May Day in Paris

  Taking linear projections, the rise of candidates like Le Pen and Wilders has actually been astonishingly rapid. They have gone from less than 10 percent to over thirty percent or greater in just a few years. Given the normal inertia with which most people change their political attitudes, that's huge. If present trends continue for the next five or ten years, there is no doubt that such candidates will attain power. It's just too bad that Europe has to be brought to its knees before then, and may have terrible problems for years to come in any case.