The Year of the Outsider

In a Denver Post guest editorial last January, I asked:

“Are Western democracies facing an existential crisis? Around the globe, anger and frustration are fueling what may be another historic challenge to political and party establishments.

Nowhere is this more evident than on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign trail, where political outsiders are riding a wave of voter discontent. These candidates, with little or no political experience, are often discounted as “unelectable.” But in this election cycle, voters seem more interested in an opportunity to vent than the traditional calculus of electability.”

The crises for the EU and the Western Alliance appear life-threatening and the struggle of survival is not going well for the advocates of the liberal Democratic ideal.

David Cameron is gone; Matteo Renzi just defeated; Francois Hollande dropped out; and Barack Obama’s term is up and legacy, including globalism, is slipping away. Only Angela Merkel is left to defend the alliance, and her hold has been weakened.

If 2016 was the year of the outsider, 2017 is the year of revolt. And populism is now the dominant theme.