From a charred hulk, a new birth of freedom

Sometimes individual events occur that bring larger trends into stark perspective. The burning of Notre Dame Cathedral this week was one of those events.

Much has been written about the fall of Christianity in France, the decline of French culture, the Islamicization of Europe and the end of Western civilization as we have known it for centuries. The collapse of the spire over the iconic Parisian cathedral, as all the world watched, seemed to symbolize the worst that may be in store for our collective Western future, as many of the same phenomena can be seen on this side of the pond as well.

But something else entirely could be in the works. What we are witnessing may not be the end of Western civilization, but the beginning of its revitalization.

I predict the tragedy at Notre Dame, which belongs to all humanity not just to what is left of the French Republic, will mark the high tide of the forces of globalism and the “neoliberal” order that the European Union and its elites have attempted to force up on their people for decades.

In a little-reported development, the U.K.’s Brexit Party, recently formed by Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage, is now the front-runner in British polls for the European Parliament vote next month. That’s a devastating indictment of Britain’s Conservatives and their betrayal of the will of their voters. Whatever happens in the near term, in the long run the U.K. will escape the clutches of the unelected bureaucrats of Brussels, with their globalist, destructive mandates. The British people will demand it.

Across Europe, populist parties are feeling their oats. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz Party has just been forced out of the European People’s Party, which, similar to the establishment Republicans in the United States, has also not looked after the people’s best interests, preferring to focus on maintaining its hold on power by refusing to check vast waves of immigration from non-European sources. Expect big wins for Europe’s populists in Italy, Hungary and now France, after the disaster at Notre Dame, in the approaching European Parliamentary elections. After that, expect changes in the direction of European policy more in line with the needs of ordinary voters, rather than the “Brussels knows best” agenda of the continent’s globalist elites.

In America, the end of the Mueller saga dovetails very well with what is happening in Europe. The elitist media have been defeated; they just don’t know it yet. Those who tried to frame Mr. Trump and undermine his revolution will soon find themselves under the investigative microscope, and there’s nothing they can do to stop it.

Of course, congressional Democrats will try their best to keep the Russia-gate flame alive, but here’s betting that it will cost them at the polls in 2020. President Trump will be reelected by a landslide, with over 400 electoral votes. More Supreme Court and lower-court judges will be appointed, cementing a philosophy of rational and restrained jurisprudence on the bench for decades to come.

With their power grabs and vast overreach over the last decade, the globalists now see their plots being exposed. Their agenda has been pushed into the light and the people don’t like what they see.

Notre Dame may be a charred hulk, but the efforts of reconstruction were already underway when the sun rose the next day.

So it is in the world, as the globalists sound retreat: The Islamic State caliphate has been defeated.

Russia’s economy is in real trouble. China’s behavior is being called out and confronted. Iran has been throttled in its quest for regional hegemony.

These are the green shoots of the revitalization of the West, blooming with the new spring.

In his second term, Mr. Trump will consolidate and build upon his first-term successes. His critics will try to halt the inevitable pendulum shift. The left will scream, obstruct, perhaps even resort to violence to try to hold back the course of history.

But they will lose. Notre Dame will be rebuilt. Freedom will prevail.

• L. Todd Wood is a former special operations helicopter pilot and Wall Street debt trader, and has contributed to Fox Business, The Moscow Times, National Review, The New York Post and many other publications. He can be reached at LToddWood.com.