After the financial crash of 2008, Europe’s leftist parties had an opportunity to channel the anti-establishment fervour of ordinary voters and move from the fringes to the mainstream. For a time, the tide throughout Europe appeared to be shifting to the left. However, earlier this month, after the socialist government of Tsipras was swept aside in the Greek general election, it now appears that the European left is in deep crisis. Yascha Mounk, writing in the Atlantic, suggests that a chain of recent electoral defeats for the left means that the heralded resurgence of socialist parties has peaked – a lesson which the Americans would do well to take into account.
Javier Milei Makes Fools of the “Experts”
As it began looking like Javier Milei might actually be elected President of Argentina, more than 100 leading international economists warned that this “far-right” political “wrecking ball” would “cause ‘devastation,’ spike inflation, expand poverty, and unemployment.” But as David Harsanyi relates in the Washington Examiner, Milei has tamed inflation, balanced the budget, shrunk the bureaucracy, deregulated the economy, driven down poverty and repaid billions in U.S. loans. And now, Harsanyi notes, Argentina is starting to boom.
