Catalonia, Austria, America -- Citizens Taking Back Governments from Elites and Opposing Illegal Immigration

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THE SEA CHANGE TAKING PLACE IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. Americans tend to look at their current political upheavals as one-of-a-kind turmoil. It isn't so. Spain and Austria -- as well as Great Britain -- are undergoing the same political upheaval. It's all about citizens taking back control of their governments and their destiny. • • • CATALONIA VOTES FOR INDEPENDENCE. On Friday, Catalonia’s regional parliament declared its independence from Spain in a disputed vote, triggering the central Spanish government to activate its direct rule over the region. Fox News called it "an acrimonious vote," as separatist lawmakers approved a motion saying they are establishing an independent Catalan Republic with 70 votes in favor to 10 against; with two blank ballots. After the vote, Catalan President Carles Puigdemont said : "Today our legitimate parliament....fulfilled the long-desired and fought-for step...in the days ahead we must keep to our values of pacifism and dignity. It's in our, in your hands, to build the republic.” But, in Madrid, a Senate majority gave Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy the go-ahead to apply unprecedented constitutional measures, including firing Puigdemont and his Cabinet and curtailing Catalan parliamentary powers. Rajoy said what happened in Catalonia was “proof” that invoking Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution that gives the central government the power to rule the affairs of Spain's semi-autonomous regions was “necessary.” Rajoy called the parliament’s independence vote “illegal” and a “delinquent act.” The Catalan motion calls for beginning an independence process that includes drafting Catalonia's new top laws and opening negotiations "on equal footing" with Spanish authorities to establish cooperation. It was boycotted by opposition lawmakers who left the Catalonia parliament in protest. Outside, an estimated hundred thousand pro-independence Catalans cheered as the results were announced. Rajoy called for “tranquility” in the Catalan region and promised “the rule of law will restore legality.” • As we might expect, no country has expressed support for the secession bid. The US State Department said Friday it stands in support of Spain's government in its efforts to stop Catalonia's independence bid : "Catalonia is an integral part of Spain, and the United States supports the Spanish government's constitutional measures to keep Spain strong and united." European Council President Donald Tusk said it would continue to only deal with Spain : “For the EU nothing changes. Spain remains our only interlocutor. I hope the Spanish government favors force of argument, not argument of force.” • Spain's prosecutor's office said the prosecutor would seek rebellion charges for those responsible for the Catalan independence vote, after determining if only the Catalan cabinet, including Puigdemont and Junqueras, will be charged, or if the target that would also include members of the parliament's governing board and lawmakers. He said the charges could be brought as early as Monday. Under Spanish criminal law, rebellion can be punished by up to 25 years in prison, with shorter penalties if the rebellion doesn't lead to violence. Late on Friday, the Catalan police chief was "dismissed' by Madrid. It will be the first time in 40 years of democratic rule that the Madrid-based national government will directly run the affairs of one of Spain's 17 semi-autonomous regions, a move that will likely fan the flames of the Catalan revolt. Polls show its 7.5 million inhabitants are roughly evenly divided over independence. • • • BRIEF HISTORY OF CATALONIA. The region has been in existence since pre-Roman times as an independent entity often attacked and occupied by other Iberian regions, and later by the Castilian Spanish kingdom. The Catalan language is not a dialect of Spanish, but a language that developed independently out of the vulgate Latin spoken by the Romans who colonized the Tarragona area. It is spoken by 9 million people in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Isles, Andorra and the town of Alghero in Sardinia. In the 12th century, the region was brought under the neighbouring kingdom of Aragon, going on to become a major medieval sea power. • Catalonia has been part of "Spain" since its beginning in the 15th century, when King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile married and united their realms. Catalonia has played an important role in the history of the Iberian Peninsula. The Principality of Catalonia saw a prosperous period at the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th. The population increased and Catalan culture expanded into the islands of the Western Mediterranean, including the conquest of Sicily and Menorca, the successful defense against a French crusade and the conquest of Sardinia. Catalonia was the center of the flourishing Aragonese empire. The Principality of Catalonia developed a complex institutional and political system based in the concept of a pact between the three estates of the realm and the king, creating one of the first parliamentary bodies of Europe that banned the royal power to create legislation unilaterally, since 1283, and created a tist of rights for citizens of the Principality. In order to collect general taxes, the Courts of 1359 established a permanent representation of deputies, later known as Generalitat -- the government -- which gained important political power in the next centuries. The fate of Catalonia was tied to the struggles of the 16th to 18th centuries among the French, British and Habsburgs, with Catalan independence being recognized and refused depending on the current occupants of the region. From the 17th century, it was the center of a separatist movement that sometimes dominated Spanish affairs. Catalans have never abandoned their ancient sense of being a cohesive cultural and political entity demanding its rights as an independent people. • It was the Catalans under the Generalitat who fought fiercely against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. The Aragon front resisted firmly until 1938, when Franco's troops fnally isolated Catalonia from the rest of republican Spain. The defeat of the Republican armies in the Battle of the Ebro led in 1938 and 1939 to the occupation of Catalonia by Franco's forces. As in the rest of Spain, the Franco era (1939–1975) in Catalonia saw the annulment of democratic liberties, the prohibition and persecution of parties, the rise of thoroughgoing censorship, and the banning of all leftist, i.e., populist, institutions. In Catalonia it also meant, yet again, the annulment of the Statute of Autonomy, that is, the banning of all specifically Catalan institutions. During the first Franco years, all resistance was suppressed, prisons filled up with political prisoners, and thousands of Catalans went into exile. In addition, 4,000 Catalans were executed between 1938 and 1953, among them the former president of the Generalitat Lluís Companys. It was only 40 years later, after Franco's death (1975) and the adoption of a democratic constitution in Spain (1978), that Catalonia recovered its autonomy and reconstituted the Generalitat (1977). • George Orwell served in Catalonia from December 1936 until June 1937. His memoir of that time, Homage to Catalonia, was first published in 1938 and remains one of the most widely read books on the Spanish Civil War. • The dictator Franco banned the Catalan language from public spaces and made Spanish the sole language of public life. For 40 years under the dictatorship, Spain tried to present itself as an ethnically and politically homogeneous state. After an initial period in which Franco tried to build an isolated economic independence without exterior contact, Franco's regime changed its economic policies and in the 1960s and early 1970s the economy rapidly expanded in what became known as the Spanish Miracle -- with agricultural modernization, a massive expansion of industry and the start of mass tourism. Workers migrated from rural areas across Spain to work in Barcelona and its surrounding area, turning it into one of Europe's largest industrial metropolitan areas. • In the 1970s, democratic forces united under the banner of the Assemblea de Catalunya. Democracy was again restored by the Generalitat. This was aided by the fact that Franco's death in 1075 initiated a period known as the "democratic transition," during which democratic liberties were restored, culminating in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 that recognized the existence of multiple national communities within the Spanish State, which proposed the division of the country into autonomous communities. The first general elections in 1977 restored a provisional Generalitat. • In 1979, the new Statute of Autonomy was finally approved delegating more autonomy in matters of education and culture than the republican 1932 Statute, but less in terms of the systems of justice and public order. In it, Catalonia is defined as a "nationality," Catalan is recognized as Catalonia's own language, and became co-official with Spanish. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the institutions of Catalan autonomy continued to develop, among them an autonomous police force (called Mossos d'Esquadra), the creation of the comarcal administrations (roughly equivalent to United States "counties" or United Kingdom "shires" or "counties", but distinct from the historical Catalan counties) and a High Court in the form of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia. Catalonia's Law of Linguistic Normalization promoted Catalan-language media. The Catalan government provides subsidies to various means of promoting Catalan culture, including the making of Catalan-language films or the subtitling of foreign-language films in Catalan. • • • TODAY'S CATALAN FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE. Beginning in the 1990s, the absence of absolute majorities in the Spanish parliament made the government rely on support from various nationalist parties, such as the Catalans, Basques, and the Canary Islands. In 2003 and 2006, elections to the Catalan Generalitat finally produced a stable coalition that enacted the new Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, approved after a referendum. It was contested, sending the law to the Constitutional Court of Spain which, in 2010, decided to declare invalid some of the articles that established an autonomous Catalan system of Justice, aspects of financing, the status of the Catalan language or the references of Catalonia as a nation. On 10 July 2010, a successful demonstration started a process of organization to win the right of self-determination. During the National Day of Catalonia, on 11 September 2012, a massive demonstration in the streets of Barcelona organized by the group called the Catalan National Assembly demanded independence and a referendum. On 23 January 2013, parliament approved a Declaration on the Sovereignty and right to decide of the people of Catalonia asserting that Catalonia is a sovereign entity and called for a referendum on independence. On 9 November 2014 the Government of Catalonia organized the independence referendum, in which 1.6 million out of potential 5.4 million voters or 70.8% of the 2.25 million cast votes supported independence. On 9 November 2015, parliament approved a Declaration to start the independence process of Catalonia, asserting the start of the process to create an independent Catalan state in the form of a republic. • • • CATALONIA DECLARES INDEPENDENCE. The independence motion was passed on October 27, 2017 -- last Friday. Spain is worried not just for reasones of political unity -- 16% of Spain's population live in Catalonia, and these people produce 25.6% of Spain's exports, 19% of Spain's GDP, and 20.7% of foreign investment. The Spanish central government doesn't want to lose Catalonia. • Hours after the Catalan declaration of independence, the Spanish Senate invoked Art 155 of the Spanish constitution and authorized Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government to impose direct rule over Catalonia. Rajoy dissolved the Catalan parliament and dismissed Catalonia's regional government, including its leader, Carles Puigdemont, and called a snap election in the region for December 21, 2017. Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria was chosen to take the position of President of Catalonia after the activation of Article 155. Santamaria was ginen total control over the Catalan administration in addition to being appointed president. Josep Lluis Trapero was also relieved of his duty as chief of the Catalan police force. But Catalans are fiercely protective of the region's high degree of autonomy, such as direct control over education, healthcare and the police. Inside Mossos 'Esquadra, a group of Catalonia's police force favoring independence has already said its members will not follow instructions from the Spanish central government and will not use force to remove ministers and legislators from power. On Sunday, up to a half million Catalans, representing the 50% of Catalonia that rejects the idea of independence, marched in Barcelona in favor of remaining part of Spain, but nothing is resolved as yet about the Catalan declaration of independence. • When we see reports of huge marches for independence for Catalonia in the streets of Barcelona, we should not automatically think of this as just another group dissatisfied with the European Union or the Spanish government. It is the voice of the more-than-thousand-year-old political will of a culture and society determined to remain free and independent. What makes 2017's Catalan independence movement different is that it the most obvious reflection of the growing determination of peoples bound by culture and language and governmental systems all over Europe to be free to pursue their destiny without outside interference. • • • AUSTRIA IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE POWER OF CULTURE. American Thinker published an article Last Thursday about the current political situation in Austria. In it, Michael Curtis wrote : "Public opinion surveys suggest a decline in the participation of young citizens in democratic countries, and the young are generally less active in politics. Nevertheless, the young at heart...have emerged in a number of countries : Emmanuel Macron is President of France at 39, and Justine Trudeau is prime minister of Canada at 45. Similarly, in Europe, Matteo Renzi ("the scrapper") became prime minister of Italy in 2014 at age 39, Taavi Roivas prime minister of Estonia in 2014 at age 35, and now Sebastian Kurz is likely to become chancellor (prime minister) of Austria at 31....they are symbolic figures in two ways : one is that they exemplify dissatisfaction with the older political status quo; secondly, they also probably are more familiar than are older generations in their grasp of modern instrumentalities, digital and social media and ability to connect these abilities with voters." • • • A SHORT HISTORY OF AUSTRIA. Like much of Europe, including Catalonia, there has been continuous habitation in Vienna since 500 BC, when the site of Vienna on the Danube River was settled by the Celts. In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the frontier city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north. When the Babenbergs, a Bavarian noble family, received the administration of the region in 976, Austria was still sparsely populated. The Babenbergs expanded their power, and with skillful marriages they became one of the empire’s leading families. In 1156, Austria was elevated to the status of a duchy and was granted important privileges. The Babenberg died out in the mid-13th century, after acquiring significantly expanded territory, and the Habsburgs, whose origins lay in Swabia -- the region of Germany around Stuttgart -- were enfeoffed with the Duchy of Austria in 1282. They expanded, acquiring the duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Tyrol through contracts of succession and adding Gorizia and Istria (with Trieste) to the areas under their control. Duke Albert V married the daughter of Emperor Sigismund, becoming the first Habsburg to wear the imperial Holy Roman crown, following the death of his father-in-law in 1437. The House of Habsburg also used skilful marriages to expand its territory, adding Burgundy and the Netherlands, ruling Spain, and acquiring Bohemia and Hungary in 1526. • The 16th and 17th centuries were marked by conflict with the Moslem Ottoman Empire, whose vast armies advanced through Austria and were beaten off at the gates of Vienna twice. Having successfully pushed back the Ottoman expansion, Austria acquired additional territories, emerging as a great European power. In the second half of the 18th century, Empress Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II introduced sweeping reforms that provided the basis for a modern administrative government. The changes brought about in Europe by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1806, the Austiran Emperor renounced the Roman imperial crown. • Austria, historically considered Germans because it had been part of the Holy Roman Empire dating back to Charlemagne, was expelled from the German confederation by the Prussians after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. In 1867, Emperor Francis Joseph approved the creation of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary (1867-1918), which collapsed after World War I because of the drive for independence among its numerous nationalities. As the surviving state of the Dual Monarchy, Austria was proclaimed a republic in 1918, but the small nation fell prey to the aggression of Hitler’s Germany. Until the signing of the Austrian State Treaty in 1955, the independent Republic of Austria, which had been set up in 1945 with the help of the Allied Forces, remained occupied by the four great powers -- France, Great Britain, the USSR and the US. In 1955, the Austrian Parliament passed a constitutional law to guarantee permanent Austrian neutrality, and in the same year the country became a member of the United Nations. Austria has become a valued and important member of the EU, which it joined on January 1, 1995. • • • THE RISE OF SEBASTIAN KURZ. In the American Thinker article, Michael Curtis says the rapid rise of Sebastian Kurz is surprising : "That rise has led him to be nicknamed wunderwuzzi (whizkid), and his star rose partly because of his telegenic appearance with open collar and swept back mane of brown hair. He began in politics as a youngster aged 10, became member of parliament and immigration minister in 2013, and foreign minister in 2014 at age 27, surpassing the record of the renowned Metternich, who became foreign minister of the Austrian empire in 1809 at age 36. Now, Kurz is likely to be the youngest head of government in the world. Kurz took the leadership of his political party, the Austrian People's Party (OVP), in May 2017, and vowed to transform it into a broad movement." The OVP has attracted 200,000 new supporters -- Kurz has succeeded. In the parliamentary election on October 15, 2017, the Kuzr OVP, a conservative right of center party, came first with 31.4% of the vote, the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) got 26%, and the Social Democrats (SPO) got 26.9% -- a combined center-right vote of 58%. The decisive issue in the 2017 election was anti-immigration and anti-Islamization. • Austria, with a population of under 9 million, took in 100,000 Middle East asylum seekers, and has taken 17,000 in six months of 2017. Curtis says : "The argument is probably true that Kurz's party did well because he stole the program of the Freedom Party: anti-immigrant; tough on crime, border security, ban on Moslems....He held an open borders policy is wrong -- anyone who attempts to enter Europe illegally will not be granted asylum in Austria; Europe should only be taking people in through resettlement programs, and should boost assistance in the countries of origin of the migrants; boats should be prevented from leaving Libya to enter Europe through Italy....Kurz is equally critical of Islamic behavior. He has called for a ban on the full face veil, proposed paying salaries of imams, and regulating the version of the Koran that may be used in Austria." And, Kurz has expressed zero tolerance for anti-Semitism. Curtis says that : "Kurz is not Angela Merkel's lapdog. He claims he wants to be a bridge between east and west, to be pro-European, agreeing with some of EU policies, but not on a close social union or immigration. On the contrary, he believes that on some issues nation states can make better decisions than can the EU." • • • THE EUROPEAN UNION VS. CULTURAL INTEGRITY. There is a similarity between Austria and Catalonia. Both want to be part of Europe but not absorbed and erased by it. Both are rich -- Austria has the fourth highest GDP per capita in the EU, and Catalonia is a rich part of Spain. Both are seeking accommodation. Spain seems rigidly opposed to even talking to the Catalans, while Austria has the advantage of being a recognized nation with the undeniable right to elect its own govenrment. Kurz will form a center- right coalition government -- leading an Austrian moving toward more cultural and political independence of thought and action -- especially vis-à-vis the fundamental issues of minimizing or ending migration, deportation of asylum seekers whose request is denied, and opposition to radical Islam. • Austria, says Curtis, may now "join the Visegrad group of four countries -- the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia...all opposed to the refugee quotas that Brussels wants to introduce....In recent years, both moderates and extremists, whether in the Netherlands, France, or Germany, have had successes and failures. But all are aware of the problem of immigration whether it is a call for a ban on foreign funding of mosques, a ban on burkas and on the Moslem call to prayer, or preventing the entrance of Middle East Moslems. President Donald Trump will be interested in how the Austrian center right deals with the issue." • • • AMERICA HAS SIMILAR POLITICAL ISSUES. In the Trump vs. ProgDem poker game, Donald Trump has 'called' the Progressive hand -- Trump's 'poker hand' is strong and the ProgDems are in disarray. • A good example is Jerry Falwell, Jr., the president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, who is one of the most influential leaders in the American evangelical Christian community. Falwell is calling for evangelicals everywhere to stand with Steve Bannon against the “fake Republicans” in the Washington DC Swamp. Bannon is leading what he calls a “season of war” against the political class in Washington that has already seen at least three anti-Trump establishment Republicans fall. Appointed GOP incumbent Senator Luther Strange of Alabama lost his primary runoff to conservative Judge Roy Moore in Alabama in September, and on the same day Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee announced his retirement at the end of this term. Then, on Tuesday of last week, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona announced he would resign after it was clear he would not win the primary in Arizona. More establishment Republicans standing in the way of Trump’s agenda are expected to fall by the wayside the next year in the upcoming midterm elections. AND, Falwell, in an exclusive Breitbart interview last week, backed Bannon 100%. Falwell called on evangelical voters to band together nationwide -- just like they did behind Trump -- and stand for voting out the “Fake Republicans....Then in the last few years of Trump’s presidency we can turn this country around.” Falwell also said that while the vast majority of the media is destroying its credibility over the course of this administration, people across the country are waking up to the mass deception from Washington -- even in America’s strongly Democrat inner cities. When asked if the new message walking into 2018 is “Make the Republican Party Great Again,” just like the 2016 message was “Make America Great Again,” Falwell said : “Exactly.” • • • MITCH McCONNELL DOESN'T AGREE WITH FALWELL. Fox Halftime Report reported last week that the McConnell-tied Super PAC comes out swinging against Ward, quoting TheHill : “A Republican super PAC with ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday took a shot at former Arizona state Senator Kelli Ward, arguing that she will not be the Republican nominee in the wake of Senator Jeff Flake’s decision to not run for reelection....‘Senator Jeff Flake will be remembered for a distinguished and impactful career in Congress, as well as his independent streak and genial manner,’ Senate Leadership Fund president Steven Law said in a statement. ‘The one political upshot of Senator Flake’s decision today is that Steve Bannon’s hand-picked candidate, conspiracy-theorist Kelli Ward, will not be the Republican nominee for this Senate seat in 2018.’ ” • McConnell’s allies will reportedly spend millions to attack Bannon in order to protect McConnell’s establishment Republicans, says Breitbart : "McConnell recently said that winners make policy and losers go home. And his allies are apparently panicking that McConnell’s allies are the ones who are actually going home." As Breitbart News pointed out, while he was promoting his book to the media elites, Senator Flake “blasted pro-Trump Republicans for being “xenophobic” and their “nativism.” He also “criticized Republicans for embracing the ‘unfamiliar banner’ of ‘populism’ and combating illegal mmigration.” He even maligned Trump’s voters as xenophobic. Senator Corker, who trashed Trump’s fitness to be President only after Trump did not pick him to be his vice president or secretary of state, has also announced that he will not seek re-election to avoid losing ignominiously his own primary. Breitbart said : "Corker saw the writing on the wall just before conservative grassroots candidate Judge Roy Moore thumped DC establishment Senator Luther Strange in the Alabama GOP Senate runoff even though the same group associated with McConnell that is budgeting millions to attack Bannon spent at least $10 million to trash Moore." Speaking at a rally for conservative Arizona Senate candidate Kelli Ward two weeks ago, Bannon said the permanent political class in DC that McConnell embodies hates working-class voters because the establishment has a “business model that works for them -- the consultant, lobbyist, donor, corporatist, and politician class. They’re afraid of you. You are an existential threat to their business model.” McConnell’s allies now apparently see Bannon as the “existential threat” to their business model, especially since there are only so many GOP useful idiots that networks like MSNBC and CNN can use. • • • NEVADA SET TO SWITCH TO TRUMP. Danny Tarkanian, the anti-establishment conservative challenging anti-Trump establishment Senator Dean Heller in Nevada’s primary, has solidified his lead over Heller in a new poll from JMC Analytics released last Friday. The poll of 500 likely Republican primary voters in Nevada conducted from October 24 to October 26 shows Tarkanian leading Heller by six percent, outside the survey’s margin of error. Tarkanian, at 44%, is towering over Heller, who is down to just 38%. For a sitting Senator to be polling under 40% in his own primary this far out from next summer’s primary "is a horrendous sign for Heller, and another cause for worry for the GOP establishment in Washington which has been dealt a series of stinging defeats in recent weeks," say Breitbart. Tarkanian’s six-point lead is outside the poll’s 4.4 percent margin of error, and is the second survey in recent weeks showing Tarkanian leading Heller -- the other one from JMC Analytics shows the same thing, a Tarkanian lead. • Further, a full 86% of those surveyed are more likely to support a GOP candidate for the US Senate who backs President Trump’s agenda -- 70% are much more likely and 16% somewhat more likely. Only 11% are either somewhat or much less likely to back a GOP senate candidate who supports Trump’s agenda. With Heller underwater, conservative pro-Trump forces are moving in on Nevada and looking at states like Wyoming, Utah, and Mississippi. Heller’s 2013 vote for the “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill makes him anathema to most Republicans, who despise those who voted for the bill that would have legalized every illegal alien in America. President Trump ran hard against the amnesty bill in 2015 and 2016, defeating many of its supporters including Senator Marco Rubio and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush -- establishment politicians who otherwise might would have had a better chance of winning in 2016. Now, support for amnesty for illegal aliens -- and opposition to President Trump’s America First agenda -- endangers politicians like Heller and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who also voted for the 2013 amnesty bill. • The McConnell-tied Senate Leadership Fund team is in the Nevada battle to try to protect Heller, and they sent out fake news about Bannon, falsely accusuing Bannon of being a white supremacist. But, the attacks are unlikely to be successful, as failed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton learned the hard way when she ran the same losing playbook that McConnell is running now. However, McConnell is desperate to protect Heller because Tarkanian has promised to vote against McConnell remaining as Senate Majority Leader. Heller refuses to say whether he supports McConnell as Senate Majority Leader. It remains to be seen if Heller will also throw in the towel and give up before a risky, expensive, and likely-to-be-unsuccessful 2018 campaign. • As in Europe, the driving principles behind Trump's support by a majority of Americans is tied to his belief that immigration must be controlled and used for the benefit of the United States, and that the elites have ruined the country and must be tossed out. • • • DEAR READERS, the Republican Party now has a new leader -- President Donald Trump. Establishment Republicans in the Washington Swamp are clinging to their leadership roles, but 2018 must be the real turnaround -- when President Trump and his MAGA Republicans take over Congress in sufficient numbers to pass the entire Trump agenda -- from the Wall to repeal-and-replace of Obmacare to immigration reform based on merit to true tax reform instead of patchwork dabbling. • Catalonia -- Austria -- America. Three nations whose citizens are determined to put democracy back on track, giving voters the chance to turn around elitist government by establishment politicians who have little love for ordinary voters or or their concerns. And, the anti-establishment candidates able to lead the turnaround are in place and making progress. • The battle is on for the future of Europe and America.