How long until the streets of Europe echo to the tramp of jackboots?

It's a trick question.  It's happening now:

More than 100 members of far-right group the English Defence League gathered near the scene of the suspected terrorist attack last night.
Many were draped in St George’s flags and wore black balaclavas with the EDL logo on.
Riot police holding shields formed a cordon around the area as the EDL members waved flags and chanted 'no surrender to the Muslim scum', ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘England’

"Suspected terrorist attack".  That's some real Journalism®, right there.  And here is what it looked like:

Ah, those reserved Britons.  A bit under-stated, what?  In other parts of Europe the same impulse is a bit more, shall we say, colorful?

The [Greek Golden Dawn] party’s ambitions go much further, as the move into schools testifies.  Dozens of new Golden Dawn offices in provincial towns stage events designed to attract new supporters. Torch-lit gatherings and talks on Greek history with a fascist slant are popular.  Selected members undergo military-style training at weekends.  Volunteers support a blood bank, only for Greeks.

Nikos Michaloliakos (pictured above), the 55-year-old party leader, surrounds himself with bodyguards in black T-shirts and combat fatigues.  He is greeted with Nazi-style salutes at party meetings. Anti-Semitism is an integral part of its credo.  His claim that Golden Dawn is “nationalist but not Nazi” is thoroughly unconvincing.

Colorful, indeed:

I look on Europe today and see a lot of unfortunate parallels with late 1920s Europe: a political class lacking legitimacy, who are lost in an ocean of minutia while choosing to do nothing about the great issues of the day, elites that flinch from recognizing reality, a mass of the population increasingly desperate and increasingly contemptuous of the "Elites".

The Press, of course, is a junior member of the Political Class.  The news is not news, but slant - click through the links above for their horrified prose, in articles that doesn't mention multiculturalism of the failure of immigrant populations to assimilate - or to want to assimilate.  The U.K. Daily Mail article in particular does not mention the recent revelations that the previous Labour government intentionally ramped up immigration dramatically with the explicit (but not publicly stated) goal of making Britain less British.

Action, reaction.  We've seen this play out before, on the shores of that unhappy continent.  Economies are slowing and school is getting out for the summer.  Temperatures are rising, both literally and figuratively, and we shall see what with the 20 Million unemployed - largely in the hot southern nations.  Europe has been burning for years, and the flames are spreading.  It'll be a hot time in the Old Country tonight.

Meanwhile on these shores, the real unemployment rate is around 12%, but our political class - nearly as lacking in legitimacy as Europe's - fiddles a tune of immigration amnesty as people lose their jobs or see their hours cut in the ramp up to Obamacare's implementation.  The good news is that Europe is further down the road to ruin than we are, but we need to remember that Franklin Roosevelt was America's first fascist President.  It has a different sound on these shores, but the song remains the same.

Time to go long on torches and hobnail boots.

Via Vox, who brings the Kipling.