LA Times OpEd: To understand Donald Trump, look to the far-right in Europe
True, Trump's naked appeals to nativist, anti-immigrant populism have parallels in American history, from Pat Buchanan in the 1990s to George Wallace in the 1960s and 1970s to Millard Fillmore's Know-Nothing Party in the 1850s. (Trump) has totally ignored the Planned Parenthood undercover video controversy; and he has been griping about foreign trade since the 1980s (then it was Japan, now China).
In a European context, Trump would fit more comfortably. Many countries on the European continent pursue a “consensus” politics of the center-left and center-right. The moderates in power support a generous social-welfare state and more business regulation than Americans would accept, marginalize religious social-issue conservatives, and ignore crime and immigration.
By shunting so many issues beyond the pale of the mainstream, the elite fuel right-wing populist parties. Leaders like Geert Wilders in Holland, Marine Le Pen in France and their counterparts in Poland, Sweden, Belgium and Hungary give vent to the anxieties that establishment politicians would rather pretend did not exist. Accordingly, like conservatives in the United States, they stress security, including border security. But reflecting their working-class constituencies, European right-wing parties are often more anti-business, anti-trade and pro-social-welfare than American Democrats, let alone American Republicans.
The European right wing traces its heritage in part to the old monarchists. Yet its populist leaders also echo mid-20th century dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler, who were simultaneously violent nationalists and self-proclaimed socialists who disdained individual rights and sought domination over private business and Christian churches. ... In that sense, Trump's anti-immigrant, anti-trade, “Make America great again” nationalism may not be un-conservative, but it is literally un-American. It lacks the reverence for America's founding principles and the Lincolnesque concern for individual rights to life and liberty that have long called American conservatives to the more hopeful better angels of our nature.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1215-mclaughlin-trump-european-nationalist-20151215-story.html
I wonder if Trump is a student of RW European populist politicians and sees in their recent successes a pattern for him to follow here. Or if he is just the latest in a long history of American "nativist, anti-immigration" populists ( like "Pat Buchanan in the 1990s to George Wallace in the 1960s and 1970s to ... the Know-Nothing Party in the 1850's"
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