This article is an interesting reflection on the restructuring of European politics, as seen through the institutional transformation of European political parties. If I understand her argument correctly, where once political parties were divided over ideologies regarding capitalism, with a more libertarian liberalism on one side, and a more socialist approach on the other, now the contrast is between some kind of ethno-nationalism, and a cosmopolitan ecologism. Perhaps Fukuyama’s End of history thesis has something to say after all.

The rise of ethno-nationalism is widespread in our world, but it's alarming to me that in recent years it has happened most dramatically in Europe and America.  In Europe this has been mediated through the control of religion.  As this Pew report puts it, "while the Middle East-North Africa region had the highest levels of religious restrictions in the world, Europe saw some of the biggest increases over the last decade in certain types of restrictions."  This is not just about Poland or Hungary, mind you; governments in France and Spain are also to blame for this rise in anti-religious legislation.

Just to state the obvious, all of this is part of the wider story that is the crisis of pluralism today.  Slate has it right, I think.  Without being too simplistic, the struggles we are facing are not fascism--not about building a strong state--they are about reaction--about keeping people out, and reasserting a certain kind of ethno-nationalism at home.  China's behavior is more complicated, as there are old-school geopolitics involved there, but even those geopolitics are related to a reaction against anything that would sully the ethno-national purity of the nation, or challenge the state's ability to control the ethno-national community.  This is the war we are in now--a war over pluralism.