The Continental Divide

LONDON, Sept. 20, 2006 — -- What is going on between the United States and Europe?

Are they drifting apart? Well, yeah.

It used to be that the land below the table supporting your computer was part of Europe.

If you look at a world map, and think about geology, you know that Europe is moving away from America at a steady pace, at about the same rate that your fingernails are growing.

That may be only a few inches a year, but a few million years here, a few million years there, and before you know it, there's a rift.

Now, some people believe they sense temblors in the continental political plates, which could cause a new diplomatic rift between Europe and the United States.

Politics' seismic needles have been twitching after several developments.

In recent German elections, the far-right National Democratic Party, known by its German initials NPD, won 7.3 percent of the vote in the northeastern region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, entitling it to six seats in the local legislature.

The NPD has made no secret of its harsh anti-foreigner stance, and has praised Nazi-era economic and education policies.

Widespread unemployment and resentment of cheap immigrant labor were cited as important factors.

Sweden, that bastion of socialism, has just slid a bit to the right, as well.

A center-right coalition beat the left-leaning Social Democrats in elections, and the coalition did it by campaigning on pledges to fine-tune Sweden's cherished welfare state by lowering taxes, trimming unemployment benefits, and selling off state assets in big companies.

In France today, far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen launched his 2007 presidential campaign on a historic French battleground, urging people of all colors and origins to rally to his anti-immigration flag.

Le Pen shocked France by finishing second to President Jacques Chirac in the 2002 election, and is confident of repeating the upset in next year's poll, thanks to widespread discontent with France's mainstream political parties.

We'll see.

Le Pen may not be the big quake that shakes France into the far right, but he is showing some amazing gravitational pull.