According to the Economist, here are the fates of Europe's main parties from about 2000 to the present:
Mainstream center-left and center-right parties have dropped a combined 20 points. Hard right parties have gone up about 20 points.
So far, hard right parties have mostly been kept out of power except in Hungary, Italy, and Poland (until 2023).
One can at least have a bit of hope that Europeans, viewing what's happening right now in America, will at least pause to think a bit before giving power to the far right in their own countries.
(Yes, one can at least hope ...)
It might fracture the EU into pro Ukranianian and pro Russian sides. I hope not because we desperately need someone to counter our complicity with Russia. It's unreal that we need something like that. Trump is single handedly ruining our leadership on the world stage all the while the GOP actively supports and enables Trump to do so. Fascism has finnaly reached our shores and it comes in the form of a narcasist with a spray on tan and comb over. Good grief how pathetic we are!
The clear and obviously pathetic nature of Trump and Trumpistan might be an Achilles heel for these amoral, soulless vampires. It definitely measures the sophistication of the movement, its ideas, and support base, and the worst thing a strongman can be is "pathetic." Now if we only had a legacy media that wasn't itself impotent and pathetic....
It's not an Achilles heel unless and until there's someone to cast an arrow in that exact direction.
At present, at least, I see no one anywhere who is able and inclined to do so.
So far, hard right parties have mostly been kept out of power except in Hungary, Italy, and Poland (until 2023).
So far, hard right parties have mostly been kept out of power except in Hungary, Italy, Poland and the United States of America.
Fixed!
Donald Trump, the great enabler of the far right.
Good call.
If liberal democracies get through this, there will need to be serious work on how to confront the endless propaganda that is being streamed across multiple platforms at its citizens.
I think that liberals also need deal with the fact that humans on their best days are educated, civilized apes. But if they are afraid, they are just angry apes. Donald Trump is stupid because he doesn't know things, but he is a genius because he knows this about people. Liberals want to pretend that humans will listen to their education when they are afraid, but for the majority, that primal fear wins. So it is with immigration, where every act by any immigrant can be used to stoke fear about every immigrant, instantly spread across the internet. I don't know how to counteract this poison, but it has raised the 'right' in my personal sphere, and I suspect it explains the right in Europe.
+1. I've always believed our intelligence doesn't make us better than the rest of the animal kingdom. It just makes us better able to rationalize our irrational fears. And the smartest amongst us knows how to use this effectively to stoke fear and hatred within the rest of us.
And we have thumbs! We should never underestimate what an advantage that gives us in so many areas, particularly after we figured out bipedalism.
Unfortunately, fear spreads like a fungus turning people into zombies.
A lot of companies make money selling fear.
Spot on. The way to counter primitive is with primitive, which in one sense means you don't treat Trumpistan with any measure of respect. Never call him "President." If you have to address him, call him Mr. Trump. The asymmetry of one side spewing malignant venom and weaponized disrespect while demanding obeisance and respect in return (and getting it from a supine media and impotent Dems who see themselves as defending an extinct social order) is a huge part of why we're here and can't seem to find a way out. Clinging to a self serving sense of morality in the face of malevolence is an act of surrender to and enabling of destruction.
This. The first paragraph is the entirety of the issue. The problem is our free speech laws act as a 'no responsibility' clause for media establishments. The far right would not exist in any meaningful capacity if it wasn't fed a steady diet of lies, fear and outrage from ideology-based media empires. These empires are created by wealthy conglomerates/individuals and have figured out that emotional reactions are a great ways to capture audiences and permanently keep them.
Fox exists less because its conservative and more because isolating and enraging a conservative audience keeps a steady supply of eyeballs firmly glued to their media, generating steady revenue.
There aren't going to be many decent ways to fix these issues, but the ones that leap out at me are:
Find some way to separate media providers from all other interests, including the interest of business.
Create some method in which media news are obligated to compete to tell the truth first/better than just simply get eyeballs glued to them for advertising revenues.
Reduce the number or types of outlets that can claim 'news', or somehow regulate media into 'tiers' in which you can be sued successfully for deliberately lying to the audience. Holding media accountable for its actions. (Yes, I am aware of the dangers of media regulation, especially by government. Doesn't mean that an unregulated media isn't an equally bad problem.)
There needs to be a way in which truth or facts can be objectively measured and that these measurements can be used to hold outlets responsible.
Bias, Spin, Distortion, Lying by omission, etc, are the main ways that media maintains its echo chambers, essentially capturing people. The politicians only recently found a way to permanently glom onto this, essentially hacking into the cycle. This is how Trump and MAGA exist at all. The one thing the rest of us need to understand are, to those trapped in these media echo chambers, their stances are utterly rational based on the information they are receiving. GIGO in short.
tl;dr The weakness of liberal democracies and their free speech laws are echo chambers made of lies. Until we find some way to deal with that, without somehow succumbing to the temptation of seizing that power ourselves, we will continue to see the far right gain power world wide.
I will say that the propaganda capture does not entirely track with intelligence. I know an MIT mathematician and a couple of engineers who are full in on this nonsense. My sense is that the anger makes them feel powerful, and less afraid....I used to wonder what they are afraid of, really, the other, of their religion losing relevance, of the death in general? Who knows? But anger is a drug and I think that is enough.
Yes, we know an aerospace engineer who is all in on Trump. This guy has nothing to fear from immigrants taking his job, but has a beef with NASA that translates into "all government bad". And the ever popular "why are my tax dollars supporting people who won't work?"
As a PhD geneticist, it's been my observation that in humans the traits of high intelligence and good judgement are unlinked.
We've seen this trend in the US as well. The Far Right has surged in the GOP, drawing some people out of the Dem tent (former social democrats) and driving conservatives out. They a majority in the GOP, which has a plurality in electorate, which means 20% of the voting public control the country.
What's the orange Liberal label referring to, the yellow, the red, or a combination of the two?
Also, I can't help but wonder if the rise of the far-right is rooted in the slow recovery from the 2008-2009 global recession.
In Europe there has been no recovery. That's the problem, the root of all this nonsense.
Yes, the "rust belt-ification" of their rural areas, and how the far right has been pretty much the only presence in these areas, and not just a presence but a very empathic, responsive presence. Amazingly effective and arguably appropriate politics. Responding to a real and unmet need.
Unfortunately, this is true. And it does not help that the left has become the part(ies) of the pious, performative, highly-educated bourgeoisie (see e.g., the Greens).
Sadly, I agree there. My time on Bluesky has made it clear that we are reactionary, prone to hysteria, challenging to have deep and rational conversations without being called turncoats, and just as unhinged as the right sees us.
We are still preferable to the right, though.
Urban/rural isn't the only important divide. In Germany, AfD is much stronger in the five states that were a part of the DDR than it is in western Germany. Poland and Hungary were also a part of the Soviet bloc.
I commented about that but it seems to have disappeared.
The AfD won ALL of the former East Germany except for of course around Berlin and half of Leipzig. They won exactly one bit of the former West in Nodrheim-Westfallen (where Dusseldorf and Cologne are, but in a rural area).
The East was so behind economically with only inefficient outdated industry that the West subsidized the hell out of it and Western companies established themselves there and built modern stuff. But I think the per capita GDP there is still generally lower.
Russia and Soviet bloc countries were also largely frozen in time culturally. Instead of producing some kind of New Communist Man the just stayed the same, insulated from changing Western culture.
Within Germany, Soviet ideology also played a role. They defined World War II entirely through the prism of class, despite the fact that it made no sense. Germans weren't responsible for the war or the atrocities; it was entirely the fault of the bourgeoisie, and they bore all of the guilt. The German proletariat were every bit as much victims as were the Jews.
Consequently, East Germans never grappled with the war as their Western counterparts did. They hadn't done anything wrong. After the spasms of violence in its immediate aftermath, they were absolved.
The East German culture of informing on your fellow citizens didn't help, either. The Stasi ran the most thorough surveillance state in the Soviet bloc, including the Soviet Union itself. It's another way in which the contrast with Poland is striking. The bulk of the Polish, especially after 1980, viewed themselves as opposed to the regime.
My father's primary research project over the second half of his career was studying small business formation in post-communist Poland and, to a lesser extent, other Eastern European countries. One of his colleagues did his army service during the early stages of martial law. He was a junior officer (which, in Poland, did not imply Party membership), and describes the way he took his platoon to various of the solders' homes, and they spent their time goofing off rather than being out there, cracking heads. They left that to the ZOMO. Polish society emerged from communism less morally compromised than did the East Germans. (The Poles also take pride in having essentially been on strike for the entire 1980s, requiring Soviet subsidies for the regime that hastened the downfall.)
(Nonexistent here) thumbs up.
It's the only presence because it's backed by money.
Well, the last round of far right ascendancy came after a major financial crisis, so historical analysis is on your side.
Financial problems/fears definitely push people rightward and make them want to conserve resources for themselves. Humans are far more generous when they feel flush. Ultimately, austerity drives a population rightward.
Then, how do you explain Elon Musk? Too much is not enough!
Please understand -- Europe has utterly stagnated since the 2008 financial crisis. Per capita GDP in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms is lower now than it was in 2008 in France, Spain, and Italy, and barely higher in the Netherlands and Germany (and likely lower in the former East Germany, where AfD is strongest).
By way of comparison, the US has not seen such dismal economic performance since the Great Depression.
The European political establishment has been unable to improve this economic situation. Those dissatisfied with this situation have been treated with contempt.
Is it surprising that the voters turn to outsiders? And when you hate the establishment, the hatred of the establishment becomes a sort of endorsement.
+1
How many of the far right gains across Europe follow the US embracing Trumpism in 2015?
I think that the US letting Trump and his minions into the WH was seen as a bit of "if they they are doing it..." that helped the fascists and fascists wannabes gain popularity, and once you get a critical mass it's a lot easier to get a vicious cycle that helps them across the board.
This is a pretty interesting explainer. https://londondays.co.uk/far-right/
As is this. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/3/31/how-the-far-right-got-a-stranglehold-on-the-west
https://inthesetimes.com/article/global-far-right-meloni-milei-putin-bannon-orban
Thank you.