Astounding facts can be found here about the demographic transformation of Western Europe. An excerpt:

Between 2010 and today, in only 16 years, the number of foreign-born residents in Europe rocketed from 40million to more than 64million. In other words, Europe’s ruling class added 24million foreign-born residents in only 16 years, with nearly three-quarters coming from radically different cultures and nations.

It’s that last bit that’s of great import: “from radically different cultures and nations.” Not just “radically different,” either, but a significant number of the newcomers are also uninterested in assimilating to their new cultural surroundings and in some instances they hate them and actively wish to change them.

The US does – or used to do – somewhat better at assimilation, but Europe historically has been much less interested in that process. Perhaps that’s because European nations are more based on a shared physical (genetic) and historical heritage and less based on shared principles (or at least overtly stated shared principles rather than subtly understood ones), whereas the US has always been composed mostly of people “from away” who have come because they are interested in liberty and opportunity.

The advent of the welfare state, both in Europe and in the US, has diluted that motive.

More from the essay:

Between 2015 and 2024, Germany’s immigrant population exploded from 11million to more than 17million. In Spain, it surged from 5.9million to close to 10million.

As in the UK, immigration is now the only reason Europe’s population is growing. Why? Because Europe’s people are no longer reproducing themselves naturally. Europe has now recorded more deaths than births every single year since 2012, with Latvia, Bulgaria and Lithuania suffering the sharpest falls. …

These trends will only accelerate unless Europe finds a way of encouraging its native population to have more children, which looks unlikely. The average fertility rate across Europe has slumped to 1.34 children per woman, sharply down from 1.46 in 2004 and well below the ‘replacement rate’ of 2.1 at which a population is considered stable. Europe’s fertility rate today is now broadly the same as the rate in the UK, where it’s dropped to 1.39, and where 40 per cent of all children now have one or two foreign-born parents.

This is a worldwide phenomenon in developed countries, and I don’t believe there’s a country so far that has successfully reversed it to any degree once it gets going.

More:

Between 2010 and 2024, in just 14 years, the share of foreign-born people in Germany rocketed from 12.9 per cent to 21 per cent. In Austria, it is 22 per cent. In Ireland, it is 23 per cent. In Sweden, it is 21 per cent. In the UK, thanks to the ‘Boriswave’, it is 20 per cent. In Spain, it’s 19 per cent. These are all record highs and point to a continent that’s being transformed in terms of both its demography and culture.

In Vienna, for instance, 42 per cent of all pupils at state schools are Muslim, while in Berlin, Hamburg, and other parts of Germany more than half of all school pupils are migrants or the children of migrants (like parts of the UK).

What was that Siege of Vienna thing about, so long ago?

It’s no wonder that politicians in such places cater to the newcomers, and elections reflect the opinions of the newcomers. For example, Mamdani’s election in New York is said to have been at least in part the result of the demographics of a city in which, according to Google AI (citing this report):

While the foreign-born population accounts for nearly 38% of New York City’s overall residents (including non-citizens), foreign-born naturalized citizens make up about 25% to 30% of the city’s eligible electorate.

More from this article:

… Europe’s ruling class has clearly decided that mass immigration is no longer just a temporary policy: it is now permanent. In effect, Europe, like other Western nations, is using large-scale immigration to compensate for the demographic collapse of its native population.

And millions of ordinary Europeans can now sense and see what this means. Entire cities set to be transformed within just one generation. A growing gulf between metropolitan elites in the rapidly diversifying cities and ordinary Europeans who live outside them. A growing sense among millions of voters that they were never properly consulted about any of these changes. And a creeping awareness that migration is not just adding to Europe’s population but is replacing it, too.

The awareness isn’t so creeping anymore. And the disdain of the “elite” rulers in Europe for the native population – especially in Britain, or maybe Britain is just the place I hear about more often – is obvious and blatant.

I think the article leaves out something I think is also operating: the virtue-signaling motive on the part of those in charge in Europe. It’s certainly not the only motive, but it’s part of it. The idea that the masses who object to their countries being transformed are racist bigots whose objections are invalid and who must be policed for those objections, and silenced harshly if necessary, is quite rampant among the government officials in Europe. The gulf is wide and the condescension is palpable.

We are a bit behind Europe in these trends, but they are present here as well. And it is quite certain the trends will accelerate if the Democrats get back into power.