(*This opinion / analytical article was written by Ivan Dikov for The European Views website.)

In 2019, Europe was once again spared from an overt rise of stereotypical “brownshirts”. Yet, diverse as it is, the far right is bound to keep growing because its two major root causes are not being addressed by the political mainstream. Hands down, the most crucial development of 2019 as far as the entirety of the European Union is concerned has been the seemingly sustainable and stable surge of the far right.

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It is true that the greatest fears about the European far right failed to materialize in 2019. That in turn has led many from the democratic mainstream to calm dawn and wishful-thinkingly begin dismissing some of their otherwise well-founded fears. (So have some of the main culprits for the rising popularity of the far right – the far left / pseudo-liberal / cultural Marxist ideologues.)

Indeed, 2019, a year of EU elections as well as numerous other polls in many member states, a far-right nightmare didn’t storm the Union or any EU member country.

The fact that the worst fears didn’t materialize in 2019, however, shouldn’t blind anybody to what really happened. The far right kept on rising and growing all across the continent in a semi-noticeable fashion. That is actually more dangerous that if it had come as an avalanche. A gradual and sustainable rise has a far easier time blunting everyone’s senses.

And, as otherwise misguided “cultural Marxists” hopefully are aware, “quantitative accruals lead to qualitative changes”, as per Grandpa Marx’s now semi-legendary, semi-ridiculous dictum.

Think about what happened in 2019.

In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party kept scoring second places in regional elections, and its popularity has been on the rise not just in the “atavistic”, widely vilified former East Germany. Even the seemingly neo-Nazi NDP (“National Democratic Party of Germany”) was featured publically somewhat more prominently in 2019.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally – Front – whatever – beat Macron’s centrist movement in the 2019 EU elections. (Just two years ago, Macron managed to beat Le Pen in France’s presidential elections. However categorical that win was, it is still telling that it was replay of the 2002 French presidential elections when the entire democratic political specter rallied behind Jacques Chirac to make sure that Le Pen Sr. didn’t win. Before the far-right candidate eventually wins?)

In Spain, Vox made a breakthrough in a general election for the first time in April, and by November, in a repeat general election, it had become Spain’s third largest political party.

In Italy, the far-right League almost came to power through its leader Matteo Salvini’s parliamentary gambit in August – which didn’t pay off this time but seems doomed to do so at some point in the future.

In the more easily dismissed Eastern European part of the EU…

Read the rest of this article on The European Views website here

(409 words cited out of a total of 2,806 words)