Mass Migration and Liberalism’s Fall

It’s been 10 years since Angela Merkel, as German chancellor, memorably declared “Wir schaffen das” — “We can do this” — in the face of the mass migration crisis sweeping Europe. Last week The Wall Street Journal reported, “For the first time, populist or far-right parties are leading the polls in the U.K., France and Germany.” Similar parties are already in power or in government in Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden, to say nothing of the United States.

To say the West’s turn to the anti-immigrant right was the predictable result of Merkel’s calamitous decision to open Germany’s borders does not mean there aren’t still lessons to be learned from it — not least by the world’s most clueless of all major political parties today, the Democratic Party.

Starting around 20 years ago, perhaps earlier, liberal democracy gained two half-siblings: postliberal democracy and preliberal democracy.