Did Putin Personally Engineer The Decline In Authoritarianism In Europe?

What goes around comes around. Almost immediately following Trump’s stolen election in 2016, political analysts concentrating on global democracy started worrying about his unlikely win fueling an already rising wave of far right, neo-fascist popularity throughout Europe, especially in democracies.

And with good reason. Trump’s victory helped to fuel the far right candidacies’ of French neo-Nazi Marine Le Pen. Fortunately, the French aren’t as gullible as American republicans, and they handed her ass tout le sweet in the general election. But Trump crony and super slob, Steve Two Shirts Bannon was more than happy to hop across the pond and make as much trouble as he could.

On the home front, God knows that Traitor Tot did his part. He did everything he could to weaken NATO and the European Union, coming out firmly on the side of the Brexit miscreants in Great Britain. He engaged in an unrequited love affair with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and made it crystal clear that his ultimate goal in life was to be Putin’s sex poodle. He even engaged in a seditious insurrection attempt when he was humiliated in the 2020 election.

From the day that Biden took office, his number one concern, after dealing with the Covid crisis, was undoing the unspeakable damage Hos Lowness had done to NATO and the EU. He repeatedly swore US allegiance to NATO, and article 5, and pledged a renewed US leadership role in world affairs. Oh yeah, and he put BeetleKim back in his cage. But still, far right parties were coming far too close in elections to turning democracies authoritarian.

But then along came Vladdy. He invaded a peaceful neighbor on a trumped up bullshit excuse that Biden had already declassified and made public. And he did Biden’s job for him. NATO members immediately recognized that the Russian bear wasn’t sleeping, in fact she had her claws out. Their own asses were suddenly at risk. They snapped back into line, started supporting sanctions, and giving Ukraine material support. Not only that, but non NATO countries jumped in line to take part in the Russian sanctions. The last American President that pulled off something like this was George HW Bush for Operation Desert Storm.

But apparently, like Trump, Putin never studied the Law of unintended consequences either. After decades of threats, bluster, and browbeating, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine finally led Finland and Sweden to seek entry to NATO to protect themselves from the Madness of King Vlad. And Norway and Denmark are likely to follow.

But it’s starting to appear that his little game may have awakened something deeper. All over Europe, there are millions of people alive today that remember the brutality of the Soviet regime. Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Moldova, Poland, the Baltic states, all have populations that remembers the blessings of the Socialist Paradise. And some, if not all of them, have thriving or rising far right parties aching to go back to The good old days.

But it might just already be showing effects. On Sunday, the French held their national elections, and Emmanuel Macron became the first French President in 20 years to win a second term. Once again he sent far right neo-Nazi Marine Le Pen to bed with no supper, winning by 17 points. And also on Sunday, the nation of Slovenia held their national elections. And their far right, authoritarian Prime Minister is now updating his resume and looking for a new job. It appears that the Europeans may have heard the clarions call as to the dangers of the far right.

Can the same thing happen here? After all, we already know that Trumpenstein has a rabid base that isn’t going to leave him no matter what. But that base is nowhere near large enough to win a national election. But he also has a sizeable constituency of people that just like his personality or programs. But they also happen to like their democracy. How will they view his continued support for, and obedience to a mass murdering war criminal? More importantly, how will they see a GOP that is lock step with Trump on russia in the 2022 midterms?

This is a situation that is going to take months, if not years to untangle. But the results in Slovenia and France appear to show that Europeans may have gotten the wake up call. The question is, will non Trombie Republicans and independent voters get the message too? We may not know until November of 2024. Just stick a pin in this.