Populism that has pushed back against the global elite is on the rise. It has claimed Greece, Hungary and also Turkey. Italy, too, seems headed that way perhaps. Populism is even lapping at the steps of the European Parliament: In 2014, the institution welcomed its first neo-Nazi, courtesy of Germany’s NPD. Then there was also the Brexit vote.
Populism follows a remarkably similar path from country to country. Globalization gave rise to an international class of wealthy urban technocrats who look utterly out of touch with the rest of their respective populations. In a populist environment, the anti-establishment reaction takes aim at institutional experience, while passion often brings less qualified and unskilled politicians to power. Social media has removed the almost exclusive leftist monopoly in the news.
That, by the way, sets up the fulfillment of Bible prophecy like nothing else can. It is passion that will drive the engine of revolution, which will overthrow staid and tired establishment governments. It reminds us in some ways of the French Revolution, but it isn’t quite that brutal, yet. And it is global.
Populist politicians say the unsayable and promise to destroy the corrupt system. They manage to play on the fears and anger of the population and rise to political power. A few years ago in Davos, Switzerland at the gathering of the elite for the economic forum, many of them recognized that this was coming and have made their escape plans.
Below are a number of leaders, past and present, who have risen to power and influence on the wings of populist movements.
Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, Great Britain made the understatement of the year: “I think that politics needs a bit of spicing up.” Farage led the United Kingdom into Brexit.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front in France, considers Mr. Trump’s victory part of: “A great movement across the world.” She lost the presidential election in France to Emmanuel Macron, but swung France far more to the right. If Macron fails to revive industrial France, Le Pen may well have a comeback. She has promised to put “core” traditional France first. Those themes could have mass appeal to working class voters when France holds its next election in 2022.
Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India was asked if he regretted a massacre of thousands of Muslims that happened on his watch: “If a puppy comes under the wheel of your car, will it be painful? Of course it is,” he said. Modi is the vegetarian prime minister of nuclear-armed India, a CEO type hyping manufacturing jobs who now enjoys an approval rating in the low 80s. He is also working to rid India of its Muslim and Christian populations. An opposition leader called Modi a merchant “of religion and death.”
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia said, “I am the wealthiest man not just in Europe but in the whole world. I collect emotions.” Putin is seventeen years and counting into an unchallenged rule that could stretch all the way to 2024—and, if he can pull it off, way beyond. He has used his energies to remove most of Russia’s civil liberties.
Norbert Hofer, Member of the Freedom Party in Austria is sticking it to the establishment: “The more they fight me, the stronger I become.” Hofer almost won the presidency of Austria, and got 43 percent of the vote for his strong anti-Muslim immigrant views. He is head of the party that was started by an ex-SS officer in the 1950s.
Rodrigo Duterte, President, of the Philippines possesses airtight logic: “My god, I hate drugs. And I have to kill people because I hate drugs.” The provincial mayor won the Philippines’ presidency after encouraging vigilante death squads to execute as many as a thousand suspected petty criminals and vowing to kill a hundred thousand more in his first six months in office. Known for his inflammatory rhetoric he has compared himself to Adolf Hitler, called the pope a “son of a whore” and admitted he would have no problem murdering thousands of drug addicts. Duterte, a former mayor, won national office on an anti-crime and anti-corruption platform. His brutal war on drugs, which he recently mothballed, has led to thousands of extra-judicial killings by police. He’s rich, too, although the source of his wealth remains a mystery.
Ashin Wirathu, Religious Militant in Burma has thoughts on a fellow Buddhist: “I do not respect the Dalai Lama.” This unchill monk leads a coalition of “969ers” made up of militant Buddhists that seeks to ban religious intermarriage and deport all Muslims. Wirathu sees Islamophobia as an urgent prescription for “nationalism and the security of the country,” even though about one hundred thousand Burmese Muslims are already starving in internment camps and hundreds more have been lynched by Buddhist mobs. As the 969ers’ anthem puts it: “We will build a fence with our bones if necessary.”
Viktor Orbán Prime Minister of Hungary thinks immigration is: “Not medicine but a poison. We don’t need it and won’t swallow it.” Hungary took the plunge into right-wing nationalist governance when Orbán first became prime minister in 1998, and again in 2010. The Oxford dropout bragged that he would engineer “an illiberal state.” Orbán was the first head of an EU nation to endorse Donald Trump. Which makes sense, since Orbán literally built a wall during the migrant crisis in 2015 to slow the stream of border crossers from Serbia. Orbán is widely considered one of the most financially corrupt heads of state in the world. He’s stacked election laws, painted opponents as “socialists,” and put the kibosh on media freedom, maintaining government lists of all journalists and threatening them with fines and suspensions. He’s even tried to tax the Internet. “We have to abandon liberal methods and principles of organizing a society,” he told a crowd in 2014. He means what he said.
Geert Wilders, Founder of the Party of Freedom in the Netherlands really actually said: “I don’t hate Muslims. I hate their book and ideology.” A lifelong crusader against creeping sharia and nonwhite immigrants, the former MP has built a global following. Long before Trump sought to ban U.S. travel by citizens of several Muslim countries, Wilders was infuriating his opponents by calling for a ban on Muslim immigration. For all its contradictions, Wilders’ nativist, low-tax, pro-Brexit drumbeat has appealed to enough voters to make his party one of Holland’s largest opposition parties. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte held off a challenge by Wilders in the March election by taking a turn to the right and questioning the place of Islam in Dutch society.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey has a message for all the haters: “I don’t care if they call me a dictator.” Make no mistake: Erdoğan is definitely a dictator. A former Islamist who rebranded himself as a secular conservative, Erdoğan began consolidating power after military leaders challenged his party’s attitude in 2007. Erdoğan spent several years filling the Turkish “deep state” with loyalists, using trumped-up trials to root out challengers. All the while, his party, the AKP, executed hostile takeovers of the courts and the independent media, paving the way for Erdoğan to take the presidency in 2014. The cantankerous technocrat was asked in January 2016 how his regime would work. “There are already examples in the world,” he replied. “You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany.”
Andrej Babis, of the Czech Republic and anti-establishment entrepreneur and billionaire is set to become the Czech Republic’s next prime minister after his ANO party won more than three times the number of votes as the conservative ODS party, which came in a distant second. He did it on an anti-corruption platform. Babis has a sprawling business empire. It includes vast holdings in agriculture and forestry, chemicals, real estate and newspapers. He has vowed to use his business acumen to cut government red tape and fight corruption, although he is the subject of a possible tax crime and conflict-of-interest probe. He campaigned on a promise to resist immigration and wants the Czech Republic to forge closer ties with non-European Union partners, including Russia.
Bulgaria’s Veselin Mareshki, 50, is a businessman and politician who founded the anti-immigration Volya party. He owns a drug store chain with more than 350 branches nationwide. The New York Times reported this year that his name is on all of them.
Boris Johnson, 53, is Britain’s foreign minister — and possibly future prime minister. A former journalist, Johnson helped lead the campaign for Britain to exit the European Union.
Right wing populism suggests that governments are preparing to collaborate with the United States and the Papacy in fulfilling their prophetic destiny. They will eventually collaborate to create legal Sunday worship as the Bible predicts. This isn’t as likely with leftist governments. The rise of the rightist populist movements around the world will have an impact on other nations as well. Keep watching this movement. See Revelation 13:8, 11, 12-17.
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