What If the 'Populist Wave' Is Just Political Fragmentation?

Ever since the United Kingdom’s shocking vote to leave the European Union in 2016, nearly every political contest in the Western world has been characterized as a showdown between the moderate, establishment cosmopolitanism that has dominated Western politics for decades and the far-right populist nationalism that triumphed during the British referendum. Donald Trump’s election in the United States has been declared a victory for populist nationalism, whereas Norbert Hofer’s electoral defeat in Austria and now Geert Wilders’s loss in the Netherlands have been described as rejections of that ideology. The “call of the populists … stopped here in the Netherlands,” one Dutch politician proudly proclaimed after the country’s election this week. Upcoming elections in France and Germany are cited as the next crucial tests.

But what’s striking is how such sweeping conclusions are being drawn from such cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton instead of Trump, had a small percentage of , , and voters changed their minds at polling stations, we might be talking today about the far right’s conquest of Austria and the Netherlands, and its retreat from the U.K. and the U.S., rather than the other way around.