The news media goes on and on about the rise of the far-right in Europe (for example: The hard right is going for Europe's jugular).

They aren't wrong. The far-right in Europe is on the rise while the center-left is on the decline, but the whole story is a lot complicated than that. For starters, it isn't just the center-left that is in decline.



A study conducted by Italy’s Istituto Cattaneo found that the parties of both of the centre-left and centre-right could both lose so many seats in next year’s contest that they would no longer have a majority together in the EU legislature.

...The Istituto Cattaneo study gathers data from polling across the continent and finds that the socialists will likely win 19.7%, down from 24.9% in the last elections in 2014. The centre-right European People’s Party group is on course for 25.1%, down from 32% – an even steeper fall, but from a higher base.

The decline of the neoliberal center-right is increasing.

Yesterday's big news came from Germany, and the misleading way it is being reported is why I'm writing this essay.



Chancellor Angela Merkel has been a seemingly invincible figure in German politics...The chancellor already had watched her power drain away for a year, ever since inconclusive national elections that left her trying to hold together the same tired and unwieldy governing coalition, as a far-right party entered Parliament for the first time to become the leading voice of the opposition.

This leaves you with the depressing impression that Germany is going from center-right rule to far-right rule. You would never know from reading this that the big winners from this month in Germany was the Green Party.



Internationally, most attention has focused on the xenophobic, far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which gained 12 percent of the vote and entered the state Parliament for the first time. But the environmentalist Greens made even more impressive gains, securing 19.5 percent of the vote. The results of the Hesse election are eerily similar to those of the Bavarian election that took place earlier this month. There too the two main parties flopped—to the benefit of the Greens and the AfD.

It was the leftist Green Party, not the far-right, that knocked the neoliberal centrist Merkel out of politics. What's more, the Green Party is polling second in Germany.

So the real story here is the rise of the Green Party in Germany, not the rise of a neo-nazi party. It makes you wonder why this almost never gets reported in America.

It isn't just Germany where the Greens are rising.



In the Netherlands, the GreenLeft party, which boosted its tally of MPs from four to 14 in general elections last year, has also advanced to second position in the polls since then, from 9% to nearly 13%.

Greens also did great in Belgium. In Iceland the prime minister is a Green.

Elsewhere in Europe the main opposition to the ruling neoliberal centrist isn't on the far-right, but is instead on the left.

In Britain the center-right Tories are foundering on Brexit. Despite an unprecedented news media assault, leftist Jeremy Corbyn will still defeat the likely Tory leader in an election.

In France, neoliberal centrist and globalist darling Macron is sinking fast in the polls.

While the news media talks endlessly about the far-right National Front, the French see the far-left Melenchon as being the primary opposition. Like Corbyn, the political elites hate Melenchon.

Finally, let's not overlook the Green Party USA. Despite being written off entirely by the news media, and demonized by the Democrats, the Green Party is growing in the U.S.



Party leaders say there are now over 255,000 registered Greens in the 21 states, plus the District of Columbia, that give voters the option to register with the party, an increase from 216,000 in July 2016. Their growth is due not just to the failure of Mr. Sanders campaign, but to what many Greens see as the success of Ms. Stein’s, which raised three times as much money, $3.4 million, and got over three times as many votes as she did in 2012. She appeared on the ballot in 45 states, the most ever for a Green nominee, and won over 1.4 million votes, or roughly one percent.

So why does the news media ignore this trend?