Europe’s elite fears Trump, Musk and the truth
What constitutes a Nazi today? If you ask modern liberals and mainstream media, Elon Musk is Dr. Joseph Goebbels redivivus.
When the pro-Trump billionaire extended his right arm, waving to the crowd at an inauguration event for President Trump, mainstream media went ballistic. Speculation was rampant: Had Elon Musk just given a “Heil Hitler” salute?
In Germany, the government and media are equally paranoid of Musk. His support of the Alternative for Germany or AfD party, they say, makes him a Nazi. What is not spoken of (but definitely recognized by the government and media) is that AfD is now the second-biggest party in Germany in terms of public support, even if it remains a pariah to a German establishment eager to protect its own political agenda.
Last week at the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance argued that mainstream parties in the European Union engage in heavy-handed censorship and cancel election results because they are “kind of terrified of their own people.” He seemed to be alluding in part to AfD, which, despite its electoral successes to date, struggles to find coalition partners — leftwing and centrist parties refuse to work with it.
But those who depend on the modern liberal press for their information have no idea what AfD really supports. The AfD platform is available online in English. It is there for public scrutiny. Musk has called it “common sense.” The recent no-confidence vote on Germany's socialist government will send Germans back to the polls this weekend, and the AfD is expected to come in second.
For too long merely being accused of Nazi sympathies has been enough to discredit good, honest people from the community of the respectable. Elite efforts to humiliate and discredit their opposition — without having to deal with their arguments — are unfortunately very effective.
We see this also with respect to Hungary and Slovakia. For the most part, the typical person in Western Europe, Britain and the U.S. (if they “know” anything at all about these countries) is that they are ruled by, ostensibly, harsh authoritarians — Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico, respectively. They “know” this because that’s what much of the mainstream media tells them.
It seems that the media and elites in Western countries perpetuate the deception about Hungary and Slovakia and other recalcitrant voices in the EU to prevent their own populations from hearing legitimate advocacy of policies contrary to their own accepted narratives.
When Trump first took office in 2017, the elitist mainstream media was filled with dire predictions of America's descent into fascism. The Left, which controls most of academia and the media, maintains this vile and irresponsible mantra.
The U.S. is now undergoing what some have called “draining the swamp.” Trump is using his executive power and Musk's know-how at DOGE to “get out the broom and sweep out the house.”
Unlike 2017, when the left successfully trashed Trump and his team as crypto-cronies, they are rudderless this year. Few listen to them anymore. Indicative of this is the collapse of ratings and the hemorrhage of talent from the left-leaning CNN and MSNBC.
Four years of former President Biden’s rule brought disaster upon disaster, especially with mass migration. According to Pew Research, there are now an estimated 11-12 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S.
American voters assessed the cost of believing lies about Trump and his supporters being "semi-fascists" and decided not to be deceived by it anymore. Will European voters finally acknowledge the same truth about their own politicians on the right — even though the left and center routinely vilify them as Nazis?
European politicians and media figures are eager to demonize Musk and censor his X platform because Musk refuses to live by their lie. And on X, Europeans can now hear from their continent's pariah politicians and make up their own minds.
While it is certainly true that Europe should always be vigilant against the return of Nazism, Europe's ruling class has itself become fanatical — fascistic, even — in its zeal to censor. They prevent Europe from pursuing or even discussing sensible policies on mass migration, energy needs and foreign affairs that protect their liberal democracies from grave threats — threats like, for example, the EU’s current ruling elite.
Fear of Hitler, and of accusations of fascism, have left Europeans paralyzed in the face of mortal threats to their civilization. When people are more afraid of Elon Musk waving to his supporters in a peculiar way than they are of mass migration, economic stagnation and cultural decline, they have embraced an ideological toxin that might very well be their undoing.
Vance said it succinctly: “If your democratic society can be taken down by $200,000 of social media ads, then you should think seriously about how strong your grip on or how strong your understanding of the will of the people actually is.”
F. Andrew Wolf Jr. is the director of The Fulcrum Institute, an organization of current and former scholars in the humanities, arts and sciences.
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No matter how distasteful we find Trump and Vance over Europe, they speak a blunt truth | Simon Jenkins
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