The election in France, which I wrote about yesterday was a contest between the capital city and the historic heartland, a pattern we’ve seen in elections in multiple countries over the past year, and often in contradiction to traditional party lines.

I first wrote about this in a Washington Examiner column last October, noting the pattern in the results of the June 23 Brexit referendum in Britain the Oct.2 paz referendum in Colombia, and in the polling in the U.S. presidential race. In a column that went online the day after the U.S. voted, I noted that the pattern held here and produced Donald Trump’s astounding victory, and in a column a week later I pointed out that the key vote shifts away from the Democrats came in the Midwest and Pennsylvania outside million-plus metro areas.