European Civil War? | View From The Danube #6

As Trump’s Tariffs bite, a whole new reality is about to come to the wider world. Yet at the same time, a sense of unreality is setting in, in Western Europe. There, a series of political elites are doubling down their speech repression, trying to put a stopper in an explosive tide of popular discontent. In Britain, the country is locked in a bizarre national debate over a fictional TV show that the political class claims contains real-world policy lessons. In France, Marine Le Pen has been banished at the waving of a judge’s gavel. In Germany, the fight to smother the AfD goes on in another Grand Coalition. How can Europe slip free of its dream state? Or will it continue to tumble – perhaps into the low-grade civil war recently predicted by King’s College War Studies professor David Baetz in a viral podcast appearance? In this episode, we’re joined by the British political scientist, author and commentator Professor Matthew Goodwin. Goodwin’s substack reaches 80 000 inboxes every week. He’s become renowned for his ability to predict populism’s next turn – and he has some bleak predictions for the future state of his own country. The View From The Danube is the keystone video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based think tank that aims to bring Conservative perspectives from the Anglosphere together, in the heart of the European capital of Conservativism. It stars Rod Dreher, author of The Benedict Option and Living in Wonder, a senior fellow at the Danube Institute, John O’Sullivan, former speechwriter to Margaret Thatcher, the founder and President of the Danube Institute, and Calum Nicholson, the Director of Research. This month, visiting fellow Gavin Haynes fills in for Calum. With regular guests, we’ll be looking at how Conservatism is changing in a world that is itself changing beyond recognition.