weeks after a number of posts on social networks were uncovered. In one tweet, the academic paid tribute to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September 2024. This was despite the group being classified as a terrorist organisation by many countries. ‘He died among his own for the great (Palestinian and Arab) cause and he has been added to the pantheon of our hearts and the great figures of history,’ he wrote.
Tensions have increased on the Lyon campus since the intimidation of Fabrice Balanche on April 1, who denounced in particular the growing influence of religious activism within the university. The professor was forced to leave one of his lectures after a dozen masked activists forced their way in.

Université Lyon-2 : démission du vice-président, dans la tourmente après des propos glorifiant le Hezbollah – Valeurs actuelles

“Words Can’t Begin to Express the Outrage I Feel at Having the GERMAN Government Lecture the US SecState on the Need to Spy on Political Opposition”

Deputy Secretary of State and former US Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau

The war of words continues to escalate between the Trump administration and the parting left-Green German government over the secret police attack on the largest opposition party in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Responding to an X post from the German foreign ministry, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau issued a scathing smack-down to the self-righteous finger-waggers in Berlin.

The slugfest began with an X post by SecState Marco Rubio – Landau’s boss and confidante – skewering the German government’s attack on the AfD (The Gateway Pundit reported), currently the most popular party in Germany in the polls:

“Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.”

The German Foreign Ministry, run until this week by departing Green disaster Annalena Baerbock and her left-hand woman, American former Greenpeace head Jennifer Morgan (World Economic Fund), clapped back with typical self-righteousness:

“This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.”

That was obviously too much for Deputy SecState Christopher Landau, who is Jewish and the son of a WW II veteran.

Landau posted:

“Speaking for myself, words can’t even begin to express the outrage and resentment I feel at having an official account of the GERMAN government purport to lecture the US Secretary of State on the need to spy on and censor the political opposition.

And no, Germany, you can’t hide behind smug references to what you’ve learned from “your” history.

As you may recall, it’s “our” history too, as we played a pretty important role in ending that particular chapter in your history.

And it’s “my” history too, as my own father was forced to flee his native Vienna after the Anschluss (and became an American citizen and proudly fought in the US Army to liberate Europe).

He didn’t flee as a result of TOO MUCH free speech; he fled because those who believed in spying on and censoring political opponents were in charge.

You may choose to brand your own citizens as “rightwing extremists” and silence or jail them because, for instance, they oppose open borders. But please spare us the moralizing.”

Ouch!

“The German establishment elite are running scared because the German people are sick of their failed climate nonsense and Open Borders madness and are desperate for sensible politics,” European Parliament foreign committee member Petr Bystron (AfD) told The Gateway Pundit. “They are turning to the Alternative for Germany despite years of persecution and character assassination, as I experienced myself first-hand. They thought they could pull the same stunts as usual, but now, we have a US government which is on to their tricks and will no longer stand for it. Thank you, Marco Rubio and Chris Landau.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/05/words-cant-begin-express-outrage-i-feel-having/

‘Just being right-wing is not forbidden’ – Influential mayor of Tübingen and former Green Party member criticizes German government actions against AfD

For Boris Palmer (right), the ‘evidence’ provided by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution against the AfD has little substance; a ban procedure would have no chance. Photo: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Baden-Württemberg / flickr.com (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The influential mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer, is harshly criticizing the Office of the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the powerful German domestic spy agency, after it labeled the Alternative for Germany (AfD) a confirmed “right-wing extremist” party. The former Green Party politician, who won Tübingen despite switching to run as an independent, said the secret, 1,000-page report used to justify the AfD’s designation basically just listed public incidents already known to the media.

“Unless Der Spiegel is simply poorly informed, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has compiled primarily what is publicly known,” wrote Palmer.

In addition, the report seems to focus on the AfD’s stance on migration, but Palmer himself says it is no surprise the AfD is critical of immigration.

He noted that there are vast differences in rates of violence between different regions of the world, and also within Germany, it is clear that some groups are more prone to violence than others, including groups like Afghans and Algerians. However, he argues that this is socially and not genetically determined.

“Terms like ‘knifemen’ are political exaggerations, but not evidence of racism,” he wrote.

“Just being staunchly right-wing and anti-immigration is not forbidden,” he added. “After all, the law of blood was still largely a reality in the Federal Republic of Germany.” He said the 2000 reform of the citizenship law improved this situation, which meant children born to non-German parents could still attain citizenship in Germany, “but were Helmut Kohl and Roland Koch enemies of the constitution because they clung to the old law?”

The report from the BfV could pave the way for a potential ban, but Palmer is also critical of a ban procedure, saying that not only could it benefit the AfD, but that the entire process may be legally questionable with a very uncertain outcome.

He said he cannot imagine that the Constitutional Court, the country’s top court, would classify the party based on statements it has made about migration and even the concept of Germans as an ethnicity. He said accusations about the AfD being racists, Nazis, or misanthropic are to be expected, but for judges to ban an entire party over it is not believable or constitutional.

Notably, the AfD is now polling in first place for the first time ever, and in some polls has reached 26 percent. It is currently the second-largest party in the Bundestag and the largest opposition party.

The BfV is a highly partisan organization. Run by President Thomas Haldenwang (CDU), he reports to the head of the Interior Ministry, Nancy Faeser (SPD). Both parties have a vested interest in removing the AfD as competition in the democratic process.

Regardless of a ban, the “extremist” classification from the BfV is a powerful blow against the party, as it enables the BfV to surveil members with impunity, including chats and emails. It also means civil servants cannot be members of the party, including police officers. In addition, the BfV can now install informants in the party, who can make extremist statements and tarnish the party’s reputation, all without the AfD knowing who is an informant and who is not. In short, it is a massive tool of intimidation and fear using Stasi-like methods with 21st-century technology, including AI tracking and monitoring.

https://rmx.news/article/just-being-right-wing-is-not-forbidden-influential-mayor-of-tubingen-and-former-green-party-member-criticizes-german-government-actions-against-afd/

EU Commissioner’s Blackout Takeaway: We Need More Censorship

Hadja Lahbib European Commissioner for Preparedness, Crisis Management and Equality
Photo: Christophe Licoppe, © European Union, 2025 – source: EC Audiovisual Service

Hadja Lahbib, European Commissioner for Preparedness, Crisis Management and Equality, has once again defended the usefulness of the 72-hour survival kit she presented just over a month ago, which drew widespread attention for the way it was communicated. The energy crisis that affected Spain and Portugal last week serves as a fresh example of how fear has become the primary political fuel for justifying whatever measures Brussels deems necessary in a ‘time of crisis.’ Lahbib described the blackout as “the most serious in Europe in the last two decades” and stressed the importance of citizens being prepared to act independently during the first hours of any crisis.

In an interview with El Mundo, Lahbib explained that the EU’s strategy not only seeks to prepare the population for blackouts or other natural disasters but also for risks such as cyberattacks, supply chain disruptions, or technological threats. “These events are increasingly frequent and unpredictable. They can overwhelm emergency services in the first hours,” she noted.

The core of her message, however, focused on managing information during crises. The commissioner emphasized that one of the main challenges is the spread of rumors and false news, which, she explained, complicates the institutional response and generates social uncertainty. “Clear and inclusive communication is essential, both before a crisis and during it,” Lahbib stated. She added that the European Commission is developing awareness campaigns and will enable Member States to use the Galileo system to send direct alerts to the population.

This emphasis on combating disinformation is not new and aligns with the EU’s latest legislative initiatives on digital control. These include the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Critical Entities Resilience Directive, which strengthen the obligation of digital platforms to monitor, limit, and remove content considered false or potentially dangerous. Although the stated goal is to combat disinformation and protect public safety, these measures raise serious concerns  of censorship and the curtailment of freedom of expression in the name of security.

Lahbib insisted on the need to strengthen community preparedness not only in material terms, but also in terms of communication. “Part of being prepared is, for example, knowing your neighbor so that if this person is vulnerable or has a disability, you think of them,” she stressed, calling for citizen solidarity.

The EU’s package of measures also foresees cooperation between Member States to share best practices and coordinate their efforts in times of crisis. However, experts warn that the increasing centralization of crisis management and the expansion of control over public information could lead to a scenario where the plurality of voices is restricted at critical moments.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/eu-commissioners-blackout-takeaway-we-need-more-censorship-hadja-lahbib/

‘MAGA Candidate’ George Simion Wins First Round of Redo Romanian Presidential Election – Simion scored a large victory with 40.87 per cent of the vote

George Simion

Populist-sovereigntist candidate George Simion came out on top in the first round of voting in the Romanian presidential election on Sunday. The election was held after the previous election was annulled, and the leading candidate was barred from running in the redo contest.

Results unveiled by Romania’s Permanent Electoral Authority, with over 99 per cent of votes tabulated, showed that Simion scored a large victory with 40.87 per cent of the vote.

The Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) leader was followed by neo-liberal globalist Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan in second place at 20.97 per cent and acting President Crin Antonescu in third with 20.13 per cent, Digi24 reports.

Simion branded the victory as “an exceptional result” and added: “You are victorious. Today the Romanian people spoke. It’s time to be heard, despite the obstacles, despite the manipulations… Romanians stood up.”

However, given that no candidate secured a majority of the vote, Romanians will head back to the polls on May 18th for a runoff election between Simion and Dan, as acting President Antonescu was eliminated.

The campaign has been mired in controversy. The previous election was cancelled after populist insurgent candidate Călin Georgescu secured a surprise victory in the first round of voting in November over alleged Russian interference on behalf of the anti-Ukraine war candidate. Supporters of Georgescu accused Brussels of meddling in the Romanian election to block the Eurosceptic frontrunner from becoming the next president.

In February, Georgescu was arrested over accusations of having committed “incitement to actions against the constitutional order,” the “communication of false information,” making “false statements”, and the “initiation or establishment of an organisation with a fascist, racist or xenophobic character”.

The following month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau ruled that Georgescu be barred from standing again for the presidency, accusing him of failing to “respect the rules of the electoral procedure” and having “violated the obligation to defend democracy.”

On Sunday, Georgescu appeared with Simion at the ballot box in Bucharest. While he said that he did not accept the “fraud” of an election, he came to show his support for “the power of democracy, the power of voting that scares the system, that terrifies the system.”

For his part, Simion said that he did not vote for himself, but rather for his banned ally, saying: “Christ is risen! I voted with Călin Georgescu. We are here with only one mission: the return to constitutional order, the return to democracy.

“I have no other objective than first place for the Romanian people, for whom I serve. We are here with the people and for the Romanian people. We are here with one desire, to do justice for Romania.”

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News on the sidelines of his recent trip to Washington, where he met with conservative allies of President Donald Trump, Simion vowed to be an ally of the American administration if he is elected as President of Romania.

“I am the only one who has channels to the Trump administration. The Trump administration doesn’t want to talk with our public government selected by Brussels. Yes, America would be our main focus and key strategic partner. We are the natural partners and we are ideologically the same with the MAGA movement. You can consider me a MAGA candidate—the only MAGA candidate in the Romanian election,” he told Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle.

Simion said that the election is not about him, however, but rather about “continuing this sovereigntist movement” started by Călin Georgescu, saying: “I’m his replacement. People are upset and they want their president back. Their president is Georgescu and we will bring him to power through these elections and all the means that is necessary.”

The AUR leader went on to compare the current struggle against the globalism of Brussels to Romania’s fight against the communist oppression of the Soviet Union.

“The ideals of the Romanian Revolution of 1989 will be transformed into reality. People died hoping that we have free elections, democracy, and freedom. We forgot about this. It turns out the fight continues for freedom and all of our lives. You must fight generation to generation, and you must win. So this is what we are doing right now.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/05/04/maga-candidate-george-simion-wins-first-round-of-romanian-presidential-election-exit-polls-say

The West Eats Itself

AI

By J.B. Shurk

The same Western leaders who speak endlessly about “protecting Democracy” continue to rig elections, outlaw political parties, and prosecute candidates.  Germany has declared Alternative for Germany — now the country’s most popular party — an “extremist group” on par with domestic terror organizations.  The European Union helped Marxist globalists in Romania invalidate a presidential election and ban the winner from office.  France and Brazil have followed the U.S. example of bringing ludicrous criminal charges against popular anti-Establishment politicians, and while President Trump overcame the sham prosecutions targeting him, Marine Le Pen and Jair Bolsonaro are fighting just to survive. 

Let’s not forget either that the Ukraine-Russia War drags on today only because U.S. and European forces helped overthrow the legitimately elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, back in 2014.  His transgression?  Yanukovych’s government was pushing back against the EU’s efforts to absorb Ukraine into its continental empire.  The same NATO and EU talking-heads who denounce Russia’s conquest of its neighbor are mostly mad because they hoped to conquer Ukraine first.

It’s a disorienting time for Westerners who once respected their civic institutions.  The Cold War mentality of the twentieth century created clear distinctions between closed, communist systems and rights-based, free societies.  In the West, people could freely practice the religious tenets of their respective faiths; in communist societies, people were expected to obey the quasi-divine strictures of the State.  In the West, people could own property and freely exchange goods and services; in communist societies, people owned nothing and received only what the State gave them.  In the West, people could speak their minds and publicly debate new ideas; in communist societies, people adhered to politically correct ideology under the constant threat of arrest, torture, and even death.  The West was supposed to err on the side of individual freedoms, even when those freedoms permitted awful people to say awful things. 

Western societies did not always live up to the principles that distinguished them from totalitarian regimes, but respect for personal freedom did serve as an effective guardrail that kept Western governments from careening toward totalitarianism, too.  

What’s going on today is entirely different.  

Western governments treat religious faith as a disease that must be cured.  The faithful (particularly Christians and Jews) are quarantined from the rest of society and expected to hide their beliefs in public spaces.  Law enforcement agencies in the U.S., U.K., and continental Europe arrest Christians praying silently outside of abortion facilities.  When churches and synagogues are vandalized or burned down, those crimes are often excused and rarely solved.  In Canada, arsonists have largely been given a free pass due to the government’s borderline hatred for the Catholic Church.  During purported Catholic Joe Biden’s presidency, the FBI spied on Americans who celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass.  Politicians casually blame Jews for genocide (a slander that is sickeningly ironic) and speak of Christians as “nationalists,” “fundamentalists,” “far-right extremists,” “fascists,” and “Nazis.”  

The combined effect of these government-sanctioned attacks against people of faith is threefold: (1) religious freedom is undermined; (2) the State’s worldview is elevated over all others; and (3) religions not explicitly partnering with the State are deemed national security threats.  These characteristics aptly describe the former Soviet Union’s hostility toward religion.  They aptly describe the Chinese Communist Party’s hostility toward religion.  And they aptly describe the West’s hostility toward religion today.

What about property and free markets?  Most Westerners are in debt.  They rent apartments or live in bank-owned homes. They make just enough to pay for their expenses each month and have no real savings.  A substantial portion of their income is confiscated indirectly through government regulations or directly through a panoply of government taxes.  Most Westerners receive some kind of government welfare in the form of subsidies, entitlements, healthcare, or retirement income.  An ever-increasing share of the Western population depends almost entirely upon the State.  

Even those with assets are kept under the government’s thumb.  Fiat money (government-issued currency not backed by a physical commodity such as gold) and central banks are antithetical to truly free markets.  By threat of violence, governments force citizens to buy and sell goods and services using innately worthless paper bills (or digital ones and zeroes) as a medium of exchange.  Those currencies retain value only so long as a government’s threat of force maintains the State’s monopoly over legal tender.  Gold doesn’t require a government agent with a gun to establish its value.  When central banks manipulate the money supply, they effectively distort all markets.  They create economic “winners” and “losers” by decree.  That’s a hallmark of a State-controlled economy, not a free market.  By increasing the money supply over time, central banks decrease the value of State-enforced currencies.  Conversely, they artificially raise the currency-denominated valuation of homes, stocks, and other real assets.  

What is the end result?  Personal savings rates decrease because fiat currencies kept under a mattress depreciate over time.  Instead, consumers spend their money or invest it in assets that are artificially juiced.  People with retirement investments become dependent upon the government’s money-printing because without such blatant market manipulation, the artificially-created value of their homes and investment portfolios would disappear.  Western governments have effectively enslaved citizens to central banks and set in motion a financial doom loop that requires new government spending, cyclical bank and industry bailouts, and regular intervention in consumer markets.  There’s nothing “free” about that.

Whereas the majority of Americans in 1900 lived in rural areas and small towns, the twentieth-century push toward urbanization has forced most people into ever-smaller spaces.  Rising property and inheritance taxes and costly government regulations have crushed most small farms.  Those family farms still struggling to survive must constantly fend off attacks from agricultural conglomerates, domestic and foreign saboteurs, Chinese shell companies, and land baron billionaires such as Bill Gates.  Similarly, the European Union’s ridiculous “net-zero” carbon regulations and destructive obsession with “climate change” socialism are bankrupting private farmers on the other side of the Atlantic.  Western governments don’t want private citizens to own land.  They don’t want private citizens to grow food or to be self-sufficient.  They have been actively cultivating a future in which government bureaucrats and a small number of multinational corporations will control every acre.  That kind of world embraces collectivism.  Nothing about it encourages citizens to be free.

What about free speech?  It turns out that Western governments’ commitments to free speech were only as strong as their relative control over the principal sources of the public’s information.  When a small number of national publications, radio stations, and television news studios maintained undue influence over public opinion, governments could indirectly shape society by discreetly controlling the content of mass communication.  They did this by regulating broadcasts over the “public’s airwaves,” pressuring news publications to self-censor, intervening in matters involving “national security,” and outright funding the very news institutions that falsely portray themselves as independent guardians of the free press.  

As this institutional monopoly has come crashing down with the advent of the Internet and the rise of social media, Western governments have become openly hostile to forms of mass communication that empower the broader public.  Since the ‘90s, we have seen the steady criminalization of speech.  “Hate speech” laws have proliferated.  Government agencies dedicated to fighting so-called “disinformation” have taken form.  Police forces in the U.K., Germany, and elsewhere arrest citizens for expressing unapproved opinions online.  Effectively, Western governments are targeting any information that threatens their monopoly over official “narratives.”  The most effective way to do so is to intimidate and silence prospective speakers.  No country that criminalizes thoughts and words is a friend to free speech.

In the West, the masks have come off.

The West Eats Itself – American Thinker