Behold the Trump boomerang effect
By Fred Hiatt
Editorial page editor, 2000-2021
July 30,2017at 7:14 p.m. EDT
Did your head spin when Utah's Orrin Hatch, a true conservative and the Senate's longest-serving Republican, emerged last week as the most eloquent spokesman for transgender rights? Credit the Trump boomerang effect.
Much has been said about White House dysfunction and how little President Trump has accomplished in his first six months. But that's not the whole story: In Washington and around the world, in some surprising ways, things are happening — but they are precisely the opposite of what Trump wanted and predicted when he was sworn in.
The boomerang struck first in Europe. Following his election last November, and the British vote lastJuneto leave the European Union, anti-immigrant nationalists were poised to sweep to power across the continent. "In the wake of the electoral victories of the Brexit campaign and Donald Trump, right-wing populism in the rich world has appeared unstoppable," the Economist wrote. Russian President Vladimir Putin would gain allies, the European Union would fracture.
But European voters, sobered by the spectacle on view in Washington, moved the other way. In March, the Netherlands rejected an anti-immigrant party in favor of a mainstream, conservative coalition. In May, French voters spurned the Putin-loving, immigrant-bashing Marine Le Pen in favor of centrist Emmanuel Macron, who went on to win an overwhelming majority in Parliament and began trying to strengthen, not weaken, the E.U.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom Trump belittled for having allowed so many refugees into her country, has grown steadily more popular in advance of a September election. …
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