Cross posted at The Word Smiths.
While it remains to be seen how any of this will affect U.S. foreign relations, over the past couple of years, I have noticed an alarming trend in worldwide elections: the right is on the rise.
The biggest story on the world stage this weekend was the French presidential elections on Sunday, with the right-leaning candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, defeating the Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal. However, those weren't the only elections this past week.
In Great Britain, local mid-term elections were held on Thursday, with the Conservative party the big winner over the current majority Labour party, and of even greater note, the Scottish National Party winning a majority in the young Scottish Parliament for the first time, unseating the Labour party.
In 2005, despite not winning a majority in German federal elections, Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party came to lead a coalition bringing Gerhard Schroder's Social Democratic Party's rule to an end, and relegating them to a supporting member of the governing coalition.
In 2006, despite, once again, no majority, Stephen Harper's Conservative party unseated a scandal-plagued Liberal Party in Canadian federal elections.
And later in 2006, Mexico elected Felipe Calderón Hinojosa from the National Action Party over the leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of Democratic Revolution.
The UK, France, Germany, and our neighbors to both the north and the south. This isn't just a coincidence. The right is on the rise.