The Snores of Liberalism
Rightwing politicians flourish as apathy infects the leftist movement.
The election of chimp-faced George W. Bush to the American presidency drew plenty of snickers from left-leaning Europeans who reveled in branding the United States a cultural wasteland governed by a feeble-minded cowboy. Their derisive taunts turned quickly to gasps of humiliation as xenophobic right-wingers marched to success in their own home nations.
Perhaps these red-faced Europeans were too busy chortling at America's political embarrassments to cast votes of their own. One now has to wonder what magnitude of archconservative political gain will awaken the supporters of left-wing candidates from their apathetic slumber.
The latest elections in the United States, Denmark, Netherlands, Austria and, most recently, France have shown that progressive voters are staying home while their right-wing counterparts are flocking to the polls.
Shamed by the second place finish of far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of presidential elections, the French have gone so far as to describe the Socialist Party's collapse as reminiscent of the failings of liberalism in the United States. Political analyst Dominique Moisi actually attributed the low voter turnout to the "Americanization" of the French electoral process - a claim that looks suspiciously like a desperate attempt to tag the United States as a scapegoat for the failures of the French left.
Although labeling voter apathy as "Americanization" appears to be little more than embarrassed finger pointing, it bears noting that the United States has ranked as low as 139th out of the world's 167 democracies in voter turnout. And the disappearance of the European left is certainly reminiscent of the political tides that led to the wave of conservatism in the United States.
The equation is simple - conservatives vote, liberals do not.
Of the roughly 50% of Americans who abstain from casting their votes, a large percentage is unquestionably liberal. Are conservatives more passionate in supporting their political causes? Do liberals lack faith in the effectiveness of voting as a weapon of political change?
The left's mind-bogglingly foolish ambivalence towards the political process has created an environment where conservative politicians and their constituents are over-represented in comparison to their frequency within the population at large.
So the question must be posed - how much longer will left-wingers allow conservatives to entrench themselves in political power without putting up even token resistance? It seemed that Bush's presidency and the United States' increasingly aggressive global military presence would have spurred European leftists into action, but the recent triumphs of right-wing candidates indicate otherwise.
The anti-immigration platforms ridden to success by ultra-conservatives in Austria, Netherlands and now France indicate an especially troubling trend that is not only suggestive of the race-baiting politics that have become so commonplace in America, but also of the fascist ideologies which turned Europe into a bloody battlefield in the early nineteen-hundreds. There is nothing revolutionary about utilizing prejudices and fears as a tool for political demagoguery -- and the history of regimes that rode such tactics to victory is certainly not lacking in horrors.
Where is this famed liberal enlightenment that European academics have brandished with such pride in their scornful admonitions of the United States?
It can only be hoped that liberals will collectively awaken in time to thwart the paranoia and venom of encroaching ultra-rightwing conservatism while their social transgressions of the conservatives are still reversible.