First there was Brexit, then came Donald Trump. The Dutch general election is scheduled for March, the French presidential election in late April and early May. In September, the German establishment faces its voters. Expect more of the same. A politics of meaning is upstaging the politics of interests.
Analysts will sift through voting data – including the exit polls that showed that 52 per cent of Catholics voted for Trump – to explain his stunning victory. Many already fix on the economic distress caused by globalisation. Others speak about turnout among voters who are working class (to use that increasingly archaic and ill-suited term).
