In a typical assessment of recent European elections, Katy O'Donnell writes in Politico that "nationalist parties now have a toehold everywhere from Italy to Finland, raising fears the continent is backpedaling toward the kinds of policies that led to catastrophe in the first half of the 20th century." Many Jews, like Menachem Margolin, head of the European Jewish Association, echo her fear, seeing "a very real threat from populist movements across Europe."
Of all countries, Austria and Germany naturally arouse the most concern, being the homelands of Nazism. The surging success of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) and the Alternative for Germany (AfD), with 26 and 13 percent of the vote, respectively, has made them both important political actors and horrified observers. Thus does Germany's foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, call the AfD "real Nazis." "A nightmare come true," says Charlotte Knobloch, the former president of Germany's Central Council of Jews.
Are they correct that we are slouching back to the 1930s? Or, to the contrary, might this insurgency indicate a healthy means for Europeans to protect their mores and culture? I shall argue the latter.