Back from
my travels in Ireland and Scotland with some observations about the impact of
Trumpism 2.0 on Europe. Landing in Dublin on August 27th I was surprised
(though I shouldn’t have been) on the ride from the airport to our hotel by how
much the suburbs of the city with steel and glass office complexes resembled an
American city. But when we arrived at our hotel in the “Temple Bar“
neighborhood of Dublin, we were in the old section of the city humming with
tourists.
The
Republic of Ireland offers a distinct reality from the rest of Western Europe.
Born in the crucible of the struggle against British imperialism in the 1920s,
it was an ally to the movements to end European colonialism in Africa and Asia
after World War Two. As soon as we arrived, we saw graffiti saying “Free
Palestine” and posters with the Irish and Palestinian flag side by side.
Ireland is a White country that can empathize with the historic yearning for
Palestinian self-determination.
Ireland
had already recognized a Palestinian state in May and Great Britain and France
joined 155 other UN member states in recognizing Palestinian statehood at the
General Assembly meeting last month. The former Middle Eastern imperialists,
Britain and France are late to the dance but add to the growing isolation of
Israel and the US on this issue. Ireland and Spain are also, thus far, the only
European states to go as far as declaring the Israeli military campaign in Gaza
a genocide. Of course, none of that matters much if the US continues to supply
Israel with weapons.
As a
participant in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa I’ll remind you
that the roots of that movement go back to 1958, when the All-African People’s
Conference in Accra, Ghana called for a boycott of South African products. It
was taken up by British anti-colonial activists the following year. That
launched a campaign to “boycott, divest and sanction” South Africa that
culminated in diplomatic isolation of the country and global economic sanctions
against it in 1986.[1]
It is no
accident that today’s global movement to similarly isolate Israel is called
BDS: Boycott, Divest and Sanction! It is unfortunate that
Trump is US president as genocide is unfolding in Gaza. There may be no human
life left to extend self-determination to, before the Israelis have completed
their mission there.
In another
sign of growing US isolation European NATO defense ministers met in Brussels in
late August to declare efforts to buttress their collective support for
Ukraine. Stocks in European defense industries are trending upward in
anticipation of increased production in those sectors.[2]
Topping
off this specter of US global isolation was the Shanghai Cooperation summit of
ten Eurasian countries that took place August 31-September 1. The organization
was formed around Russia and China in 2001 to oppose Western global hegemony
and now includes Iran, India and Pakistan.[3]
The
outcomes of talks were not publicized. But in his speech Chinese president Xi
Jinping observed that “a new phase of turbulence” in global affairs existed and
called upon member states to collaborate to erect a “more just and balanced
international governance framework.” The proceedings portended “a closer
relationship among its members at a time when the world has been roiled by U.S.
trade policies and tariffs.”[4] A few weeks later Trump addressed
the UN General Assembly in a rambling speech littered with false claims and
insults to the international community.[5]
In July I
wrote that the US is exhausted by the challenges of global leadership as norms
demanding a wide range of human rights have broadened. It is abdicating that
leadership at a time when China is stepping up its campaign to mobilize support
for its illiberal path to economic and social development.
Who will
defend “liberal democracy” and the idea of relatively open societies? The US
may be distancing itself from the entire world in many ways, but it shares one
glaring problem with Europe. They all support stricter immigration policies in
order to keep their countries White! Great Britain, France and Germany, the
other great powers of the White world, are presently governed by centrist
parties or coalitions, which endorsed the neoliberal decline of their working
classes over the last generation and opening their borders to accommodate
refugees from the Middle East and Africa.
The
particulars of anti-immigrant politics differ in each country (perhaps a topic
for another post). Where I traveled in Great Britain there was the “Unite the
Kingdom” rally on September 13th. It drew over 100,000 people to
central London. Leader Tommy Robinson declared that the march was for “free
speech, British heritage and culture” claiming that asylum seekers and other
immigrants had more rights than the “British public, the people that built this
nation.”[6]
Robinson’s movement is farther to the right than Nigel Farage’s
Reform Party. It was Reform that fueled the vote for Britian to leave the
European Union that was successful in 2016. Opposition to White immigration
from low-income countries in the EU was central to that campaign. Britain has
not fared so well economically since BREXIT. But after some time in the
wilderness, Reform is back. It currently leads Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s
Labour Party in national polling. And though Britain doesn’t have to have
elections until 2029, Starmer’s lack of “vision” and recent cabinet shakeups
have left his government weakened.
Farage has pledged to deport hundreds of thousands of “irregular
migrants” and not comply with the European Convention on Human Rights for a
trial period of five years. If Farage is skillful, Reform will capture the
Unite the Kingdom vote whenever Britain next holds elections.
Elon Musk was among speakers from far right parties from
France and Germany at the Unite the Kingdom rally. Trump can thus, be seen as
the leader of the neo-fascist movement across the Western democratic world and
even in places like Brazil and Argentina. Against that back drop I ask again “who
will defend democracy?”
[1]
Johnson and Dickinson, “International Norms and the End of Apartheid in South
Africa,” Safundi: The Journal of
South African and American Studies, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2015.1054224
[2] “European
defense pledge pressure to end the war after Russian strike on Kyiv,” AP
World News. https://apnews.com/article/europe-ukraine-defense-ca215008a9b7120399dffb1cfc48bd08;
European defense stocks rise, Grieg Cameron and David Leask, “Battle Stations,”
Sunday Times. September 7, 2025, p. 17.
[3] It
also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus.
[4] Anniek
Bao, SCO summit 2025: Key takeaways from Beijing’s push to reshape global order,
CNBC. September 2, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/sco-summit-2025-key-takeaways.html
[5]“7 key moments from Trump’s U.N.
speech,” PBS News. September 23, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/7-key-moments-from-trumps-u-n-speech
[6] Clashes
in London as 110,000 join far-right rally against immigration, ALJAZEERA,
September 13, 2025.
