The Establishment is Banning Their Populist Opposition at the Ballot Box

The people will be heard—whether the ruling class approves or not.

If you can’t beat ‘em, ban ‘em!

Around the globe, there’s an alarming trend of parties in power attempting to block their political opponents from even appearing on the ballot.

In the States, we saw this with the repeated and aggressive lawfare against President Trump by the Biden administration and it’s flunkies. Several Democrat-led states tried to remove Trump from the ballot on dubious charges, only to back down under popular pressure. And who could forget partisan hacks like Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis?

The newest victim of this anti-democratic scheme is France’s Marine Le Pen, who was recently convicted of embezzling EU funds and slapped with two years in prison. More importantly, Le Pen is barred from running for public office for five years, a punishment immediately enforced even before she can appeal her sentence.

This conveniently bars Le Pen from the 2027 French presidential election, a clear indication that the establishment fears she could capitalize on popular discontent to win the presidency.

It is clear that deeply ingrained bureaucracies are pulling the levers of power pulled to prevent an insurgent populist from claiming power.

Le Pen has plenty of reason to believe the deck is stacked against her National Rally party. The party may have dominated last year’s legislative elections had Macron not allied with far-left forces to block them.

The trend continues across Europe. In Germany, authorities have repeatedly tried to curb the rise of the populist AfD. They’ve threatened to ban the party by linking it to extremist elements and branding it a Nazi successor.

And in Romania, the top court voided December’s election results after alleging that populist candidate Calin Georgescu received online backing from Russia. Weeks ago, Romanian officials banned another populist candidate, Diana Sosoaca, for making statements deemed “contrary to democratic values.”

Neither of the reasons officials gave to bar Georgescu or Sosoaca from the ballot pass the smell test. Russia may very well have supported Georgescu, but that isn’t illegal. And statements “contrary to democratic values?” Banning a candidate over words is a far greater threat to democracy than anything she could have said.

This isn’t to say that these candidates and parties are entirely blameless. It does appear that Le Pen violated election law, Georgescu may very well have Russian backing, and AfD does have extremist elements.

But once the establishment starts arbitrarily deciding who can and can’t run, democracy is dead.

In the case of Le Pen, other French politicians have also been accused and convicted of the same crime. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, François Fillon, François Bayrou hail from every side of the political spectrum hit with these allegations.

What makes Le Pen’s conviction seem suspiciously targeted is the highly unusual decision to enact electoral ban before the ink on the Le Pen’s appeal was dry.

Ironically, Le Pen’s ban will inevitably benefit her party as it plays perfectly into the narrative that the establishment scared of her and what the National Rally represents.

Case in point, President Trump’s campaign was bolstered by the repeated Democratic attempts to eliminate him through lawfare. Following the 34 felony convictions Democrats love to tout, Trump raised $53 million in just 24 hours.

And for all the wishcasting about how the fraud case would sink his campaign, the persecutions made him stronger.

The more the establishment suppresses populist outsiders, the more they validate the claim that the system is rigged against them. It’s a losing strategy that reinforces an uncomfortable truth: the establishment doesn’t trust voters to make the “right” choice and thus the “wrong” choice must be eliminated.

Romania couldn’t have an allegedly pro-Russian president, so elections must be cancelled. Evil Nazis can’t be allowed to govern Germany, so AfD must be banned. Populists in France threaten the established neoliberal order, so Marine Le Pen can’t run.

Fears that voters might make the "wrong" choice are so antithetical to democracy that if it becomes accepted practice to override popular will, we might as well pack the whole thing up.

Why even pretend? Democracy, it seems, is merely kabuki theater. Voters don’t determine their political fates; they’re pre-determined by faceless bureaucrats in the back.

Yet, I would caution our self-appointed betters against this course. History has a way of punishing elites who push too far. The more they rig the system, the greater the reckoning that follows.

The people will be heard—whether the ruling class approves or not.