Leader of Hungarian Anti Semetic party finds out he's Jewish.

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The European left must adopt the cultural nationalism of the far right, before it's too late.

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The European left must adopt the cultural nationalism of the far right, before it's too late.

Please elaborate.

People care about two things (1) economic populism, and (2) identity politics. The left's advantage historically was (1), while the right's advantage was (2). However, the European right has caved on (1) and embraced the leftist position. Therefore, unless the European left caves on (2) and embraces the rightist position, all is lost for the left.

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The European left must adopt the cultural nationalism of the far right, before it's too late.

Please elaborate.

People care about two things (1) economic populism, and (2) identity politics. The left's advantage historically was (1), while the right's advantage was (2). However, the European right has caved on (1) and embraced the leftist position. Therefore, unless the European left caves on (2) and embraces the rightist position, all is lost for the left.

Just over the past few years? Because the left caved on (1) before that, but you're right that the trend seems to be reversing.

I definitely agree that the left needs to articulate a strong set of cultural signifiers and markers for itself that people can be attached to the way they currently are to this sort of far-right unpleasantness.

Yes. Read the Economist article about resentment in Hungary against the 'multis' - basically rich businessmen who are seen as agents of foreigners.

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Am what I am proposing really so controversial? After all, the French Socialist party in the 1950s supported the Algerian War, which far more nationalist/offensive that almost anything going on these days.

Leftist nationalism is being so universally denounced here as unthinkable. All the popular leftists in history, both good and bad, utilized nationalism to their advantage-- from Gandhi to Mao to FDR to Napoleon to Hugo Chavez. What is the alternative? Cosmopolitanism and globalism will always be a minority, and it is too easy to tie to the out-of-touch elite.

And really-- I'm not the one who started pronouncing collectively on Europe. The Economist does as well. Plus, I don't see how it's so controversial to notice that far-right politics has risen in many different countries in Europe. While each is suited to the spectrum of the individual country of course, all of them have the same essential characteristics of cultural nationalism.

I would submit that I look at the facts and evidence before me, and I would not make pronouncements in the absence of such.

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I said the right caved on #1, not that "we won." I was referring to the political far right, not the rightists at the Bundesbank, of course. Look at the National Front in France-- the biggest and most articulate party in favor of French freedom from Bundesbank tyranny. They haven't "won" but they have "caved;" economically they're more populist than liberal or aristocratic.

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It was never 'economic populism' (however defined) that won elections, but the promise of something better.

For the vast majority of people it's the same thing.