From 'Brexit' To Trump, Nationalist Movements Gain Momentum Around World

Yascha Mounk was quoted in NPR about the Brexit vote and nationalism:

And while Scotland itself voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union, Trump is right. Right-wing nationalist movements, fueled by anger toward political elites and mistrust of immigration — and primarily backed by white voters — are gaining more and more momentum on the continent.

"This is not a unique phenomenon to the United States, and 2016 is not a short moment that will pass," says Yascha Mounk, who teaches political theory at Harvard University and has studied the rise of nationalist movements. "This is a real populist turn that has been happening for the last 15 or 20 years."

In recent decades, nationalist movements have shifted from vocal minorities to powerful parties that gained control of governments in places like Hungary, have lost national elections by the slimmest of margins in countries like Austria, and, this week, forced the United Kingdom out of the European Union.

Mounk pegs economic stagnation among lower- and middle-class whites as a main driver for nationalism's rise around the globe. "You have a socially descending middle class that hasn't had real gains in the standard of living in 30 years," he said. "And at the same time, you seem to have real improvements in social status, if not necessarily economic status, for ethnic minorities. So they feel like our country is being taken away."