Trump Steers Right-Wing Summit on Populist Path Blazed in Europe
By Sahil Kapur
February 22, 2018, 4:00 AM EST
- Stars of U.K., French nationalist movements to address CPAC
- Annual gathering of conservatives often signals GOP direction
President Donald Trump has pushed the Republican Party toward a European-style populism that is amply evident in the line-up at an annual conference in Washington that long has reflected the pulse of the American right.
The list of speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference that opens Thursday includes two European nativists, Marion Marechal-Le Pen and Nigel Farage, who will address the gathering between panels and events on the dangers of immigration, Sharia law and “lawless” government agencies.
The presence of Marechal-Le Pen and Farage is an indicator of how Trump’s “America First” agenda parallels traditional European nationalism, said Benjamin Haddad, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute who studies European populism and transatlantic affairs.
“You do see a convergence with the Trump movement -- when it comes to closed borders, protectionism, the nativism and anti-immigration discourse, the focus on Islam,” Haddad said. “It’s what we’ve seen in European movements for years."
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-22/trump-steers-right-wing-summit-on-populist-path-blazed-in-europe
