LONDON (AP) – The U.S. presidential campaign marching through South Carolina and Nevada seems like an all-American affair. But it holds familiar overtones to Europeans watching anxiously from abroad.
Donald Trump – his bombast distinctly American – sometimes takes a nationalist stance that sounds a lot like the “blame the immigrant” approach used by a growing cadre of European politicians.
On the left, meanwhile, Bernie Sanders espouses Scandinavian-style “democratic socialism.” That sounds radical to some American ears but has long been part of the political mainstream in Europe, where socialist governments come and go without particular fanfare.
The sentiment fueling the ascent of Trump and Sanders seems the same as the mood powering trends in Europe: a flat-out, let’s-make-a-change rejection of the political elite.