Ever since June 16, 2015 – the day that Trump officially ran for president – all eyes have been on America. News of Donald Trump’s antics have been on almost every network worldwide at some point or another. Reports covering everything from the debates, his “nasty woman” comment, his pussy grabbing scandal, and his issues with the IRS flooded the news circuit until only few believed that Trump ever had a chance of winning the election.
On November 8th, many political science experts were proved wrong as Trump won the presidency, beating out Hillary Clinton with 304 elector votes. Since then, at least 25 US cities have staged protests against Trump and his racist and non-inclusive platform. The backlash since his inauguration has been nearly astounding, even his disapproval rating has risen over 50% since.
Having said this, the constant international gaze on American politics has left few sites covering the political state of other countries. For example, how many people honestly knew that there was a presidential election going on in France right now? Let’s take a quick look at Trump-like candidate Marine le Pen:
Marine le 
Pen is the French far right candidate running under the banner of the Front National. Some of her more popular quotes include: “For those who want to talk a lot about World War II, if it’s about occupation, then we could also talk about it [Muslim prayers in the streets], because that is occupation of territory. It is an occupation of sections of the territory, of districts in which religious laws apply. It’s an occupation. There are of course no tanks, there are no soldiers, but it is nevertheless an occupation and it weighs heavily on local residents.” This is a quote from a gathering in Lyon, where she compared Muslims to Nazis. She is also known for defending the use of torture, the reinstatement of the death penalty in France, and wanting to to strip “terror suspects” of French citizenship. She has been a large supporter of Trump and, In a CNN interview, even said that his election “shows that people are taking their future back.”
It’s hard to believe but, as of now she is widely expected to be the front runner in the presidential election. Various polls are expecting her to get around 25% of the votes, which means that she has a very real chance of winning the election.
Let’s skip ahead and talk about another politician not too far away from France, Geert Wilders who is the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom and another right wing conservative. He is so much like Trump that Wilders has even copied the blond hair and orange tan look that has popularized Trump.
Some of Wilders more known quotes include:
– “The analysis is clear, we have a great problem with Islam, in the Netherlands too. The solution is not so complicated; what is missing are political guts and a feeling of urgency. Immigration from Islamic countries should be forbidden. We must learn to be intolerant with the intolerant, in the street, in the mosque, in court. We must answer hatred and violence by terrorists with exclusion and intolerance and show who the boss in the Netherlands is.” From Den Haag laf tegen islamitisch extremisme
– At a parliamentary debate on Islamic activism he said, “Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time. One century ago, there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today, there are about 1 million Muslims in this country. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European and Dutch civilization as we know it.”
– “Islam is not a religion, it’s an ideology, the ideology of a retarded culture.” This insult is from his interview for the Guardian in 2008 ‘I don’t hate Muslims. I hate Islam.’
Despite what his extremely negative views on Islam and immigration, his party is riding high in the polls. Rem Korteweg, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform (CER), believes that there is an 80% chance that the Mr Wilders will win.
Marine le Pen and Geert Wilders are only two of many far-right conservatives that are experiencing unusually high poll rating this election year. This is the start of what many people are calling “The Revolution of the Right,” but what I like to call “Trumps World.” If people all around the world do not start paying more attention to the political policies in other countries we may find ourselves stuck in a world harboring policies that wish to divide us and pit us against others. Trump winning the election has only awoken a far-right movement that has been stirring for years and is now beginning to spread. A movement that is set on creating ideas of superiority and taking away the rights of the people that don’t assimilate. The entire world must work together now, YES NOW, to stop this. We must stand up united and stronger to crush a movement that wants to pit us against each other and make us weaker.
