Here in the United States, we’ve seen a similar phenomenon.
And European governments have been rolling out a similar script to deal with those who complain about unrestricted immigration and farmers’ protests against “green” policies designed to shut them down.
Apparently anyone who challenges the insider crowd’s power is the next Hitler.
Except the insiders are the ones wearing the jackboots.
Talking about France’s “yellow jacket” working-class protests, French geographer Christophe Guilluy observed: “Immediately, the protesters were denounced as xenophobes, anti-Semites and homophobes. The elites present themselves as anti-fascist and anti-racist, but this is merely a way of defending their class interests. It is the only argument they can muster to defend their status, but it is not working anymore.”
The all-out campaign to defeat President Donald Trump in 2020, being echoed in 2024, is another example.
We had insiders spreading phony “Russia collusion” narratives to a cooperative press, entrapment campaigns aimed at senior Trump officials like Gen. Mike Flynn, and a last-minute 2020 goal-line stand by the media and intelligence community to discredit — and censor any discussion of — the stories The Post broke on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the incriminating material it contained…
I mentioned just how afraid of a populist revolt the West’s leadership has become.
But why, exactly, is it so afraid?
Perhaps these people fear for their necks if the commoners ever figure out what’s been done to them.
You can certainly imagine that being the case in Justin Trudeau’s Canada.
As journalist Elizabeth Nickson writes, “If Canada were a state, it would be poorer than West Virginia or Mississippi, despite being the second-largest country, with abundant natural resources, in the world, blessed with a highly educated populace.”
Domination by bureaucratic insiders produces stagnation.
The insiders get rich and get to feel important, at everyone else’s expense.
In America, it’s harder to make such comparisons, but certainly the last half-century has seen an enormous transfer of wealth from the middle classes to the educated insiders.
No wonder the latter are so scared.