And... we're back!

Greetings all. Following a dearth of posting in the past several weeks, we should be kicking things back into gear here within the month, with a return to frequent posting no later than the end of the month. Call it a summer break.

And speaking of summer, it seems that this summer of our American discontent has been made glorious (or at least more interesting) by a massive Rightward swing in Europe.

This was an inevitability. Europe had to shift politically, or cease existence entirely, but I admit I had assumed a relatively slow and painful process of the later.
And the mechanism by which the switch occurred is interesting as well.
With socialists and liberals proclaiming the ongoing financial disaster as proof that capitalism has failed, (rather like saying that a flu outbreak is proof that doctors are useless) many expected socialists to clinch their control over Europe. I was one of these, and assumed that failed socialist policies would lead most of Europe through a weakening decline until the Great Muslim Demographic shift came into play and transferred several EU member states into the Dar al-Islam.

Not yet, however. The article linked above describes the damage to the entrenched socialist power structures of Europe as follows:

Left-wing incumbents in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and of course Britain were either slaughtered, or badly mauled.

It also mentions that the comparatively right-wing incumbents of France and Italy did just fine.

As to the cause of this unexpected rout, further investigation would be worthwhile.

The article puts it down to two root causes:

It is not clear why a chunk of the blue-collar working base has swung almost overnight from Left to Right, but clearly we are seeing the delayed detonation of two political time-bombs: rising unemployment and the growth of immigrant enclaves that resist assimilation.

Ah yes, the immigrant enclaves. Much has been made in the US of a growing percentage of Latin Americans changing the balance of some political debates -abortion, for example, as Mexicans tend to be staunchly pro-life- and more of this will undoubtedly be seen as the demographics continue to shift. Less commonly, however, have I heard discussions of how Europe's demographic shift will affect politics there.
(Discussion of looming cultural shifts, yes; of political reorganizations, not so much.)

Could this be one of the first major rumblings of a new era in Europe?
Or is it instead merely the fallout from the global economic turmoil taking an unexpected route?

Time will tell. Meanwhile, though the left-leaning members of our government have long idolized Europe, something tells me this latest shift will go unadored...

-()4|<.