Europe’s right “has been fighting this battle for a long time”
Portugal’s right wing party leader, André Ventura, has welcomed the arrival of Donald Trump into the United States presidency, particularly citing his executive order, signed within hours of his taking office, to recognise only two sexes.
In doing so, the gender ideology debate (at least in America) has been given a smart slapping down – something Ventura, and other European parties of the right, have been calling for for years.
While Portugal’s president Marcelo urged the world “not to resign” on the day of Trump’s inauguration – calling for peace, climate action, dialogue and multilateralism – the truth is that much of Mr Trump’s speech appears to have been lapped up by the wider world.
As a column in the Telegraph remarked: “Smug liberals don’t get it: Trump is on the side of the people”.
With so many decisions already made that release people from draconian ideology (“America is free from the electric car nightmare. In Europe it is just beginning” – another column in the Telegraph last night), the reality is that Trump’s message is falling on fertile ground.
In Europe, there is now the MEGA movement (Make Europe Great Again), which includes Portugal’s CHEGA (even though it rarely gets a mention). The big names are Hungary’s president Viktor Orbán, the UK’s Nigel Farage/ Reform Party, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and France’s ultra-nationalist Éric Zemmour. Poland, Belgium and Germany’s far-right parties are all aligned. Indeed, Orbán has said that the new US president, and the EU’s right wing, are now poised to dominate politics in future…
With this impetus, it is little wonder that André Ventura has registered his delight from Washington, where he attended Donald Trump’s inauguration yesterday.
“I would like to highlight two things which I think really touched the (…) European right that is here with me: the economic issue, a free economy, an economy without bureaucracy, without the weight that socialism generally places on the economy; and the issue of gender ideology (…) I think that Donald Trump saying that there are two genders, male and female, may not be a relevant issue for many people, or for a significant part of the working middle class, but today we know that there is a civilizational struggle over gender ideology in schools. And I think that Donald Trump promised to end this gender ideology today, clearly, from Washington (…) By saying that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, is stating the obvious, but he is saying that he will align himself with the European right. It is important to say this, because the European right has been fighting this battle for a long time (…) to ensure that gender ideology is swept from schools”, said Ventura, who will no doubt be returning to Portugal with a renewed spring to his step.
The country’s head of state meantime has interpreted events in Washington very differently, saying: “There are times like this, when the rule seems not to be in the direction of real peace, true peace, but peace that pretends to be, seems to be, but isn’t (…) There are times like this, but let’s not allow ourselves to succumb to them,” he appealed, referring to the need for respect of human rights, international law, humanitarian law, climate action, and “multilateralism alongside bilateralism”.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
