Will nationalism be the big winner in 2016?

Washington

AGAINST the backdrop of the growing power of extremist political movements in Europe on the right (the UKIP in Britain and the National Front in France) and on the left (Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain), and the meteoric rise of Donald Trump (and Bernie Sanders) in the United States, it has become a political cliché of sorts to argue that "populism" was in ascendance in 2015. Carrying torches and pitchforks, the masses were arising and threatening the status quo and the power of the "elites".

Pundits suggested that widening social-economic inequalities were playing into the hands of politicians who were supposed to give voice to the fury of "the regular people" and who want to wield control over their government rather than having a small group of political insiders dominate Washington and Brussels.