Estonians are protesting populism by wearing “pink slime”

ALL OVER Tallinn, people are sporting the same strange accessory: a pink blob the consistency of used chewing gum. It dangles from lapels in libraries, at foreign-policy conferences and in bars in Telliskivi, Bohemian quarter of the Estonian capital.

Estonians call it “pink slime”. This is not to be confused with the meat slurry used in cheap sausages. In Estonia, “pink slime” started as an insult aimed at liberalism. The Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE), a nationalist outfit, opposes multiculturalism, immigration and gay marriage. Its leader, Mart Helme, says he does not believe in liberal democracy and thinks globalists in Brussels want to erase the identities of Estonia and other countries, turning them all into a uniform post-national mush. The party’s epithet for the ideology it detests is roosa ila, or “pink slime”—a reference to feminism and gay rights, and by extension the rest of the liberal worldview.