Media Criticism

The terms “People’s Party� and “Populism� have changed drastically since the days of silverites and gold bugs in the 1890s. The People’s Party in the United States tried to bring in labor, women’s groups and limited numbers of African Americans into an alliance against moneyed interests that began political rule that continues today. American populists in the 1890s were imperfect and lacked the sophistication of major party activists but desired a political system geared toward the average person.

Today’s great “populists� include racists like Christoph Blocher of the Swiss People’s Party which has grown into the largest political party in Switzerland. Blocher has used language familiar to historians of Central Europe to lash out against immigrants in the hopes of gaining seats in Parliament. The rush of ignorant voters worried about Muslims and the polyglot masses entering the land of chocolate and watches helped push the SVP into a plurality in Swiss government.

Switzerland has always been associated in my mind with political accommodation and reason. The seven seat cabinet that has helped balanced power between the major parties since World War II is beginning to resemble a Klan meeting. Blocher and another represented of the SVP will sit in the cabinet, breaking up the balanced approach taking to Swiss politics for five decades. By no means is Christoph Blocher a facsimile of authoritarian leaders like Adolf Hitler; Switzerland has an insufficient infrastructure and an unwilling populous for institutionalization of hatred. My concern is that Blocher’s victory will help encourage voters in surrounding nations to choose nationalists and right wing nuts.

The Flemish Block in Belgium and the National Front Party in France are only two examples of nationalist parties cloaking racist language behind the veil of populism. The hedge on growing conservatism and nationalism in Poland in the most recent election is diminished when you look at Civic Platform’s policies. Civic Platform was successful in wresting power from the Law and Order Party under the corrupt Kaczynski brothers. While Donald Tusk is a moderate leader that will demand EU involvement and withdrawal from Iraq, Civic Platform and Law and Order are similar in their desire to maintain a conservative domestic government in Poland. In the end, nationalism is pushing past traditional conservatism to take hold of the European public’s imagination.

I understand that the European welfare state has caused certain logistical problems in nations like Belgium and France. The use of foreigners and minorities as scapegoats for economic and social woes is nothing new; in fact, it shows a lack of imagination by popular leaders like Blocher. Every opposition party and minority coalition in Europe needs to rise up and save that this type of narrow-minded, one-dimensional political rhetoric will not stand in the 21st century. European voters should not be duped by nationalists claiming to shut down borders when the European continent is becoming more open than it has ever been. My only hope is that the Swiss people understand that the addition of political power to Christoph Blocher’s portfolio can only equal long term problems before the next parliamentary elections.