In France, the Yellow Jackets (or “Gilets Jaunes” in French) have rushed into the streets in massive numbers. They are not protesting cuts in the generous entitlements. They are not throwing fits because they fear losing one-month paid vacations. The fight is about the increased fuel taxes—exorbitant taxes on top of the already high cost of fuel.
But it’s more. The Macron government, an aloof, elitism regime, is pushing a globalist, pro-EU agenda, one which is crippling the quality of life for working Frenchmen, especially in rural areas and small towns. Mass migration, bureaucratic wrangling, massive crime and unemployment with minimal police presence are raving the country. Sadly, this is history repeating itself as farce. Like now, Western and Northern France rebelled during the French Revolution. The bloodthirsty Jacobins, lead by cat-like Robespierre, seized power from the French King, but their so-called reforms in the name of social justice ended up hurting the very working people they claimed to care about.
The unrest is also targeting the inflexible, unaccountable EU bureaucracy. Belgian Yellow Jackets are protesting the main offices in Maastricht and Brussels. Europeans have started to realize that the federalization of the continent is not working out as they had hoped. A common currency, a common market has turned into communistic micromanaging. The economically stronger countries are expected to carry the costs of the fiscally weaker nations. The central planners want open borders, cheap labor, and the resolute silencing of any disagreement to their plans. A federalized Europe is not working out. A Frenchman cannot run to Portugal, Spain, or Italy to escape the moral and fiscal ruin of his home country. French voters have no choice but to fight back for their rights and dignity in their home countries.
France’s Yellow Jacket revolt is spreading into the Netherlands as well. The Dutchmen are just as animated, but less violent, expressing pent-up outrage over similar issues: excessive taxes, open borders, but also a stifling culture of political correctness. This subtle anti-free speech tyranny has inhibited a healthy exploration of difficult issues, but has hindered public safety. Islamic militants among the teeming masses of refugees are overwhelming Europe, undermining the tenuous social fabric of the Western World and bringing rampant acts of terrorism in their wake. Islamic preachers call publicly for full-on conquest Europe, the imposition of Sharia law, and with it the casting out of freedom, the democratic process, and civil rights for all. However, law-abiding citizens face criminal penalties for criticizing Islam, Allah, or for calling out the violent tendencies advocated for in the Koran. This injustice cannot stand any longer, so the people are taking to the streets.
Even in Canada, a small yet growing contingent of Yellow Jacket protests are gathering in different urban centers, including Calgary, Alberta and Ottawa, Ontario: the federal seat of the national government. They are protesting Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax scheme. They are also rising up against Trudeau’s lax defense and border control policies. Seven conservative provincial premiers are pushing back against the federal government’s insistence on taking in large numbers of Middle Eastern refugees, but refusing to pick up the costs for this program.
Throughout the Western World, people are clamoring for the freedom to speak out against Islam, against the aggressive secular agenda invading their schools and the government. In general, they are forcefully denouncing the rogue cult of progressivism. As the taxes and dead bodies pile up, as the degradation of the public square becomes more prominent, the citizens are pushing back.
Contrast these European uprisings with the United States. Instead of fighting big statism, Americans are fleeing their home state in droves. Californians are in mass exodus, including members of my own family. If they don’t like the blue state bureaucracy, American citizens enjoy the luxury of moving to a red state. And yet, this intra-migration process is hitting a brick wall. Some reliably red states have been trending blue over the last ten years. After Election 2018, progressives are targeting more of them.
One contact from New Mexico just witnessed this Democratic resurgence. The lone Republican Congressman, Steve Pearce, lost his bid for governor, and his seat flipped blue (likely due to voter fraud, but no one’s fighting it). “I am planning on moving out of here,” she told me. But I had to ask: “Where do you plan to go?” Arizona suffered some Democratic wins. Wisconsin and Michigan will have Democrats installed in statewide offices next year. Republicans still control those state legislatures for now, but for how much longer? Even ruby-red Kansas just elected a Democratic Governor. Another friend (who had relocated to the Sunflower State) expressed shock and disdain, even though he enjoys the much lower cost of living. “Kansas City is getting more liberal now. The cancer is spreading everywhere!” Yesterday, a Townhall columnist wrote a steadied piece on the full-on Democratic takeover of Virginia in the last decade, too. I visited there last year—it felt like Los Angeles, only worse. Americans are finding that there are fewer places where they can flee from state’s oppressive governments.
Americans better learn the lesson and follow the example of their Yellow Jacket peers: assert your rights in your home states. Running to Texas is not the final answer. Texas is combatting a blue undercurrent already. The seduction of socialism, which gives way to the specter of communism, has possessed the minds of college students there as well as in California, Oregon, and Washington State. Don’t flee, fight back, Americans. It’s time to Make America Great Again, not just find a redder state to retire in.
The Founding Fathers didn’t pull up stakes and flee west of the Appalachian Mountains when the British Empire exacted higher taxes while denying the American colonists’ equal representation in parliament. If American citizens don’t like what they see happening at the local level or the state level in their home states, they need to start fighting back, because there are fewer places to run to.