The Western world in general has been experiencing an ever-increasing divide between two distinct cultures. The first is primarily associated with the working class, it values national identity and cautious borders. It resists incorporation into larger identity blocs.
The second group is largely associated with the upper middle class, tied to academia and mainstream politics, and is transnational and encourages a global identity. These two groups are increasingly at odds, and double down on their perspectives when confronted with gains by the other.
The first group distrusts the second group as out-of-touch elites, and no longer trusts that politicians have its interests at heart.
The second group alienates the first group through its assumption - often quite openly and explicitly stated - that they, the second group, are smart, righteous and informed, with the first group viewed as ignorant, stupid, and lacking in ethical fiber.
This offends the first group (understandably), and what’s more overlooks the fact that many of the assumptions that form the second group’s worldview are not in fact objectively correct or more sensible, but are just as questionable as some of the first group’s assumptions.
The first group often does indeed have a core of unreasonable and erroneous assumptions. So does the second.
The attitude that one’s worldview has objective worth and the opposing culture’s doesn’t, that one’s opponents do not have legitimate or valid perspectives but rather can be dismissed as Simply Wrong, ignorant or immoral, fuels resentment and encourages greater protest vote among the working class (regardless of the tired left-right division, which is increasingly meaningless).
Hence Trump. Hence Brexit. And hence, I am sure, Le Pen.
