Throughout recent (20th century) history, times of economic stress have seen a rise in right-wing "populism" in America and other Western democracies. This is currently being borne out in the tea party movement in this country, as well as in the rise of similar phenomena in Western Europe, where it is often manifested as anti-immigrant "populism" due to the additional threat of home-grown terrorism (eg., in the UK with the tea-tardish English Defence League, in official government actions in France and Italy to expel gypsies, and in France's banning veils in public).
Well, you can now add a disturbingly large segment of Germany to the list (funny how the UK, France, Italy and Germany all have conservative-led governments). Perhaps responding to her "base", German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently told a meeting of her Conservative Democratic Union party that
"This multicultural approach, saying that we simply live side by side and live happily with each other has failed. Utterly failed."
What a warm, welcoming sentiment from Frau Merkel! How sensitive to the historical burden Germans bear from past, um... "issues" with cultural purity. What's next for Frau Merkel and her supporters? This?
(Photo: Angela Merkel - Ich bin ein sour Kraut!)
