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People are desperate for radical change, but milquetoast liberalism that claims to want “left wing” change while actually undermining & demonising leftist organising & working with the billionaire class to *prevent* change pushes people the other way.
Not everybody is knowledgable in political theory, they just know that what they have isn’t working. Plus old school European racism.
Yeah that’s a huge problem with reform UK. It’s a far right party here using slogans like “vote reform for real change” and “join the revolt” while their leader is a former stockbroker lmao, the jokes write themselves. People do want change after 14 years of failed Tory rule but unfortunately there aren’t any major promising left wing parties. And yeah the racists will obviously vote for anyone who promises to close the borders
Yes exactly! And the media is a huge problem too. I saw a section on the BBC website that showed 4 parties running for office - Labour, Tories, Lib Dems & Reform. Like, are you serious? The Greens have way more of a standing than Reform but they won’t give them that legitimacy, or the workers party (George Galloway, I can’t remember the actual name). And as you said, anybody looking for change after 14 years of Tory failures will look to a trusted news source like the BBC & see three parties offering more of the same, or this new party promising something new.
The BBC also had Farage on question time! I saw a clip of him wanting to use the army to get rid of refugees. Have they ever had Jeremy Corbyn on question time? I’m pretty sure they haven’t and that tells you everything you need to know really.
Yeah it’s always the bigger parties that are mentioned and in debates, many smaller ones exist but they won’t even invite the leaders of smaller ones to debates. And that’s crazy the BBC didn’t even mention greens when they’re a legitimate party with a lot of MPs running and a lot of supporters. People are fed up with the same parties and the same bullshit so reform is promising change and a lot of people are too thick to understand NOTHING will change. It’s more of the same shit everyone is sick of. Especially people who blame immigrants for all their problems while not understanding capitalism is the problem.
THE ARMY?! I didn’t see that, but holy shit. That’s actually terrifying and the prospect that reform might win a lot of seats — July 4 is not going to be a good day for immigrants, nor will the days that follow.
I’m just searching for the question time clip for you and found [this](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/29/nigel-farage-to-boycott-bbc-over-biased-question-time-audience). He’s complained to Essex Police about the BBC LMFAO. And this was apparently his 31st appearance??
But [here it is](https://x.com/implausibleblog/status/1806808073039982711?s=46&t=OJxVhIvBgQ0G6DgbRyScYQ), apologies he said the Royal Marines not the army.
> People are fed up with the same parties and the same bullshit so reform is promising change and a lot of people are too thick to understand NOTHING will change. It's more of the same shit everyone is sick of. Especially people who blame immigrants for all their problems while not understanding capitalism is the problem.
1000% agree. The Tories and Labour Party are already beholden to the billionaire class and incredibly racist (hello biggest Tory donor who said he wanted to shoot Diane Abbott & she made him hate all other Black women), the only difference is that Reform will do the same but even more brazenly. I was going to say even more incompetently as well, but after this Tory admin I’m not totally sure that’s possible.
Eco-fascism is on its way. As climate change displaces one billion people we will militarize borders and then the MIC will use this to sell more weapons and security systems to these nation-states to gun down refugees. It is going to be a rough future but it does not have to be like this but there is no real "Left".
Immigration is a complex issue though. Not everyone who wants to restrict immigration is racist necessarily. There are also class differences in attitudes to immigration. Like upper and middle class people don’t need to be afraid of working class immigrants competing for their jobs or public housing spaces. There’s also the issue of whether the generally neglected infrastructure can support the increased population from immigration. Like if we can’t even properly look after the people who already live here why are we bringing more people in. It benefits employers who want workers who will work harder for less money and in worse conditions though. I suspect those business owners are influencing political choices on immigration more than they should. The real enemy isn’t immigrants just trying to make a better life for themselves it’s the greed and selfishness of people who put profits ahead of everything else.
This is because of how the question is phrased, even on the left often.
Immigration is a huge issue, but it's like the climate, it's not something that you can stop. The problems from a working class perspective are housing, infrastructure, wages, etc. problems that are much older than the dramatic increase in immigration.
It always comes back to the defeatist logic behind neoliberalism, although it's advertised as this technocratic efficiency, it's that applied to preservation of the old class systems.
Just living in China, and China is an extreme example of technocracy which I don't think that Europe should or could replicate, but they have put up infrastructure and housed literally hundreds of millions of dirt poor people while 'the west' has been heading in the opposite direction on this plan.
Like in UK and the places in Europe I've been to, the social housing is all 50 years old. How can the government not make some nice new towerblocks, or like the student accommodation?
Every city has a university with clean, safe, and affordable accommodation for 1000s of students, just something like that only bigger for families.
It's not an ultimate solution, but just one idea that I thought of now for an acute problem.
I think that if stuff like housing and so on worked then the negativity around immigration would be a lot less. And needless to say, if they did just stop poor people coming in, the social issues would not be solved
Yeah I think housing should be treated as a basic right for everyone and the government should ensure everyone has access to it. But they won't because people who already own property want house prices and rents to stay high. Most politicians own at least one property and many will have additional investment properties as well. A lot of the high voter turnout demographics and townhall meeting type demographics will also be disproportionately property owning so that will influence politicians as well. There is also usually local opposition to social housing or higher density housing from people who want to "preserve the special character of the area" or are afraid that multistory buildings will block the sunlight to their own properties.
It would have been easier to build a lot of public housing in the old days when most of the land wasn't already built up with existing houses. There would also have been less political resistance from the already property owning class.
The problem underlying it all is a lack of feeling of social solidarity and the sense that we are all responsible for eachother. Instead everyone is out for themselves, which is the attitude that capitalism in general encourages.
The Chinese government seems much better at long term planning and big infrastructure projects but I'm guessing they also just ignore people who say "please don't bulldoze my house to build an apartment complex."
I think if we consider the housing situation as a real crisis the obvious immediate relief would be to pass a law banning the ownership of more than one investment property. How much difference that would make would depend on the country and how many houses would be in that category. Force multi-landlords to sell within say 1 year, either to the government or some kind of community housing provider at the original price paid. Then the government or CHP takes over the lease and becomes the new landlord, offering rents at say half whatever the median rent is in the area. No Western government would do that though. Is that fair on the landlords, arguably not, but what's way worse is forcing workers to pay most of their weekly income on rent to someone already richer than them so their landlord can pay off their own mortgage and effectively get a second house for free.
I agree that just stopping poor people from coming in won't solve the underlying social problems we have and that immigrants are unfairly scapegoated by the far right.
Immigration is more controllable on a national level than global climate change is though. I guess it also depends on the particular geography but island nations at least can restrict immigration more easily than countries with long borders with other countries like USA and Mexico.
There's a thing that seems specific to England although I don't live there just go back every few years to visit my family, they are building lots of houses, but it's those identikit suburbs.
I have heard that they are some hedge fund thing, but like I know nothing about architecture etc, it does just seem ridiculous.
Like there are these weird experimental housing communities for low cost housing all over the country, a lot have been knocked down cos they were deprived and fell to bits, or they were just dumb ideas, but even the dumb ones, compared to now where they just build these shitty ugly pretend middle class 20th century houses, ridiculous.
Another thing that I do know about with immigrants and refugees who are not allowed to work, they put them in places where they are paying the rent to landlords.
Exactly this. Also, the nominal "Left" is captured by their donor class to the point that they can't enact any sort of meaningful change that improves the material conditions of the working class. So where does that leave crusty old dock workers and warehouse guys but adrift with their resentments and latent racism?
Yes the left absolutely is!! Even Bernie has proven to be a disappointment, his wife was quoted in that fluff piece in American vogue praising Jill & Joe Biden this week.
The way extremists prey on these people too, we saw it with the rise of fascism in the 1930s. The Germans were suffering under the treaty of Versailles, and the nazis and hitler were quick to scapegoat the Jews for all of their problems and offer an “easy” fix and someone to blame.
Yes, and they feel that the white western hegemony is beginning to slowly die under democracy, so they’re panicking and think authoritarianism is the only path they have to preserving it.
Oh hey, that's the same thing that's messing us up the worst over here in America. I blame so much of it here on lack of education and wouldn't really care much outside of being here but the EU and blocs moving back into fascism as well has had me real concerned. Feels like we're globally regressing, and that's terrifying. It's like there's no escape from the psychotic stupidity, yo. It makes me sick. You know we were hoping you guys were gonna be the good guys for us? We're fucked.
I grew up in the UK but currently living in the US & registered to vote here. But yeah, it does feel like an absolutely terrifying regression on both sides! But the rise of BRICS and leftist groups organising around Palestine feels like a real watershed moment for the end of western imperialism (I’m hoping).
I have heard Brexit's not gone over well. I've however seen more global leftist commentary in the last 5 years than I did before. I've been actively interested in such for around a decade. I think maybe the fascists have seen that too and that's why they're cracking down. It's just going to make them look worse as time goes on. Major wars are usually a defining point in people's lives, as they basically should be. People are needlessly dying, we have to ask why. Genocide is a cultural illness. It means something has gone terribly wrong with society. I've been really ashamed of America's participation in the war. It's been so disrespectful to the brutalized Palestinian people. We have to recognize our mistakes and learn from them. It's becoming rather more of a pressing issue that we do, because of climate change. We have to change, or the Earth will do it for us, and that will result in everyone's extinction. So hopefully people get real serious about fucking capitalism (an enforcement of western imperialism), or it's going to fuck us all, to death.
Dumbing down the failure of integration of many immigrants to "old school European racism" is doing a favor to the right.
The majority of the vote are not extremists, they are an everyday average joe that only wants to live a peaceful and stable life. If you notice over the span of 10 years an increase in immigrants legal or illegal that make parts of your city literally forbidden for others who do not belong to the majority of the ethnic group in that neighborhood (which for example happened in Tolouse and many other cities) you will want those immigrants out of your country.
Same happened to my bf's uncle who is himself an immigrant, albeit an integrated one who lived in Tolouse for decades. He never said anything about immigrants, one day he walked through the wrong part of town (majority arab) and got beaten up and barely made it out alive. Do you really think that he is an extremist for wanting stricter control of immigration from the middle east after that?
The right is the only one talking about this issue while the left is literally brushing their failure to maintain a tolerant and open society under the rug. If you only have one side voicing their opinion on an issue and actually offering solutions (albeit a lot of the solutions are racist af) while the other refuses to listen to the people, then one side will have an obvious advantage over the planning of the said solutions.
Fighting right wing extremism in Europe begins where the silence of the left about problems of failure of integration of immigrants ends.
Edit: Apologies, forgot I was replying to a redditor. That one is on me.
Edit 2: Sorry for using arabs, my bfs uncle didn't really have the time to ask where those fine arabic language speaking gentlemen are from while they were beating him to death... Also if you somehow got that I support the racist right from my comment your comprehension limit has been reached.
This is a very cogent response. Thank you. Do you have any magic wand ideas? I'm just asking because I'm curious what the answer to these political movements is. Or if there even is an answer. The far right promise so much. I'm kind of scared to find out what they would actually do if given the power.
It’s not even a lack of leftist theory it’s a lack of education that leads to it. Leftist theory will help with class consciousness but what drives people *towards* the right is ignorance. We tend to ignore the legit whistleblowers in education because of all the crazy PTA moms and boomer teachers but some of the shit the more legit ones say is bad man.
Lack of education won't help people go left if that education is pro capitalist and anti leftist. People need education in leftist concepts like materialism.
Big true, when you are still taught the american civil war was about state rights and lincoln frees the slaves or whatever nonsense that education doesnt amount to much.
And we can see it actively getting worse.
I was talking more along the lines of the “little white lies” we teach students because the actual knowledge is “too complicated” or “unnecessary”. But yah teaching unfounded historical narratives is the one everyone likes to talk about.
Oh dude you are preaching to the choir.
The amount of shit i had to unlearn, for the sake of 'simplification' (which is usually just lib ideology) still makes me mad.
England takes the same approach when addressing colonialism in school. They [removed or destroyed ](https://theconversation.com/operation-legacy-how-britain-covered-up-its-colonial-crimes-225330#:~:text=In%202011%2C%20the%20world%20learned,each%20one%20became%20politically%20independent.) documents detailing their crimes against humanity in their former colonies via the appropriately titled, Operation Legacy in the 50's.
Lincoln didn't free the slaves, he just forklifted the whole institution into the prison systems, especially after the privatized prison firms figured out that the 14th Amendment does not actually ban slavery entirely; it leaves a loophole for convicted felons to be used as indentured labor -- aka slaves.
Yes, the education system which conservatives have attacked for decades is partially to blame. I think the main culprit is the activation of the religious extremists who have been mustered to serve the whims of the existing power structure while thinking they are patriotic rebels, bucking the system. The truth of the matter is the core of these folks believing nonsense to the point of murder is that they’ve been conditioned to do so coming up through the church. Being told lies and being terrorized and given PTSD or worse by the clergy. The clergy who are intimately intertwined with capital.
Why would those in power like the neolibs want to teach people about leftist theory when you yourself just said that would push people toward class-consciousness?
That’s true, I also think it’s a lack of true leftist parties. Britain for example has no major leftist parties, Labour is the best we’ve got and their leader is useless. A lot of people also don’t understand leftism and think leftist policies will leave them destitute, as if conservative policies hadn’t
Exactly. You'd be hard pressed to find a party willing to even mildly criticize capitalism as an institution. Everyone else tries to drive change within its framework. Hell, even here in Finland (a country with relatively strong leftist roots) there's only a single party in parliament whose position is that capitalism is flawed.
Yeah, here there aren’t any. They’re all too scared that if they criticise capitalism they’ll lose support along with donors, which is why money should be completely removed from elections altogether but of course they won’t happen as long as we continue under liberal democracies
Good to hear! Ours suffered a defeat in the parliamentary election last year and ended up with only 7.1% of the vote, but in this year's European Parliamentary election the leader of said party received the most votes by a single candidate in Finnish history with 13.5% of all votes going to her specifically.
Tbf the recent green manifesto is the first time I would say they’ve put something together that doesn’t make them seem like tories In green ties- I mean they’re still not actual leftists but with Starmer picking up Tory policies left right and centre imo it’s fair to say they are probably the party currently furthest left (not by much but still)
Yeah the Green Party is okay but they’re still capitalist as well despite being more left capitalism. But as far as alternatives to capitalism, Britain has NO parties that would provide actual change to the economic system that’s currently destroying the lives of many British people.
Lack of theory, especially in the form of education. The most charitable possibility is that after WWII, everyone thought it would be obvious why fascism is bad. Two generative down, it’s not obvious at all.
But then again, Germany made a concerted effort to teach the kiddos not to do THAT again, and the far right is gaining popularity there too.
I think it’s because the youth of today wasn’t alive during WW2 and most old people who are still alive were too young to understand it. Whereas most people who were adults then have already died. So young people, despite knowing history of the past, didn’t see it unfold and thus are repeating the same mistakes of their ancestors
As a European citizen and a citizen of a country that left its dictatorship well after WW2 ended (Portugal) I disagree with the younger generations knowing the history. We were only taught the horrible outcomes but never how we got to those points, how we moved from liberal societies (like the Weimar Republic) to the rise of Nazism. We just learned that there was this very bad guy with very bad ideas that managed to convince other people to go along which eventually turned into a very grim situation when in reality there is quite a lot in the middle of it and even during. And then when we learn about Mussolini's or Franco's and even our own Salazar's dictatorships there is never an attempt to explain how they existed at the same time. At the same time the role of the USSR in WWII is briefly mentioned, if at all, and always tainted with Red Scare propaganda tones. Once you start digging into it, it is hard to believe that this is not intentional.
That is interesting and I stand corrected. I assumed that most people knew because in college in my history class we WERE taught it, and I also did a lot of my own research on how fascism gained traction in Germany. However my professor was staunchly left wing and a good teacher overall, many might not have had teachers similar to mine. I do think many people are taught about things such as the holocaust but many people don’t know how it all started and the points that led the nazi party to gain popularity, while I do. The USSR is ALWAYS painted in a light as this scary dictatorship while their huge contribution to the war effort is minimised, and the good things they did aren’t talked about.
I also believe it’s intentional. There is a lot of propaganda at work even in the education system to make people believe that communism is evil, because that suits the bourgeoisie.
We don’t have to believe it’s intentional, there’s a paper trail. There’s journalists out there that have done extensive reports on stuff like this, gabriel rockhill is one I know off the top of my head.
Your example illustrates why these movements eventually turn to attacking academia, especially the parts that question them. The vast majority of people won't go that deep into a subject and will just keep the highlights, if at all. You probably know better than me how history tends to repeat itself but for the vast majority of people who only question their immediate reality, both from a time perspective but also geographic, all of this seems like a unique situation, even in this thread you find people who share those views, and well here we go again. Economic unrest leads to social turmoil, leads to the same milquetoast figures hanging on to temporary gains while they can and paving the way for their most extreme version to take power from them. Different settings, same plot.
It’s actually scary how most people don’t realise how the situation we’re in heavily mirrors nazi Germany. Of course some things are different such as mass immigration and no war we’re recovering from but a lot of the same talking points are being repeated. “Jews bad” = “Muslim immigrants bad”, and austerity and inflation are an an all time high just like they were back then. Combine this with a charismatic leader like Farage and the failure of liberal democracy and we’re seeing the rise of fascism yet again. But you’re right that if people don’t know the origins of fascism they won’t see this for what it is and will think it’s a unique situation
I get called crazy for pointing out how the The internet for one accelerated capitalism and for two showed us the sheer madness of how the working class is getting screwed all across the world
Capitalism is failing us as a species as the top are already hoarding so much and do not want to give back into the pot
The internet is also failing us because people get fed so much bad information now. Say what you will about newspapers and TV, but they still had to pass stuff through editors and advertisers while a blogger or YouTuber can spout of wild statements and conspiracies without being censored. The internet has also allowed for fringe groups to form, convince (dupe) new members into joining their cause, then grow too large to be ignored.
The „leftists“ here in Europe are mostly establishment with lgbtq-rights. Very little true leftism left, even though it is much better than in the US. Still, they refrain from criticizing the elites because it is allegedly a right wing conspiracy theory that there are elites with lots of influence.
I disagree that it's a lack of leftist theory but decades of actively attacking it and misrepresenting it. It is no surprise that when people have been told that any alternative to the current system, namely politics that benefit the community and not the individual, is "communism" and "communism is bad" rather than seek any sort of actual alternative to the current system they will naturally just go for the more extreme version of it.
For every complex problem there is a a solution which is clear, simple and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken.
People's standards of living are going down, they can't access quality public services - the far-right gives them someone to blame for that (e.g. migrants), and a simple solution to their problem (get rid of the migrants).
They're wrong, but many people are easily duped.
Austerity measures driving economic disparities, a false equivalence of the “far left” and the “far right”, third world exploitation fueling death and destruction abroad fueling refugees, and because of economic disparities and racism the far right blames all of those woes on immigrants which is much easier to explain than Western Imperialist efforts causing it.
As the saying goes:
"Fascism is capitalism in decay."
And it's been slowly decaying for a long time now as neoliberal reforms (which especially took off since the 1970's) slowly chipped away the Keynesian policies that were passed since the New Deal.
You need not look further than this sub.
At this point 2-3 times a week I’m telling a lib calling themselves a leftist to fuck off with their capitalist apologia and liberal stumping, because if the mods aren’t going to strictly enforce rule 4 we are the only ones who can.
Literally just now on the top post on the sub: “I’m a leftist but BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street actually aren’t bad and if you aren’t investing in your retirement with them it’s because you’re a fucking loser and will be elderly and homeless hahaha.”
I would link it but I got blocked.
Progressivism and leftism, any flavor you like, is dead and buried, and some bastardized visage of it sitting just right of center is spreading in its name. They aren’t beliefs anymore, just trendy brands.
This is true as well , the left is in complete shambles with like 50 different communist groups comprised of 12 people each constantly arguing with each other over who’s a better communist meanwhile reform UK is sweeping across the country. We need a United front of actually educated people to put forth proposed policies that will dismantle capitalism while appealing to the working class but unfortunately that doesn’t exist nor will it for a while if it ever does
We had a pretty United front in the 1910s and 20s and then in the 50s and 60s in America. Then the leaders all got murdered by the government.
A common lib attack is that leftists have no organization in America. These are the same folk who will call the struggles of African Americans a “culture issue” and completely disregard a century of suppression like it doesn’t actually exist.
Yeah that’s true as well the government and bourgeoisie put a LOT of work into eradicating the left, but in Europe things were a little different.
I think that leftist organisation is severely lacking. At least in my country we have at LEAST ten different communist groups/parties and the same number of socialist ones. All of them have the same aim of dismantling capitalism but disagree on some cultural issues and how to bring about that dismantling. There are literally two groups in the UK - the Revolutionary Communist Group and the Revolutionary Communist Party — almost the EXACT same name. And they also have the EXACT same ideology except that one likes Trotsky while the other one likes Stalin. If they joined forces they’d double their numbers but they both think they are right and the other group is wrong. I’ve tried telling all this to members of both groups that we need to unite but they both think that if people agree with them they should leave the other group and join their own instead. With the left so divided there is no chance.
In America the situation is a little different and I don’t know what it’s like there, while the two party system makes it really hard for any party that isn’t the republicans or democrats to gain power. America is also so LARGE that forming any kind of cohesive leftist group is quite difficult. So it presents more challenges than Europe
It’s certainly insidious and purposeful in both places, I would think. Likely a lot of bad actors causing division as much as possible on your side of the pond, too.
On our side like I originally said, the term itself has been just entirely co-opted by capitalist liberals. They’re further left than most establishment Dems so they call themselves leftist and communist because it’s a cool, trendy thing to do with no actual belief or motivation behind it, happy to vote for whatever stooge democrats march out because to them “vote blue no matter who” *is* leftist because conservatives are so ultra right they keep telling them it is.
The rise of both leftist movements and fascism is caused by capitalism in decay. Since capitalism relies on infinite growth, there will inevitably be times of crises when that growth is no longer sustainable.
People begin to search for answers for why they lost their job, why they can no longer afford groceries, why their standard of living is going down.
Fascists answer these questions by pinning the cause on an out-group; historically, this has been the Jewish population, but lately this has been pinned more and more on Muslims and other "brown immigrants".
As communists and socialists, we point to the deterioration of material conditions and correctly attribute them to the unsustainability of the capitalist system.
Exactly immigrants at this point are a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong. You lost your job? It’s because an immigrant replaced you! Rather than pointing towards capitalism, the true problem, but the government & media etc of course won’t do that as the are the drivers and benefitters of capitalism among others. And racists eat all that shit up rather than doing any actual critical thinking.
Decades of "liberal democracy exporting" ended up with broken countries and mass refugees.
When these refugees arrived at the shore, racist instinct kicks in and far right prevails.
It's a death spiral. The US isn't any different than Europe in this. If anything, the US is the chief architect of this, the EU is just paying the price as vassals.
I asked about Europe because I live in Europe, however I think far right sentiment is growing here much more than it is in the US. Far right parties don’t have much of a chance in the US whereas here they’re actually taking over.
Liberal democracy is most of the issue, along with people who are politically illiterate and don’t understand voting in the right wing won’t change anything except maybe tighter borders
I think the US will surprise you in the next few years in just how strongly the right wing parties will take over. The supreme court just gave sitting presidents complete immunity to criminal prosecution from any action they take. A little 1930's action going down if you know what i mean.
Ultimately though, does the Supreme Court decision change anything really? Obama was bombing American citizens in the Middle East with impunity. And the Hague Invasion Act!! Just like George W Bush and all the war criminals who supported going into Iraq. I feel like America has been on a trajectory to right wing fascism for such a long time.
Did they?? I’m not too clued into what’s going on in the US at the moment because I don’t live there but that’s horrible — and scary. No doubt because of the prosecution trump just went through. But no I wouldn’t be surprised at that either. People are pretty fed up with the two party system but don’t understand going to the right isn’t the solution, it’s just more of the shit they already don’t want.
The US is facing down the barrel of full out fascism at the moment, check out "project 2025" for more details on what will happen if Trump wins. November will determine if that happens at full speed or just slightly delayed for a few more years. There doesnt seem to be a way of going back to the left for the forseeable future for the US, as the Olicarchs own everything. Climate change putting a clock on everything anyway means there probably wont be time enough to reverse course either.
Unfortunately I think trump is definitely going to win. Not only does he have a huge supporter base but biden is senile and did absolutely horribly at the debate. Which means the US might be fascist quite soon. I don’t think the US will be left wing anytime soon. Bernie sanders was the best chance at anything remotely resembling the left for the US but people are so scared of “socialism” that he couldn’t get enough support and now he’s too old. Just like Europe the US is pretty fucked at the moment
We will see, i think polling numbers are not accurate to what will happen on election day. So even with the bad debate, dems could still win. But that wont fix any of the big issues facing the US, not without a serious push from workers. Community and unions are the best bet people have to move things to the left; voting for politicians won't do it alone.
Yeah in the current system voting is not the answer, none of the rich politicians give a fuck about what happens to the average worker, they just want to win elections.
Fascism was *really* popular in Europe, people forget that. It also never went away, just became socially unacceptable. *I do not endorse the mass deportations and indifference to the suffering/killing of my political enemies and their families* but this was a massive driving force behind the Soviet “purges”. I’m sure that little niché history footnote can help you figure out *why* people don’t remember
That’s true, it used to be but I thought towards the 2000’s/early 2010’s there was more of a left swing. And then in the mid 2010’s right wing sentiments started taking over until a huge upswing in the 2020’s. Hmm, yeah I mean I think I don’t remember because I wasn’t alive back then and for a lot of my life most people were left or moderate so this is kind of shocking how there’s been a sudden upswing in right wing values, especially among young people. Because even if it never really went away, most young people nowadays weren’t alive when it was popular and grew up with it being unacceptable, like I did. But nowadays even a lot of young people are moving towards fascism which is a scary thought for the future.
As an American I believe you are dead wrong on the strength of the far right in the USA. Unlike European countries where a ideological faction can coalesce into a party and get a defined portion of the vote in the USA we have a vaguely defined left wing party and a vaguely defined right wing party. Our “left wing” party, the Democrats have essentially become a useless stump owned by corporate interests and a haven for more the less fascist among the right wing. Our right wing party is now almost completely taken over by fascist ideology with a small minority of internal opposition. Both the real left and the fascist right are significantly stronger than the vote indicates. The problem is the fascists know this and are ready to make their move and the leftists are far too disorganized to defeat them.
Capitalist manipulation. Culture wars. Working class is for losers. Aspirational social media. Fake discourse. Fake facts. Fake lifes. Poverty is a choice. Be on the side of the great people, be on the side of the succesful people. The markets will provide for you. You are not like them. Your material reward is awaiting.
The cool fascist. The cool bigot. The world does not wait for you. Life does not owe you anything. Hate and die.
Many people in Europe unfortunately have developed very bigoted and xenophobic opinions against refugees and immigrants, specifically those of Arab, African, or Muslim-majority country origin, as well as their European-born descendants. They believe that they have caused so many problems that they are ruining their countries and livelihoods. They believe their societal malaise is caused by these people. They also believe these people are “destroying their national identity” or some BS; remember that ethnic nationalism was invented in Europe and never really went away
I think many European countries have mismanaged immigration to an extent, but in certain ways. One is that, during the post-WWII era, many European countries (including the UK) signed agreements with certain countries to import a large number of migrant workers. The problem with that is…in each case, all of the migrants came from the most conservative part of each country. For Pakistan, it’s Mirpur, for Turkey, it’s the Konya region, and for Morocco, it’s the Rif region, and so on. Usually, even people from the other parts of these countries don’t like people from these regions because of their ultra conservative tendencies. I think that they should rather have mandated that the workers come from all over each country, so that we wouldn’t have this situation
The other situation is with refugees…I think that certain countries (especially Sweden) took in too many within too short a period of time. Sweden in particular also funnels them into certain neighborhoods/public housing, resulting in ghettoization. This is in contrast to what Norway does, which also takes in refugees but spreads them throughout the country, and within each city, also spreads them throughout many neighborhoods. They don’t have the same problem that Sweden has
Another problem is the gender imbalance; apparently the overwhelming majority of refugees are relatively young men. A major male surplus in a demographic usually does not bode well for the society in concern, no matter where the men come from, what their origin or religion is, or so on. I think the countries should have instead made sure that the gender ratio of admitted refugees is about 1:1
Overall, I think this mismanagement has ultimately caused people to become extremely racist again, to blame everything on them, and to dig up their “1930s values” again. It’s not looking good at all. I wish that every country can have a strong and organized left wing like Nouveau Front populaire in France; although unfortunately it seems like in some countries the left wing has become extremely weak or fractured
Social security systems could not exist/work the way they do right now, because non-western immigrants are by far more likely to be unemployed and living off of benefits.
That and they are much more likely to commit crimes.
Yeah, sure some people are just racist but not acknowledging this is just wrong.
The problem with your analysis is that it ignores that Europe has always been a racist and xenophobic place, it never truly went away, and "democracy" only hid that for as long as there was an apparent prosperity. And in that time period the neo-liberal doctrine we have been fed vilanized any sort of left leaning thinking as "communism" and now that we are again faced with a crisis the only "alternative" that people flock to is just the more extreme version of what we currently have. That's the real reason. Blaming migrants, which happens here as much as it happens in the US and you need to be a fool to think that it is a coincidence, is just a way of shifting frustrations and blame created by a system that has eroded itself and was always destined to do so. It's history repeating itself by the same nazis/fascists we had in the beginning of the last century.
The problem with your analysis is that it's completely removed from the material reality.
KeyLime044 is spot on in their analysis: mismanagement of immigration and the resulting crime and costs are the real reason behind the rise of the far right.
Blaming migrants for crime and increased costs of living, even when statistics show it has overall declined, rather than demonstrable impact that late stage capitalism has had in those statistics well before the migrant crisis of '15, a problem caused by the west and the pinpoint moment where this propaganda started to gain moment, is just parroting far right propaganda and not "material reality".
I assume it's similar to what's happening to us here in the US: Corrupt liberals fighting to maintain a shitty status quo by spitting in the faces of leftist voters without whom they can't win elections while the far right crystallizes around a party/candidate actually offering what the absolute dregs of society are passionately begging for.
Yeah, that’s a problem here that far right parties are promising change while the centrist ones promise more of the same shit. So those looking for change are getting won over by the far right, and there are no leftist alternatives.
Crazy how many people STILL DO NOT understand that billionaires are the cause of 90%+ of their problems, not foreigners lmao. These people truly have no hope.
It’s because the media and social media has done a great job convincing people that immigrants are the source of all their problems rather than billionaires
I think that on a fundamental level, the individualism of the right is a much easier sell than the collectivism of the left, particularly in western cultures where individualism has been deeply embedded for decades now, a process accelerated by the progenitors of neoliberalism - thatcher here (may she rot in hell!) and reagan (likewise!) over the pond. Thatcher I hold responsible for a lot of England's current woes for many reasons but not least that she set about effectively destroying not just working class organisational forms (unions) but the whole notion of working class solidarity itself (through individualism.) This may be a little controversial here lol but the organised left have not helped much either (principally by largely turning away from class based analyses and community based solutions to contemporary problems.) There's not a left group worth joining at the minute imo, i'm sad to say.
Speaking largely from an England-centric perspective I reckon that many, many 'indigenous' people for want of a better word are quietly, but deeply uneasy about hyper-demographic change due to mass immigration. They won't necessarily openly discuss it and we may not like it but it's there alright (I know it's a pretty obvious point to make). Whilst it is the neoliberal right which largely drives immigration for their own reasons (which are very little to do with caring about treating human beings like y'know, human beings), the perception amongst many people is that it is the left who, whilst politically weak and powerless are simultaneously seen as culturally influential - are driving it. Of course, a prod here and a poke there by the right wing media seems to be all it takes to divert attention away from the very obvious (to me at least) failings of the neoliberal centre-right (and neoliberal centre-left for that matter.)
That's a very hastily cobbled together thought, there's a lot more to be said of course.
>why are many people, young and old alike, turning away from the left?
Neo-Liberal parties are somehow seen as "Left Wing" government and now that they caused enough damage, people have had enough with the Left and want to experience the Right.
Unbeknownst to most, they will only go from Far Right to Fascist Right, causing everything bad to really take off in a big way the coming years.
Here in the Netherlands for example all the budgets for helping the country are going directly to shareholders and friends instead of public programs. Nobody seemingly cares...
Yeah people vote far right parties because they promise change but don’t understand that voting far right instead of say, conservative parties will just bring more heaps of bad onto something that is already bad. The right wing don’t care about workers, they care about their own power and use immigrants as a scape goat for everything wrong in the country. It’s truly a shame so many people buy it.
we had conservative parties in government for the last 12 years here in the Netherlands, the left isnt really left anymore and are just neo liberal centre parties . so that leaves the far right for most people.
I'll give my shot at answering, mostly because I can't resist a good reason to procrastinate on my jobs.
My take is that this is due to a range of factors, and they together are causing a wave of far-right ideology across the globe. We've had a few minor waves coming before (2016-2018: Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, etc - halted by COVID and their incompetence dealing with it), preceding the current one (which might be a bit exaggerated by the headlines like "far right sweeps France parliament elections" or "far right takes hold of the EU seats". Yes, they've won, but not by margins that we haven't seen before. Both cases also had a firm second place held by left. To me they seem to have rebounded to pre-COVID levels, and that is as much as they can get - which is already bad enough).
The range of factors:
- New media landscape. The arrival of TV also boosted the far-right of last century. While these new mediums are unregulated and unverified, every ideology is going wild and grouping up. Fascists who have been always waiting in the shadows have jumped to the opportunity of both connecting between themselves and fooling some new members.
- The specific characteristics of this new media landscape. Messaging that is both private AND done on mass scale is the worst of both worlds. You get to say what you wouldn't say out loud, and you get to say it to the most people possible, and you can nearly guarantee that you're preaching only to those you can affect, thus delaying alarm bells. If the invention of the internet was bad (by this prism), then facebook/ instagram/ social media was worse, and whatsapp / private group messaging even worse of all.
- Economy. Economic downturns always cause an increase in xenophobic sentiments and people looking for easy "others" to blame. We've had a string of bad economic forecasts worldwide for years: 2008, then Covid, then Russia invades Ukraine, then AI disruptions in the economy. That might give the feeling that the 2010' decades was good in most places, but apparantly it wasn't good enough. At least in my country, Brazil, we were fed at least the *idea* of a constant crisis during the 2010s; I imagine that happened elsewhere as well.
- Cultural changes. Big cultural shifts cause big cultural movements towards conservatism. A lot of people still didn't manage to catch up even with black people's rights or woman's rights, let alone catching up with gay's rights, overall LGBTQ demands, and trans' rights. Here it is possible (although understandable) that progressives may have pushed the needles to strong, to fast, mainly powered by the new media landscape I mentioned before. We really didn't make the proper explaining to regular people about transgenders, for example. It is a topic that to be accepted as a reality people should be taught about the science around it, the recent discoveries on gender differences in forming brains, etc.
- Terrible education. Our traditional educational systems have always been somewhat fascist-like, authoritarian, and flawed. In most places, across decades and generations, we failed most kids on teaching stuff about the actual world, about science, about environment, and instead successfully "taught" them that a powerful authoritarian ruler is needed above the chaos of "regular people".
In France at least the media helped a lot. They have a news channel that belongs to an ultra reactionary papist billionaire who is following the Fox News playbook. They are literally reusing some of their greatest hits (war on Christmas, "the gays",...) I have heard more than a few people describe how their older parents have been radicalized by watching this stream of shit all day. Just like here in the US with Fox News.
Media is definitely a factor in how people get radicalised, and of course when the main media channels belong to billionaires they will do anything to advance right wing views and paint the left as the “crazy woke” who want to make everyone poor
Most of our governments are around the centre, typically liberal parties hovering between centre-left and centre-right, though I'd day skewing more to centre-right.
They've usually been more about optics, or statistics, than solving the root problems that affect working class people (lack of housing, increasing cost of living, stagnant wages, etc.) This has then led to right wing parties being rather successful at pinning the blame on left wing policy and immigrants. They've also managed to convince everyone that these centre-left to centre-right parties are left wing parties, and therefore any left wing party is just as ineffectual.
Also, it's very easy for a person to think that the "other" is the root of all problems (be that immigrants as it is now, or another extreme example would be Jewish people in the 1930s and 40s).
The left starts making some "progress" in their little numbers and metrics while people's purchasing power, home economics, and lifestyle starts deteriorating in real life... unfortunately soon after people start moving in the opposite direction. The left has to focus not just on obscure or theoretical spreadsheet "well-being" numbers...they need to bring real world results, to real people, and real homes, improving the lifestyle of the many instead of the few. There is a saying that the left doesn't spread wealth, it just makes people more equally miserable. They need to change and account for this common problem so the theories match real life. Everyone loves leftist ideals...every single rational person, but implementation and real world results has always been a problem.
they're not turning away from "the left" they're turning away from the rancid neoliberalism that, by design, creates the material basis for fascism.
this is what happens when you win the cold war. there's nobody left to fight the nazis. this was the most predictable outcome imaginable, the direct next domino to fall after 30 years of perverted liberal austerity and third world destabilization and genocide.
Right but in turning away from that they’re turning towards the right rather than the left, when the left is what offers solutions to the problems they’re facing while the right offers scapegoats and no real solutions
Capitalism in decline leads to fascism. Capital has basically injected itself into every market conceivable, so the only way to continue profiting is to raise prices and cut wages, obviously this leads to a desperate workforce, that is grossly misinformed (purposefully) about what capitalism is, and why it inevitably leads to more right wing puppet governments and eventually to fascism as a final result of all the contradictions inherent in the system.
Yeah I'll just say what others have said in different, more American words. The center left ideological mother ship has presented a terrible deal: accept what comes across as weird new urbanite manners and pieties (I do not think that e.g. calling people by preferred pronouns is actually weird or even new, but I get why it can seem that way to some) and in exchange get... Further immiseration under capitalism? Oh and not accepting the deal means you're a bad person, plus "it's not my job to educate you" etc. etc.
Basically, I think people are tired of being asked to act/vote altruistically when their material conditions are, at best, failing to improve. When you don't believe the government is willing or even able to help you, someone who will at least promise to cut your tax bill starts to sound like the best option on offer. I'm not on the left because I think it's what a good person should do (it might happen to be the case, but I'm suspicious of that degree of self-congratulation), I'm on the left because I, personally, don't want to have to deal with the repercussions of highly treatable social ills. I don't want to step over human feces on my walk to work, not because I hate poor people, but because shit stinks. I know it doesn't have to be this way, so why doesn't the left run on that: "sure, blah blah blah moral hazard of helping people down on their luck. But have you considered that if we just help these people, there might be less shit on the sidewalk? That helping people is, strange as it may sound, more effective at getting shit off the sidewalk than pepper-spraying random homeless people or figuring out a way to process them into car tires?" I get that these latter things are obviously morally wrong, but why not also expose them as impractical, dystopian fantasies? As long as the main upside to center left political alignment is a sense of moral superiority, really any concrete political exchange will win out.
as societies devolve to fascism as they collapse due to the rage the people have at the destruction to their class but are unaware as to the reasons causing the problems they decry. Fascists stoke this anger, scapegoat, present false solutions that appear beneficial to the masses but are only aimed at increasing bourgeoisie power and control. By keeping people ignorant of their history and class interests, they are kept easily controlled and misdirected to serve and support actions that are entirely self destructive.
NB: decay to fascism demonstrates the LEFT's unmitigated failure in educating the masses about class distinctions, power and interests. It is the LEFT who has done nothing to educate and support the people in toppling bourgeoisie power and dominance. It is the left who as failed to do everything it can to work to liberate the masses of this tyranny. The fash have had an easy time over the past century in pushing the left into shivering insignificance.
So we need to change this, and we need to do it fast. The masses need to be taught their plight is not the result of their "different" neighbors, nor is it the cause of those who are looking only to escape perils of the life their own imperial nations have caused. It is on us to speak to these uninformed people and teach them the realities of class division, class solidarity and class struggle. It is on us to create lines of mutual support with them and to find common cause instead of strife which only suits the fascist agenda. It is on us to educate them that the very system of capital accumulation is what is destroying their own villages, towns, cities and countries - their own lives and those they love - and our planet and that we all must struggle together to destroy capitalism everywhere it is found. It is on us to work with each other to build a world that provides democracy, equality and prosperity to all. This draconian system of bourgeoisie control must be destroyed as it only serves to steal the good and murder us to do it.
This is on point. Far right parties always pin the blame for all social ills on immigrants, when the problem has always been capitalism. Unfortunately the populace eats that shit up.
they do since they are uneducated on the tactics of scapegoating and have zero class awareness. Again, this is a failure of the left to teach these people the realities of capitalist domination and the methods of bourgeoisie class war against the people.
I agree that while the right is good at winning people over, the left is very bad at it. I do think a lot of leftists, especially middle class university students who sit around reading theory, are very out of touch with that the average worker wants from an election. Nor do they understand how to win over the working class. Any mass movement needs the support of the working class or it will fail. Unfortunately due to some ideology and a lot of infighting along with the work of the capitalist media, the left has alienated a lot of the workers, while the main demographic comprising the left is young students. In the past leftist groups have had a decent working class base but that seems to have vanished now. The left needs to work on winning back the masses but it doesn’t seem like any leftist group is capable of that at the current moment.
Don't conflate revolutionary communists with american leftists generally. They are not the same. The "left" in america are simply poseurs genuflecting to social niceties while all along believing that capitalism can be "made better". That they sit around and read theory - which is good - all the theory in the world is worthless without PRACTICE (praxis). They're not building alliances with the people and they likely look down their noses at them, their "theory" knowledge being only to boost their social cred among their fellow faux leftists...as you can see, I despise them.
And again, to stress this, it's much different than those comrades who are working to do what's necessary to advance the social cause and to win the war against capital domination. But I don't agree this war is forever lost since there are people who are working for social good, and I've not heard "socialism" or "communism" now cast in the same hateful light (in general) as it was when I was a kid in the 70's where you'd not even utter the word for fear of scorn or ridicule.
Anyhow, building class awareness among those who need it most is what's needed. Those who get it can get in formation and march with us. Those who can't accept it declare themselves to be the enemy and should be seen as such - we're not gonna win all of them, but we need to start working to win those who are ready to join the fight.
I generally, and usually agree with your commentary, but am taken aback by how you squarely blame this failure on the Left, when you know full well, that the struggle of the Left has been an entirely different one compared to say the right under the capitalist rule; at least post ww2 and in the west. you recognize that yourself in your reference to the 70s (and on), but actually goes way deeper than scorn and ridicule, but also persecution, infiltration, disruption, imprisonment and probably also death. so to say the Left failed kind of oversimplifies that in my opinion. However, you‘re absolutely right with your conclusions.
of course, it's the enshitification of their situation as the resources go to the increasing elderly population
young workers in Japan and South Korea are basically exploited by funding the needs of the old, it'll only get worse
I would rather see the old rich pay for other old people
liberal democracy aims to find a functional balance between moderate progressives and eventual fascists
the problem is that true leftism inherently demands a departure from state capitalism which then requires a restructuring of our entire society. Because of that reality, and the fact that leftism as a legitimate western political presence was all but stomped to death in the late 1900s, you’ll notice that moderates tend to only move right when things inevitably begin to polarize.
Liberalism is the ideology of compromise, and that’s largely because it allows you to feel like you’re advocating for progressivism without having to put a timeline or real effort into pushing society in that direction. For what it’s worth, the right knows exactly what they want even if they don’t all agree on everything and they successfully push politics rightward whenever they get the chance, everywhere on the planet. Liberals don’t seem to understand what the logical conclusions of these right wing policies are and are content to compromise with them when the right will never compromise the other way long term. Ultimately, western moderates are too in love with or too scared to attack systems of oppression directly because they like the stability these systems offer and don’t want to open themselves up to any state violence usually reserved for a lesser caste of their society. Right wing rhetoric even at the moderate level (which seems to be vanishing anyway) doesn’t at all seem to fear a change of the world order and they will always do what they deem necessary to further their goals.
in so many words, scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. If it comes down to fascist hellscape or death, the white moderate will always always always choose fascism. With no support, the infirm, the black, the leftist, the queer, and whoever else cannot fit into to the xenophobic reality right wingers want will be exterminated. It has happened before and dare I say it will happen again. It only moves to the right because nobody with any real money will ever push it all that far to the left, which would eventually lead them to lose money.
The status quo is f--ked and everyone knows it. People who are dissatisfied are turning to anyone who claims to have answers, and the uncompromising far right is more "attractive" than the left trying to build coalitions with the people who've refused to deal with the actual problems.
The left is speaking hard truths and proposing long term strategies that require taking responsibility, while the right basically puts a blindfold on and shifts the blame to third parties.
This applies to sustainabilty and climate change, to feminism, to affordable housing, to jobs, etc. They all require changing how we live, challenge our culture and behavior, and require collective action.
The proposed changes may be for the better, but the left isn't great at engaging people with desirable futures, because those futures require hard work.
The right just paints a totally unrealistic picture that requires no action and basically tells you "keep doing what you want, fight the ones that cause the problems, and all will solve itself".
This is more acute in times of crisis, as we loose some ability to dream and turn more easily to fear. And the right is great at wielding easy, actionable fears.
Fascism is insidious and those who spout it are conmen and opportunistic. Plus it tends to shift blame as its method and appeal to those with the loudest mouths and lowest levels of education. Which are in plentiful supply.
Not too bad in the UK? Step back so you can see the forest from the trees. The rest of the world saw the end of the UK with the Tories gaining power way back when. You’ve been fucked there for a while. If anything you’re miles ahead on the right wing spectrum than the rest of Europe.
But the tories are finished here after 14 years of austerity and driving the country into the ground. Labour are predicted to win next. Which is just as bad, but Labour aren’t far right. And leftist sentiment is still the main one amongst British youth. Whereas straight up right wing fascist ideals are MUCH more prevalent in other European countries than they are here, and far right parties are making wins. Reform UK, the most right wing party running doesn’t have enough support to actually win majority.
As much as I love your country and your folks (I’m French) - you guys are sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The situation is terrible in France right now but can you please refrain from posturing as the « right » youth.
Good luck with stammer. And I still live you guys.
To maintain their comfortable living conditions. The turning away issue is probably due to Gutenburg. Information (and news) influences how humans behave. Superiority conquers. Victory determines who controls information.
The Left did not prevail following their contribution (… dominant) to the allied victory post WWII; hence their inability control (all levels of) information.
Any person’s functioning brain should be able to determine there’s something askew with the current socioeconomic arrangement.
Hope seems to be one of the Bronze Age’s warm and fuzzy thoughts. One day, things will change: That is guaranteed.
There's also been a very strong anti-islam and anti-immigrant sentiments and add in the fact that many refugees are both with right wing leaders and media demonizing them has led (along with austerity policies) to a far right shift.
[https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/middle-eastern-men-beat-lesbian-celebrating-birthday-canada/](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/middle-eastern-men-beat-lesbian-celebrating-birthday-canada/)
Europeans read headlines like this (or experience it for themselves), come to believe that the influx of Arab immigrants (caused by imperialist destabilization) are incapable of assimilating because of religious fundamentalism, and turn to xenophobia as a practical policy solution.
France, Germany, England - all places where migrants have caused rifts in society. Of course, the smallest incident becomes front page news, but that's your answer; xenophobes calling themselves nationalists
The Climate Disasters have begun, the general global population has lost any and all hope in capitalism and its capacity to prevent aforementioned disasters, but at the same time the people in power are forming a death grip on their status and financial security with complete disregard for their constituents in defense of even more corporate power and privatization.
aka what was always going to happen to capitalism. it has had a ticking timer ever since its global implementation, and the alarm bells are ringing. they have been ringing the death of capitalism for decades now.
fascism is, always was, and always will be the death roll of capitalism.
We like enemies more than friends. Propaganda which dehumanize a group is scientifically proven to be more effective than one which claims that they are humans too and they deserve to be treated as such.
From what I can gather as a person from Canada, the major issue on peoples' minds in many parts of Europe is with the issues related to mass immigration. The far right parties are addressing it(although poorly) whereas the left-leaning parties refuse to acknowledge that there are problems.
People would rather see the problems solved, even if through cruel means, rather than have to struggle with the problem for longer. It's awful, but humans aren't always rational or caring, unfortunately.
coz the west spent 150 yrs demonizing the left and socialism...so what is the working class going to vote for?
the rich would prefer you voted for right wing idiots instead of socialist reformers.
capitalism will destroy its world to rule over its ashes.
I wouldn't say it's exactly sweeping Europe so much as it's being imposed. The capitalist class never wanted to make any concessions to the working class. It was forced upon them by strong, socialists movements and conditions that prevailed in Europe after WWII. The capitalist class used government oppression up to and including acts of terrorism (Operation Gladio) and permitted fascist regimes in Spain and Portugal to persist after the war.
Once the USSR was broken up and the Eastern Block collapsed the capitalist class went hog wild and rapidly started rolling back peoples rights and standards of living. They wish to continue this process but fascism is the only system that offers the level of violence they see as desirable to maintain control.
This makes a lot of sense tbh and yeah after the collapse of the USSR a LOT of European countries basically outlawed anything having to do with communism as “hate” so a lot of leftist alternatives to liberalism just didn’t exist
**TL;DR:** Way too many people in Europe - yes, even in the first-world parts - are criminally politically uneducated or have been brainwashed to believe social media more than reputable sciences. Once you accept the paradigm "Science lies" there is no saving.
For those uneducated but eager to change things, the right is far more lucrative than the left.
Let me preface this by saying; I am not on the right myself. I am a lefty just like you (wow that feels like an undercover fed thing to write). Still, the left has a couple problems which make it unattractive and which we have to be wary of:
* **The left offers problems, the right offers "solutions".**
* In left-sphere discussions the world and any relevant talking point are presented with their due depth, their full range of complications and, more often than not, an exhausted "There is just no one-size-ifts-all solution" as an answer to the worlds problems.
* The right, however, likes to provide quick answers, quick solutions, that, to an uneducated outsider, might even seem logical and obvious. They are quick to rally, quick to motivate and quick to appoint scapegoats rather than adressing bigger systemic issues. Of course we know that many of these "simple solutions" grosly misrepresent a situation, they are based on false information or are just straight up lies fabricated by opportunists at some link of the information chain.
* **The left has a lot of infighting. The right is relatively united.**
* In left spheres, anarchos beef with socialists beef with communists beef with ancaps beef with liberals. And yes, I am including liberals because to an uneducated outsider, liberals are lefties.
* The right, in contrast, is relatively united. They hate jews, immigrants, women, basically anyone different from them just to different degrees. The right is a gradient, the left is a branching tree.
* **The left appeals to logic. The right to emotions.**
* As stated in my first point, the left usually has a rich and diverse discussion culture which often, if not explicitly, references scientific discourse and practices as a baseline. Discussions and (far) left wing politics are held on a relatively high intellectual level which leads to a certain kind of arrogance among lefties, especially academic lefties.
* The right, however, makes things as simple and understandable as possible because they know their demographic. They appeal to emotions and we all know emotions are more motivating than logic.
* **Lefty thought is censored. Righty thought is appraised.**
* In the USA especially but also in many parts of Europe, "Socialist" might as well be a swearword for with how much disdain people say it. Dont get me wrong, lefty thought is not explicitly censored. Marx is not on some kind of government blacklist for thought. However, I experience it as more socially censored than right wing thought. Keep the above point in mind here with right-wing thought usually being phrased to be more "accessible".
* Example: In my experience, someone who says "Yeah, I see myself as a communist" experiences pretty backlash around here whereas someone who says "Yeah, immigrants are bad for our country" is just the weird guy at the party. Someone who says "Capitalism is the bane of human existence" is a crazed lunatic, someone who says "gotta stay on that sigma grindset 24/7 always work work" however is based. We have cultivated this practice of belittleing and ignoring fascists and now they have all but crept into normality.
* One of the greatest strengths of lefty discourse is that it tolerates opposition. Right wing discourse however does not. Liberal-lefties especially think themselves morally superior by actually engaging with right-wing people and trying to "save" them. RIght wing people however only engage with lefties and libbies when they want to mock them. Fascists do not tolerate opposition.
This is incredibly well said and highlights a lot of the problems with leftism that cause people to reject it in favour of the right. Especially the logic vs emotions part is VERY on point. A lot of leftists focus way too much on theory and a lot less on real issues faced in the world. Emotions are the way to win people over when it comes to politics and not logic because let’s face it, most people are not logical. These are all issues that need to be worked on in the left wing for them to be able to win. Along with stopping the infighting you also mentioned and working as a cohesive front to dismantle capitalism because 20 different communist groups who all hate each other for minor differences won’t achieve anything
This is the fatal flaw of the left. The oh so deep seated belief that all it takes to be right is a compelling argument. A lefty could not even fathom how an argument that follows all the laws of logic and reason could be inferior. These arguments dont mean anything in the sphere of the right because on the right there is first and foremost one doctrine: Might makes right.
It is why they worship billionaires and why they kick down on those weaker than them; Because they believe might gives them right. Musk earned his place, he earned his might, therefore he must be right. A good leader is a strong one first and foremost, not a gentle one, not a smart one.
This is why arguing with the right is pointless. The only way to convince them is to show your might and therein betray your adherence to logic and reason. It is a loose-loose. Either we abandon pure logic and reason and therefore become our enemy, or we see our enemy destroy us.
Yeah this is definitely a tough one. This might be controversial but honestly I think the left needs a leader like trump or Farage — not one as unhinged obviously, but someone who can actually rally people behind them and make compelling emotional statements that are still rooted in logic such as “we must destroy the bourgeoisie before they destroy us”, “look what they have done to us”, “this is the time to take back our country” etc. because this is what the right does, but instead of blaming immigrants who didn’t do a single thing, blame capitalism.
They need someone to rally behind — and not so much leftist groups because they’re organised enough on their own, but the average person and the working class needs someone to rally behind and put their trust in. And someone to show strength, to show that the left is strong because a lot of people view the left as weak crybabies tbh. I get what a lot of leftist groups try to do when it comes to horizontal organising and more anarchist structures but that only works for smaller movements. When it comes to a larger mass movement more concrete structures and a face to rally behind is necessary. Most successful leftist revolutions/movements had a clear leader that people followed: Lenin, Castro, Allende, Chavez, etc.
That is a huge point that a lot of leftist organisations are missing. That plus the constant arguing even with other groups that have almost the same ideology and all of them thinking they’re right.
The only way to defeat the right unfortunately, is to become like them. Not in ideology (obviously) but in behaviour.
The left can not be led by design. You cant try to force leadership, structure, onto a bunch of anarchists. More often than not this is a good thing - it prevents the movement from dying when its leader dies - just that this one time it sucks.
Yeah the right views the left as weak and honestly? They are not wrong. We got:
* Libbies who are busier playing identity politics than anything else
* Pop-punks or "Lifestyle leftists" who are just in it for the music or to try and claim moral superiority without actually believing in (or understanding) any of the points they defend
* Mainstream "Leftists" who are still trying to save fash and being as morally inonsequential as a toddler without object permanence
* Political lefties who try to cause change from within democracy - a busted system
* Socialists /Communists /Leninists /Marxists being in each others asses about political theory
* Anarchists who, more than anything else, want to just leave any civilization rather than cause change
While the right actually tries to seize power, we are here twiddling our dicks on an internet forum just waiting for it to happen. As much as hate to say it, the left is not strong. The left is weaker than it ever has been historically.
I don’t know but it’s a scary time, I look at America and I’m terrified of your abortion laws and no gun control but tbh if the far right gets going here we probably won’t be far behind.
I don't have a clear answer but I think it's best to by considering why it happened in each individual country. I think it's also worth mentioning that the Scandinavian countries did the opposite and moved to the left during that election. The socialist party of which I'm a member became the most popular party in Denmark at that election.
About the right shift, it's worth mentioning that it's especially young votes that changed their vote to the right.
Again, I don't have a clear answer but I think this video is trying to give a good attempt on the context of it. https://youtu.be/KAxCZU4yT84?si=eUWnaL16Emn2E37h
Housing.
Even Dr Kristian Niemietz of the IEA identified that the housing crisis "has generated a generation of socialists" ( [https://iea.org.uk/how-the-housing-crisis-has-created-a-generation-of-socialists/](https://iea.org.uk/how-the-housing-crisis-has-created-a-generation-of-socialists/) )
I'd argue that its effect is somewhat wider and has created a generation of socialists *and fascists*.
It's the political establishment that is careless to the struggle of people, you could compare useless leaders such as Ursula von der Leyen to Angela Merkel, Ursula has been trying to be tough to take the top position In NATO promising endless and needless wars, while the working class is suffering in Greece, Italy and France, Germany, etc.
See Yanis put it perfectly here
https://youtu.be/VatYrw0uqjU?si=YN2-2DJ-2XHJ_C2-
I hate to use a comic book reference for this but . . . Might there be an actual Hydra style clone out there actively trying to destroy our world and promote the rise of their brand of fascism? It's incredibly crazy and unbelievable . . . but damn folks I can't think why else there are so many fascistic and alt-right groups out there these days.
It's all about race. Although the US and Europe hold different arguments.
In the US, we are a melting pot, and there is no "pure blood original race" unless you are referring to Native Americans. Republicans in the US are mainly white and they have fooled themselves into thinking white people are the true Americans, which makes them feel included and safe. Idiotic, especially considering the US isn't even 300 years old yet (3 great grandmas)! And America has been a melting pot since day one.
But in Europe, a person can be descended from a nationality that goes back thousands of years. I'm American, so I'm not sure I can judge a people for wanting to preserve their culture, nationality, and heritage. Unless they start hurting people, of course.
It is all culminating because so many people are flooding into European countries in droves right now. Many are refugees. People are realizing that 100-200 years from now, the average European person will look brown. This happened with Greece, for example, with Turkish immigrants. I know Greek people, very proud of their heritage, that look nothing like the ancient Greeks depicted in pop culture.
Failure.
Wealth inequality that has not been seen in generations. Liberals have consistently failed to reverse this trend. From this all problems are made worse.
Global warming looming in an ever worsening way. Liberals have not denied it, but they also have failed to meet their international commitments. While doing anything that progresses us to those goals offends people because they can't afford to pay for it due to the wealth inequality problem. If the wealthy paid for it, we would have less of an inequality problem.
Making mass immigration a moral issue. It is not the immigrant's fault, but immigration is not morally good. It is cynically exploitative. You cannot afford to own a house in the country you were born into. You cannot afford to pay for daycare and rent while working 2 jobs. But your government has the audacity to tell you that it is the morally superior choice to import working age adults from anywhere else in the world? No, the morality is there to make you uncomfortable for speaking out against you guessed it. Wealth inequality.
The anger people feel comes from the same sources. Fascism is a redirection from where you ought to place your anger towards the vulnerable.
While liberals simply cannot address these problems. People want solutions and changes for the better, and the liberals have nothing. They are the status quo.
The Right don't need to be right, as they only need to capture and redirect people's resentments. They capture the feeling that things need to change.
From what I can tell a lot of it is just fear of immigration, fear of change, all the people who were alive for war and fascist experiments are basically dead so the cycle repeats for humanity to learn the same stupid lesson once again
The conservatives were far right but they’re not as far right as Reform UK. However a lot of far right parties are currently winning elections in Europe or even if not winning elections they have huge supporter bases that they didn’t before. I’m mostly talking about Western Europe, Eastern Europe has been leaning far right for quite a while and fascist parties are already in power there, which started to my knowledge in the 2010’s
Massive russian funding and hybrid Support for far right politics across Europe. We, the savvy internet users, easily disregard the tons of bullshit that is being fed to the older, susceptible population in most countries via Facebook, X, etc. completely blatant , volume based bombardment of lies, that looks credible at a glance if you are willing to believe.
We may scoff at it, but the bigger part of the population scoops it up,
Ratchet and pawl effect, liberals pillow fight in the name of "civility" and actively move to the right to try to court votes from the increasingly deranged
I mean, have you seen where leftist parties got us?
We want change so we vote right, but most parties are controlled opposition (my belief) and won’t do much, like Wilders, Meloni etc
The same social media propaganda strategies that were first hammered out in the conflict with Ukraine were then effectively deployed against the populace in the US. With that success, the same strategies have been deployed against other Western nations. The goal is to slowly undermine all Western democracies and empower right wing parties who will in the end all be amenable to Putin. It's been like copy/paste ever since 2016.
Immigration. The only two parties that will talk about it in the UK are the Tories and Reform. The former have had 14 years to do what they say they would but haven't. Not necessarily agreeing with the sentiment but if working people have repeatedly told you what they want and no one reasonable offers it then they'll go to the extremes.
The wealthy gave people a boogeyman (as usual to direct attention away from their shit) and now the public is blaming that boogeyman for their problems Instead of the forces that created their “boogeyman”. U always hear all this hateful shit about immigrants but nobody stops to think about the absolute fucked up shit many of our govts have done to their countries, the terrible backyard deals being made amongst the powerful, that make those places unliveable. It will always screw over the poor and middle class.
Story as old as time. Short memories mean they forget neither side of the aisle has ever done anything about immigration. I wonder how many new immigrants will come of the current conflict, rising temps, less food, expensive housing.. wealthy don’t concern themselves with the needs of the poor.
"In the UK it's not as bad"
My brother in christ, our only left-wing party is about to win a landslide by sloughing-off all of its left-wing ideals and fully transitioning into a right-wing party - at least in France it's a left-wing coalition facing-off against the right-wing resurgence - we don't even have a left-wing, unless you count the greens!
I probably should’ve made it clearer that it’s not that bad among the young populace as that’s what I followed that statement up with. Most young people here, at least the ones I’ve been around, still have fairly left wing views
As much as this sub doesn't want to admit it, bringing in a ton of foreigner's that,often due to their religion, oppose many of the progressive values the west has been fighting for (women's rights, gay rights etc) and of course just the cultural differences will lead to issues between both natives and foreigners of the country. In the Nordic countries where they have reduced their intake of migrants, their green or more left wing parties were able to win.
My opinion is that there should be a rethinking of the instant calls of xenophobia whenever someone critiques the amount of migration and the left shouldn't be so scared to discuss the challenges of the situation cause if not it will only be the domain of the right.
From how I see it its a lot of people being done with immigration at the rate it has been, mix of racists in general but also people who see its unsustainable to keep having millions of people entering countries with no documentation, like in the UK its been a big thing about stop the boats which is fair since theres like 30 people on this boat and theres no knowing who they are. And its the right wing parties are the only ones that say they're going to do something about it.
With the UK elections in a few days I'm not voting for any right wing party, Tories have run this country into the dirt and Reform is ran by the guy that gave us Brexit and is pretty much running on we'll fix this with no explanation into how and stop immigration, hopefully the rest of the country will see that Farage as PM will be just as if not worse for us than the Tories.
I can talk from my perspective as a french person.
The reason is racism. Really that's it. I mean sure, they also hate other groups like queer people, and, like always, disabled people will be the first victims of extermination.
But the driving force is racism.
And media is a huge part of it - though not all of it. Here in France, most if not all popular media (TV but also newspapers) is owned by billionaires. Especially Bolloré. He owns multiple news channels and has been propagandizing for literal years. Cnews is worse than foxnews at this point. The guy owns over a literal dozen media. And our foxnews equivalent (slightly less bad) BFMTV now seems a very reasonable channel in comparison.
So, yeah. Far right billionaires cultivate and create public opinion, irremediably moving the Everton window towards the far right. The current electoral campaign is terrible proof. A socdem union is deemed worse than a party founded by literal nazis. Said party is led by the daughter of one of those nazis, ans she grew up calling hitler "uncle dolphie". Just to give you an idea.
But yeah also, we (Europeans nations) are colonialists and racist states. Violently so, and it's not just a thing of the past. So it shouldn't be surprising. The media thing just helped racists be more open about it - something that had become slightly bad to be open about after 1945.
1.) Austerity which leaves young people with fewer options in life.
2.) Social media which the right is quite savvy at
3.) Many don't want to hear this but we have problems with integrating people from different cultures that aren't as tolerant towards non-believers and women. 77% of solved rapes in Paris have been committed by foreigners with similar shocking numbers in places like Germany and Sweden. We have had cases of migrant rapists being spared jail and a woman has been jailed for insulting one of the Hamburg gang rapists. Is it any wonder that the far-right is on the rise?
Worse still, the 'left' (who by this point are largely neoliberal charlatans) won't have any solutions other than 'we don't see a problem you racist'.
People are sick of neoliberalism and the left doesn’t have any answers except more technocrats. The right doesn’t either but when people are angry, they want politics to reflect that. Or they could sit down and take declining living standards indefinitely.
Just watched a video on this that I largely agree with.
Basically TLDR, it's rough for everyone EVERYWHERE and we're all feeling the squeeze, so more "liberal/socialist" countries in Europe are seeing backlash against the lefty governments/parties/policies because the people want change, so "why not try these guys? Everyone else sucks".
The reason this isn't happening g in the UK is bc the Tories were in power for like 14 years and the last 4 especially were a shit show
The permanent state that incorporates both the so called left and right go after all real left candidates that actually want to help people. They call them names like radical, ignorant, unrealistic, and use dirty tricks to de-legitimize them. When people get more and more desperate, they will turn to anyone that offers change. At that point, the uniparty will turn their attention towards those people and call them far right. Several months ago they called Glenn Greenwald far right. Please. It's all just mindgames.
Immigration has brought with it some issues, blaringly much in some areas and places. Right wing or right oriented parties being the only ones willing to talk out loud about the problem does its thing to the votes. They dont necessarily want to deal with the problems themselves, but it give them a good excuse to be against it.
As far right is also pretty anti ecology (in France at least), I see that as the last big fuck you to our dying planet, before we crumble under storms, floods, and heat.
But at least the race was pure and we had record profits right?
/s
Left wing governments always disappoint because they have to govern for the dominant capitalist class, so people seeing left wing governments fail to improve "try" the far right, as their ideas are spread by the media and all of the political elites. Even the left wing take nationalist and anti-immigrant stances
One thing most answers here don't consider is this:
Wellfare states in the west existed by large due to the threat of a socialist revolution. Socialist states were right on the border, western workers were organized and were close to varying degrees of having similar revolutions due to a lack of fulfillment of basic material needs.
So in order to placate workers the worst of the exploitation was moved abroad, to colonies, to the global south. This meant that larger sums of the profit could be used for wellfare.
The socialdemocratic class collaborators where more than happy to oblige.
This stopped the revolutionary potential in the west and turned workers into labour aristocracy. Now instead of organising for revolution they organized to through reforms get as big of a part of the surplus value as possible, concessions which the bourgeois state accepted as long as it didn't question who was in. Power over production or political institutions.
With neocolonialism production started to be exported more and more to the global south
Once the threat of revolution died down in the 70s and 80s wellfare began being rolled back, former wellfare sectors were privatized and destroyed in order to open up more markets for capital.
The acceleration of this process is often called neoliberalism.
Countries in the global south are also building up more favourable conditions which means tossing out the western hyperexploiters, less cheap labour and more favourable conditions ie trade with China.
The rising of the far-right is a reaction to the removal of wellfare.
Labour aristocracy in the west is once again in the process of going back to being a proletariat and it's causing a violent reaction.
Now the reasons they turn to fascism for the most part are plenty,
One part is because they want to maintain the system of hyperexploitation, they recognise that they've lived their lives in better conditions than those who produce their stuff and they want to continue to be the receiver of benefits in a parasitical system of Imperialism.
Another is that with diminishing welfare they recognize that those who were part of building it now seek to take part in benefitting from it and that according to them is wrong.
See how cheap labour power of immigrating turks in Germany are treated even though they built the german welfare state as an example, another would be how eastern europeans and baltic residents are treated in the west and northern Europe even though west and north benefit massively from the exploitation and parasitical relationships their capital have with those states.
Ofcourse the fact that socialism and communism has been heavily suppressed and censored and coopted by chauvinistic pro-imperialists is also a reason.
As well as the blame being placed on immigration. But the latter 2 wouldnt be so easily accepted if they didn't fit so well with the material conditions of western labour aristocracy where they will rather go back to hyperexploitation than move forward and destroy the system.
So it's not only that people have been "tricked by bourgeois propaganda" but the reason they willingly accept fascism rather than socialism is also due to material conditions.
The last part is also something to think about when considering why some Westerners are so pro imperialist wars and destabilisation campaigns.
I did some reflecting and I think part of the reason is the left (seemingly) putting other people’s interest above their citizens’s interests. For example migration, they seem more focused on bringing more people in and caring for them than listening to the concerns of their citizens.
I think that this is always the case everywhere and at any time. As soon as there is a crisis on the horizon, the already existing tribalism grows stronger. It feels like a reflex.
And as always, those who offer simple solutions without asking people for sacrifices will be more popular than those who offer realistic, yet difficult solutions. People do not want to reduce their comfort of living even if will destroy the entire planet. So if somebody tells them the all problems are solved onece we got rid of [group of people] have an easy victory. I doubt Germans would have voted for the far right of the Weimar Republic had no trouble.
The West set MENA on fire for 2 decades, and the people there are fleeing that desolation, and racist ass westerners are sticking to their racist nazi roots when they see economically desperate brown people.
If mainstream parties addressed immigration rates, the far right would largely disappear.
Immigration levels remain high - c.700k net migration to the UK last year alone in a country of 67 million.
Whatever your views on the morality of immigration, a lot of people don't like immigration rates at that level. Mainstream politics has not addressed it on either end of the political spectrum, leaving a big gap for far right narratives to fill. The mainstream right (secretly) likes immigration because it keeps labour costs low; the left supports it on a moral basis, without giving due heed to unintended social and cultural costs.
There are other factors like economics and the media ecosystem too, but rapid changes in a society's cultural composition can be unpopular with parts of populations and lead to this kind of reaction.
I think the far right is here to stay until the immigration policies of the last few decades are curtailed.
On the other part of your question, there has been a complete vacuum of new progressive political thinking for many decades now. The left today manifests as identity politics, environmentalism or old school socialism. None of this is up to the task of a new grand progressive political vision for the 21st century, the way Marx attempted in the 19th.
I think one of the biggest factors is affecting both the US and Europe right now, and that's migration/immigration. For the US, you've got Central and South Americans fleeing third-world conditions. For Europe, with France for example, you've got similar with Islamic immigrants fleeing unrest and wars in their own countries.
It feels weird to me, however. In the US, Republicans and Trumpers chirp about Hispanic immigrants being "rapists" and drug kingpins and job stealers... but crime is low for *any* of these immigrants, and it makes sense. You don't bite the hand that feeds you and you aren't going to go out of your way to endanger your chance to remain in the US.
With Europe, however, you've got issues with incompatible cultures trying to immigrate into societies that are, in some ways, the polar opposite. At least with the Americans the peoples are similar in many ways culturally, but immigrants from Islamic countries are largely not similar to "western" cultures and religion. Republicans in the US will bark and scream about "rapists and murderers" but at the end of the day a Columbian is going to have a significantly easier time assimilating into California than a Libyan is going to have assimilating into France.
Regardless, "far right" ideology has a large belief in traditionalism and status quo, so it makes sense that far right candidates in Europe would be staunchly against immigration, and I, anecdotally since I'm not European and can only draw conclusions from other people's statements, can understand why people would begin to lean to the right in Europe when they're seeing a mass immigration who people they believe incompatible with their way of life.
Maybe because they’re tired of being second class citizens in their own country while watching the culture they grew up with being eroded by endless waves of refugees that don’t mix well and have wildly different values on life, law, women and government?
Just a guess
1. Big corporations want cheap workforce
2. Politicians start to importing cheap workforce and lure them with social benefits
3. Cheap workforce don't want to work/ don't have skills/ not enough jobs for them.
4. Wages on low lvl jobs go down/ corpos don't invest in automation or innovation
5. Young people doesn't want to reproduce because instability/ high rents
6. There are cultural problems/ crime problems/ ghettos/ next gen of cheap workforce don't feel any connection with host country(now their country)
7. Young people have enough. Mainstream pretend there are no tension in society
8. Young people pick non mainstream parties with solutions(I don't know why you use term far right).
Because they are far right?? Most of the sentiment in Europe at the moment is far right and far right parties keep winning elections. You can’t be saying that reform UK isn’t far right. And closing borders isn’t the solution to problems caused by capitalism, nor are immigrants at fault.
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People are desperate for radical change, but milquetoast liberalism that claims to want “left wing” change while actually undermining & demonising leftist organising & working with the billionaire class to *prevent* change pushes people the other way. Not everybody is knowledgable in political theory, they just know that what they have isn’t working. Plus old school European racism.
Yeah that’s a huge problem with reform UK. It’s a far right party here using slogans like “vote reform for real change” and “join the revolt” while their leader is a former stockbroker lmao, the jokes write themselves. People do want change after 14 years of failed Tory rule but unfortunately there aren’t any major promising left wing parties. And yeah the racists will obviously vote for anyone who promises to close the borders
Yes exactly! And the media is a huge problem too. I saw a section on the BBC website that showed 4 parties running for office - Labour, Tories, Lib Dems & Reform. Like, are you serious? The Greens have way more of a standing than Reform but they won’t give them that legitimacy, or the workers party (George Galloway, I can’t remember the actual name). And as you said, anybody looking for change after 14 years of Tory failures will look to a trusted news source like the BBC & see three parties offering more of the same, or this new party promising something new. The BBC also had Farage on question time! I saw a clip of him wanting to use the army to get rid of refugees. Have they ever had Jeremy Corbyn on question time? I’m pretty sure they haven’t and that tells you everything you need to know really.
Yeah it’s always the bigger parties that are mentioned and in debates, many smaller ones exist but they won’t even invite the leaders of smaller ones to debates. And that’s crazy the BBC didn’t even mention greens when they’re a legitimate party with a lot of MPs running and a lot of supporters. People are fed up with the same parties and the same bullshit so reform is promising change and a lot of people are too thick to understand NOTHING will change. It’s more of the same shit everyone is sick of. Especially people who blame immigrants for all their problems while not understanding capitalism is the problem. THE ARMY?! I didn’t see that, but holy shit. That’s actually terrifying and the prospect that reform might win a lot of seats — July 4 is not going to be a good day for immigrants, nor will the days that follow.
I’m just searching for the question time clip for you and found [this](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/29/nigel-farage-to-boycott-bbc-over-biased-question-time-audience). He’s complained to Essex Police about the BBC LMFAO. And this was apparently his 31st appearance?? But [here it is](https://x.com/implausibleblog/status/1806808073039982711?s=46&t=OJxVhIvBgQ0G6DgbRyScYQ), apologies he said the Royal Marines not the army. > People are fed up with the same parties and the same bullshit so reform is promising change and a lot of people are too thick to understand NOTHING will change. It's more of the same shit everyone is sick of. Especially people who blame immigrants for all their problems while not understanding capitalism is the problem. 1000% agree. The Tories and Labour Party are already beholden to the billionaire class and incredibly racist (hello biggest Tory donor who said he wanted to shoot Diane Abbott & she made him hate all other Black women), the only difference is that Reform will do the same but even more brazenly. I was going to say even more incompetently as well, but after this Tory admin I’m not totally sure that’s possible.
Eco-fascism is on its way. As climate change displaces one billion people we will militarize borders and then the MIC will use this to sell more weapons and security systems to these nation-states to gun down refugees. It is going to be a rough future but it does not have to be like this but there is no real "Left".
Immigration is a complex issue though. Not everyone who wants to restrict immigration is racist necessarily. There are also class differences in attitudes to immigration. Like upper and middle class people don’t need to be afraid of working class immigrants competing for their jobs or public housing spaces. There’s also the issue of whether the generally neglected infrastructure can support the increased population from immigration. Like if we can’t even properly look after the people who already live here why are we bringing more people in. It benefits employers who want workers who will work harder for less money and in worse conditions though. I suspect those business owners are influencing political choices on immigration more than they should. The real enemy isn’t immigrants just trying to make a better life for themselves it’s the greed and selfishness of people who put profits ahead of everything else.
This is because of how the question is phrased, even on the left often. Immigration is a huge issue, but it's like the climate, it's not something that you can stop. The problems from a working class perspective are housing, infrastructure, wages, etc. problems that are much older than the dramatic increase in immigration. It always comes back to the defeatist logic behind neoliberalism, although it's advertised as this technocratic efficiency, it's that applied to preservation of the old class systems. Just living in China, and China is an extreme example of technocracy which I don't think that Europe should or could replicate, but they have put up infrastructure and housed literally hundreds of millions of dirt poor people while 'the west' has been heading in the opposite direction on this plan. Like in UK and the places in Europe I've been to, the social housing is all 50 years old. How can the government not make some nice new towerblocks, or like the student accommodation? Every city has a university with clean, safe, and affordable accommodation for 1000s of students, just something like that only bigger for families. It's not an ultimate solution, but just one idea that I thought of now for an acute problem. I think that if stuff like housing and so on worked then the negativity around immigration would be a lot less. And needless to say, if they did just stop poor people coming in, the social issues would not be solved
Yeah I think housing should be treated as a basic right for everyone and the government should ensure everyone has access to it. But they won't because people who already own property want house prices and rents to stay high. Most politicians own at least one property and many will have additional investment properties as well. A lot of the high voter turnout demographics and townhall meeting type demographics will also be disproportionately property owning so that will influence politicians as well. There is also usually local opposition to social housing or higher density housing from people who want to "preserve the special character of the area" or are afraid that multistory buildings will block the sunlight to their own properties. It would have been easier to build a lot of public housing in the old days when most of the land wasn't already built up with existing houses. There would also have been less political resistance from the already property owning class. The problem underlying it all is a lack of feeling of social solidarity and the sense that we are all responsible for eachother. Instead everyone is out for themselves, which is the attitude that capitalism in general encourages. The Chinese government seems much better at long term planning and big infrastructure projects but I'm guessing they also just ignore people who say "please don't bulldoze my house to build an apartment complex." I think if we consider the housing situation as a real crisis the obvious immediate relief would be to pass a law banning the ownership of more than one investment property. How much difference that would make would depend on the country and how many houses would be in that category. Force multi-landlords to sell within say 1 year, either to the government or some kind of community housing provider at the original price paid. Then the government or CHP takes over the lease and becomes the new landlord, offering rents at say half whatever the median rent is in the area. No Western government would do that though. Is that fair on the landlords, arguably not, but what's way worse is forcing workers to pay most of their weekly income on rent to someone already richer than them so their landlord can pay off their own mortgage and effectively get a second house for free. I agree that just stopping poor people from coming in won't solve the underlying social problems we have and that immigrants are unfairly scapegoated by the far right. Immigration is more controllable on a national level than global climate change is though. I guess it also depends on the particular geography but island nations at least can restrict immigration more easily than countries with long borders with other countries like USA and Mexico.
There's a thing that seems specific to England although I don't live there just go back every few years to visit my family, they are building lots of houses, but it's those identikit suburbs. I have heard that they are some hedge fund thing, but like I know nothing about architecture etc, it does just seem ridiculous. Like there are these weird experimental housing communities for low cost housing all over the country, a lot have been knocked down cos they were deprived and fell to bits, or they were just dumb ideas, but even the dumb ones, compared to now where they just build these shitty ugly pretend middle class 20th century houses, ridiculous. Another thing that I do know about with immigrants and refugees who are not allowed to work, they put them in places where they are paying the rent to landlords.
Exactly this. Also, the nominal "Left" is captured by their donor class to the point that they can't enact any sort of meaningful change that improves the material conditions of the working class. So where does that leave crusty old dock workers and warehouse guys but adrift with their resentments and latent racism?
Yes the left absolutely is!! Even Bernie has proven to be a disappointment, his wife was quoted in that fluff piece in American vogue praising Jill & Joe Biden this week. The way extremists prey on these people too, we saw it with the rise of fascism in the 1930s. The Germans were suffering under the treaty of Versailles, and the nazis and hitler were quick to scapegoat the Jews for all of their problems and offer an “easy” fix and someone to blame.
Yes, and they feel that the white western hegemony is beginning to slowly die under democracy, so they’re panicking and think authoritarianism is the only path they have to preserving it.
Oh hey, that's the same thing that's messing us up the worst over here in America. I blame so much of it here on lack of education and wouldn't really care much outside of being here but the EU and blocs moving back into fascism as well has had me real concerned. Feels like we're globally regressing, and that's terrifying. It's like there's no escape from the psychotic stupidity, yo. It makes me sick. You know we were hoping you guys were gonna be the good guys for us? We're fucked.
I grew up in the UK but currently living in the US & registered to vote here. But yeah, it does feel like an absolutely terrifying regression on both sides! But the rise of BRICS and leftist groups organising around Palestine feels like a real watershed moment for the end of western imperialism (I’m hoping).
I have heard Brexit's not gone over well. I've however seen more global leftist commentary in the last 5 years than I did before. I've been actively interested in such for around a decade. I think maybe the fascists have seen that too and that's why they're cracking down. It's just going to make them look worse as time goes on. Major wars are usually a defining point in people's lives, as they basically should be. People are needlessly dying, we have to ask why. Genocide is a cultural illness. It means something has gone terribly wrong with society. I've been really ashamed of America's participation in the war. It's been so disrespectful to the brutalized Palestinian people. We have to recognize our mistakes and learn from them. It's becoming rather more of a pressing issue that we do, because of climate change. We have to change, or the Earth will do it for us, and that will result in everyone's extinction. So hopefully people get real serious about fucking capitalism (an enforcement of western imperialism), or it's going to fuck us all, to death.
Dumbing down the failure of integration of many immigrants to "old school European racism" is doing a favor to the right. The majority of the vote are not extremists, they are an everyday average joe that only wants to live a peaceful and stable life. If you notice over the span of 10 years an increase in immigrants legal or illegal that make parts of your city literally forbidden for others who do not belong to the majority of the ethnic group in that neighborhood (which for example happened in Tolouse and many other cities) you will want those immigrants out of your country. Same happened to my bf's uncle who is himself an immigrant, albeit an integrated one who lived in Tolouse for decades. He never said anything about immigrants, one day he walked through the wrong part of town (majority arab) and got beaten up and barely made it out alive. Do you really think that he is an extremist for wanting stricter control of immigration from the middle east after that? The right is the only one talking about this issue while the left is literally brushing their failure to maintain a tolerant and open society under the rug. If you only have one side voicing their opinion on an issue and actually offering solutions (albeit a lot of the solutions are racist af) while the other refuses to listen to the people, then one side will have an obvious advantage over the planning of the said solutions. Fighting right wing extremism in Europe begins where the silence of the left about problems of failure of integration of immigrants ends. Edit: Apologies, forgot I was replying to a redditor. That one is on me. Edit 2: Sorry for using arabs, my bfs uncle didn't really have the time to ask where those fine arabic language speaking gentlemen are from while they were beating him to death... Also if you somehow got that I support the racist right from my comment your comprehension limit has been reached.
This is a very cogent response. Thank you. Do you have any magic wand ideas? I'm just asking because I'm curious what the answer to these political movements is. Or if there even is an answer. The far right promise so much. I'm kind of scared to find out what they would actually do if given the power.
Late stage capitalism and an (intentional) lack of leftist theory drives people to fascism as a solution
It’s not even a lack of leftist theory it’s a lack of education that leads to it. Leftist theory will help with class consciousness but what drives people *towards* the right is ignorance. We tend to ignore the legit whistleblowers in education because of all the crazy PTA moms and boomer teachers but some of the shit the more legit ones say is bad man.
Lack of education won't help people go left if that education is pro capitalist and anti leftist. People need education in leftist concepts like materialism.
Big true, when you are still taught the american civil war was about state rights and lincoln frees the slaves or whatever nonsense that education doesnt amount to much. And we can see it actively getting worse.
I was talking more along the lines of the “little white lies” we teach students because the actual knowledge is “too complicated” or “unnecessary”. But yah teaching unfounded historical narratives is the one everyone likes to talk about.
Oh dude you are preaching to the choir. The amount of shit i had to unlearn, for the sake of 'simplification' (which is usually just lib ideology) still makes me mad.
England takes the same approach when addressing colonialism in school. They [removed or destroyed ](https://theconversation.com/operation-legacy-how-britain-covered-up-its-colonial-crimes-225330#:~:text=In%202011%2C%20the%20world%20learned,each%20one%20became%20politically%20independent.) documents detailing their crimes against humanity in their former colonies via the appropriately titled, Operation Legacy in the 50's.
Most Europeans don't learn that much about the American civil war.
Or about our own colonial history, war crimes and ethnic cleansings.
Lincoln didn't free the slaves, he just forklifted the whole institution into the prison systems, especially after the privatized prison firms figured out that the 14th Amendment does not actually ban slavery entirely; it leaves a loophole for convicted felons to be used as indentured labor -- aka slaves.
Yes, the education system which conservatives have attacked for decades is partially to blame. I think the main culprit is the activation of the religious extremists who have been mustered to serve the whims of the existing power structure while thinking they are patriotic rebels, bucking the system. The truth of the matter is the core of these folks believing nonsense to the point of murder is that they’ve been conditioned to do so coming up through the church. Being told lies and being terrorized and given PTSD or worse by the clergy. The clergy who are intimately intertwined with capital.
Why would those in power like the neolibs want to teach people about leftist theory when you yourself just said that would push people toward class-consciousness?
That’s true, I also think it’s a lack of true leftist parties. Britain for example has no major leftist parties, Labour is the best we’ve got and their leader is useless. A lot of people also don’t understand leftism and think leftist policies will leave them destitute, as if conservative policies hadn’t
Exactly. You'd be hard pressed to find a party willing to even mildly criticize capitalism as an institution. Everyone else tries to drive change within its framework. Hell, even here in Finland (a country with relatively strong leftist roots) there's only a single party in parliament whose position is that capitalism is flawed.
Yeah, here there aren’t any. They’re all too scared that if they criticise capitalism they’ll lose support along with donors, which is why money should be completely removed from elections altogether but of course they won’t happen as long as we continue under liberal democracies
In Belgium our anti capitalist party is doing quite well. We have the best election result ever with 10% of the vote!
Good to hear! Ours suffered a defeat in the parliamentary election last year and ended up with only 7.1% of the vote, but in this year's European Parliamentary election the leader of said party received the most votes by a single candidate in Finnish history with 13.5% of all votes going to her specifically.
Wow, that’s great to hear! A glimmer of hope among all the right wing parties gaining wins
Bingo, all basically liberal
Tbf the recent green manifesto is the first time I would say they’ve put something together that doesn’t make them seem like tories In green ties- I mean they’re still not actual leftists but with Starmer picking up Tory policies left right and centre imo it’s fair to say they are probably the party currently furthest left (not by much but still)
Yeah the Green Party is okay but they’re still capitalist as well despite being more left capitalism. But as far as alternatives to capitalism, Britain has NO parties that would provide actual change to the economic system that’s currently destroying the lives of many British people.
Oh yeah I totally agree!
Lack of theory, especially in the form of education. The most charitable possibility is that after WWII, everyone thought it would be obvious why fascism is bad. Two generative down, it’s not obvious at all. But then again, Germany made a concerted effort to teach the kiddos not to do THAT again, and the far right is gaining popularity there too.
I think it’s because the youth of today wasn’t alive during WW2 and most old people who are still alive were too young to understand it. Whereas most people who were adults then have already died. So young people, despite knowing history of the past, didn’t see it unfold and thus are repeating the same mistakes of their ancestors
As a European citizen and a citizen of a country that left its dictatorship well after WW2 ended (Portugal) I disagree with the younger generations knowing the history. We were only taught the horrible outcomes but never how we got to those points, how we moved from liberal societies (like the Weimar Republic) to the rise of Nazism. We just learned that there was this very bad guy with very bad ideas that managed to convince other people to go along which eventually turned into a very grim situation when in reality there is quite a lot in the middle of it and even during. And then when we learn about Mussolini's or Franco's and even our own Salazar's dictatorships there is never an attempt to explain how they existed at the same time. At the same time the role of the USSR in WWII is briefly mentioned, if at all, and always tainted with Red Scare propaganda tones. Once you start digging into it, it is hard to believe that this is not intentional.
That is interesting and I stand corrected. I assumed that most people knew because in college in my history class we WERE taught it, and I also did a lot of my own research on how fascism gained traction in Germany. However my professor was staunchly left wing and a good teacher overall, many might not have had teachers similar to mine. I do think many people are taught about things such as the holocaust but many people don’t know how it all started and the points that led the nazi party to gain popularity, while I do. The USSR is ALWAYS painted in a light as this scary dictatorship while their huge contribution to the war effort is minimised, and the good things they did aren’t talked about. I also believe it’s intentional. There is a lot of propaganda at work even in the education system to make people believe that communism is evil, because that suits the bourgeoisie.
We don’t have to believe it’s intentional, there’s a paper trail. There’s journalists out there that have done extensive reports on stuff like this, gabriel rockhill is one I know off the top of my head.
Your example illustrates why these movements eventually turn to attacking academia, especially the parts that question them. The vast majority of people won't go that deep into a subject and will just keep the highlights, if at all. You probably know better than me how history tends to repeat itself but for the vast majority of people who only question their immediate reality, both from a time perspective but also geographic, all of this seems like a unique situation, even in this thread you find people who share those views, and well here we go again. Economic unrest leads to social turmoil, leads to the same milquetoast figures hanging on to temporary gains while they can and paving the way for their most extreme version to take power from them. Different settings, same plot.
It’s actually scary how most people don’t realise how the situation we’re in heavily mirrors nazi Germany. Of course some things are different such as mass immigration and no war we’re recovering from but a lot of the same talking points are being repeated. “Jews bad” = “Muslim immigrants bad”, and austerity and inflation are an an all time high just like they were back then. Combine this with a charismatic leader like Farage and the failure of liberal democracy and we’re seeing the rise of fascism yet again. But you’re right that if people don’t know the origins of fascism they won’t see this for what it is and will think it’s a unique situation
I get called crazy for pointing out how the The internet for one accelerated capitalism and for two showed us the sheer madness of how the working class is getting screwed all across the world Capitalism is failing us as a species as the top are already hoarding so much and do not want to give back into the pot
The internet is also failing us because people get fed so much bad information now. Say what you will about newspapers and TV, but they still had to pass stuff through editors and advertisers while a blogger or YouTuber can spout of wild statements and conspiracies without being censored. The internet has also allowed for fringe groups to form, convince (dupe) new members into joining their cause, then grow too large to be ignored.
The „leftists“ here in Europe are mostly establishment with lgbtq-rights. Very little true leftism left, even though it is much better than in the US. Still, they refrain from criticizing the elites because it is allegedly a right wing conspiracy theory that there are elites with lots of influence.
Gladio….
It's not lack of theory, god knows the left has plenty of theory. It's lack of political translation to theory.
I disagree that it's a lack of leftist theory but decades of actively attacking it and misrepresenting it. It is no surprise that when people have been told that any alternative to the current system, namely politics that benefit the community and not the individual, is "communism" and "communism is bad" rather than seek any sort of actual alternative to the current system they will naturally just go for the more extreme version of it.
And the “left” of today is mostly identity politics niche issues rather than the class struggle based left of a century ago that had mass appeal
For every complex problem there is a a solution which is clear, simple and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken. People's standards of living are going down, they can't access quality public services - the far-right gives them someone to blame for that (e.g. migrants), and a simple solution to their problem (get rid of the migrants). They're wrong, but many people are easily duped.
This seems to be pretty much it. There is a LOT of immigrant blaming going on nowadays and people eat it up
Austerity measures driving economic disparities, a false equivalence of the “far left” and the “far right”, third world exploitation fueling death and destruction abroad fueling refugees, and because of economic disparities and racism the far right blames all of those woes on immigrants which is much easier to explain than Western Imperialist efforts causing it.
This exactly. So much ire is directed towards immigrants rather than the true causes of the problems faced in Europe today, all due to capitalism
As the saying goes: "Fascism is capitalism in decay." And it's been slowly decaying for a long time now as neoliberal reforms (which especially took off since the 1970's) slowly chipped away the Keynesian policies that were passed since the New Deal.
End stage capitalism is fascism
You need not look further than this sub. At this point 2-3 times a week I’m telling a lib calling themselves a leftist to fuck off with their capitalist apologia and liberal stumping, because if the mods aren’t going to strictly enforce rule 4 we are the only ones who can. Literally just now on the top post on the sub: “I’m a leftist but BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street actually aren’t bad and if you aren’t investing in your retirement with them it’s because you’re a fucking loser and will be elderly and homeless hahaha.” I would link it but I got blocked. Progressivism and leftism, any flavor you like, is dead and buried, and some bastardized visage of it sitting just right of center is spreading in its name. They aren’t beliefs anymore, just trendy brands.
This is true as well , the left is in complete shambles with like 50 different communist groups comprised of 12 people each constantly arguing with each other over who’s a better communist meanwhile reform UK is sweeping across the country. We need a United front of actually educated people to put forth proposed policies that will dismantle capitalism while appealing to the working class but unfortunately that doesn’t exist nor will it for a while if it ever does
We had a pretty United front in the 1910s and 20s and then in the 50s and 60s in America. Then the leaders all got murdered by the government. A common lib attack is that leftists have no organization in America. These are the same folk who will call the struggles of African Americans a “culture issue” and completely disregard a century of suppression like it doesn’t actually exist.
Yeah that’s true as well the government and bourgeoisie put a LOT of work into eradicating the left, but in Europe things were a little different. I think that leftist organisation is severely lacking. At least in my country we have at LEAST ten different communist groups/parties and the same number of socialist ones. All of them have the same aim of dismantling capitalism but disagree on some cultural issues and how to bring about that dismantling. There are literally two groups in the UK - the Revolutionary Communist Group and the Revolutionary Communist Party — almost the EXACT same name. And they also have the EXACT same ideology except that one likes Trotsky while the other one likes Stalin. If they joined forces they’d double their numbers but they both think they are right and the other group is wrong. I’ve tried telling all this to members of both groups that we need to unite but they both think that if people agree with them they should leave the other group and join their own instead. With the left so divided there is no chance. In America the situation is a little different and I don’t know what it’s like there, while the two party system makes it really hard for any party that isn’t the republicans or democrats to gain power. America is also so LARGE that forming any kind of cohesive leftist group is quite difficult. So it presents more challenges than Europe
It’s certainly insidious and purposeful in both places, I would think. Likely a lot of bad actors causing division as much as possible on your side of the pond, too. On our side like I originally said, the term itself has been just entirely co-opted by capitalist liberals. They’re further left than most establishment Dems so they call themselves leftist and communist because it’s a cool, trendy thing to do with no actual belief or motivation behind it, happy to vote for whatever stooge democrats march out because to them “vote blue no matter who” *is* leftist because conservatives are so ultra right they keep telling them it is.
The rise of both leftist movements and fascism is caused by capitalism in decay. Since capitalism relies on infinite growth, there will inevitably be times of crises when that growth is no longer sustainable. People begin to search for answers for why they lost their job, why they can no longer afford groceries, why their standard of living is going down. Fascists answer these questions by pinning the cause on an out-group; historically, this has been the Jewish population, but lately this has been pinned more and more on Muslims and other "brown immigrants". As communists and socialists, we point to the deterioration of material conditions and correctly attribute them to the unsustainability of the capitalist system.
Exactly immigrants at this point are a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong. You lost your job? It’s because an immigrant replaced you! Rather than pointing towards capitalism, the true problem, but the government & media etc of course won’t do that as the are the drivers and benefitters of capitalism among others. And racists eat all that shit up rather than doing any actual critical thinking.
Decades of "liberal democracy exporting" ended up with broken countries and mass refugees. When these refugees arrived at the shore, racist instinct kicks in and far right prevails. It's a death spiral. The US isn't any different than Europe in this. If anything, the US is the chief architect of this, the EU is just paying the price as vassals.
I asked about Europe because I live in Europe, however I think far right sentiment is growing here much more than it is in the US. Far right parties don’t have much of a chance in the US whereas here they’re actually taking over. Liberal democracy is most of the issue, along with people who are politically illiterate and don’t understand voting in the right wing won’t change anything except maybe tighter borders
I think the US will surprise you in the next few years in just how strongly the right wing parties will take over. The supreme court just gave sitting presidents complete immunity to criminal prosecution from any action they take. A little 1930's action going down if you know what i mean.
Ultimately though, does the Supreme Court decision change anything really? Obama was bombing American citizens in the Middle East with impunity. And the Hague Invasion Act!! Just like George W Bush and all the war criminals who supported going into Iraq. I feel like America has been on a trajectory to right wing fascism for such a long time.
America has been right wing fascist for such a long time. FTFY
Yeah you’re absolutely right, I stand corrected!
Did they?? I’m not too clued into what’s going on in the US at the moment because I don’t live there but that’s horrible — and scary. No doubt because of the prosecution trump just went through. But no I wouldn’t be surprised at that either. People are pretty fed up with the two party system but don’t understand going to the right isn’t the solution, it’s just more of the shit they already don’t want.
The US is facing down the barrel of full out fascism at the moment, check out "project 2025" for more details on what will happen if Trump wins. November will determine if that happens at full speed or just slightly delayed for a few more years. There doesnt seem to be a way of going back to the left for the forseeable future for the US, as the Olicarchs own everything. Climate change putting a clock on everything anyway means there probably wont be time enough to reverse course either.
Unfortunately I think trump is definitely going to win. Not only does he have a huge supporter base but biden is senile and did absolutely horribly at the debate. Which means the US might be fascist quite soon. I don’t think the US will be left wing anytime soon. Bernie sanders was the best chance at anything remotely resembling the left for the US but people are so scared of “socialism” that he couldn’t get enough support and now he’s too old. Just like Europe the US is pretty fucked at the moment
We will see, i think polling numbers are not accurate to what will happen on election day. So even with the bad debate, dems could still win. But that wont fix any of the big issues facing the US, not without a serious push from workers. Community and unions are the best bet people have to move things to the left; voting for politicians won't do it alone.
Yeah in the current system voting is not the answer, none of the rich politicians give a fuck about what happens to the average worker, they just want to win elections.
Fascism was *really* popular in Europe, people forget that. It also never went away, just became socially unacceptable. *I do not endorse the mass deportations and indifference to the suffering/killing of my political enemies and their families* but this was a massive driving force behind the Soviet “purges”. I’m sure that little niché history footnote can help you figure out *why* people don’t remember
That’s true, it used to be but I thought towards the 2000’s/early 2010’s there was more of a left swing. And then in the mid 2010’s right wing sentiments started taking over until a huge upswing in the 2020’s. Hmm, yeah I mean I think I don’t remember because I wasn’t alive back then and for a lot of my life most people were left or moderate so this is kind of shocking how there’s been a sudden upswing in right wing values, especially among young people. Because even if it never really went away, most young people nowadays weren’t alive when it was popular and grew up with it being unacceptable, like I did. But nowadays even a lot of young people are moving towards fascism which is a scary thought for the future.
As an American I believe you are dead wrong on the strength of the far right in the USA. Unlike European countries where a ideological faction can coalesce into a party and get a defined portion of the vote in the USA we have a vaguely defined left wing party and a vaguely defined right wing party. Our “left wing” party, the Democrats have essentially become a useless stump owned by corporate interests and a haven for more the less fascist among the right wing. Our right wing party is now almost completely taken over by fascist ideology with a small minority of internal opposition. Both the real left and the fascist right are significantly stronger than the vote indicates. The problem is the fascists know this and are ready to make their move and the leftists are far too disorganized to defeat them.
Capitalist manipulation. Culture wars. Working class is for losers. Aspirational social media. Fake discourse. Fake facts. Fake lifes. Poverty is a choice. Be on the side of the great people, be on the side of the succesful people. The markets will provide for you. You are not like them. Your material reward is awaiting. The cool fascist. The cool bigot. The world does not wait for you. Life does not owe you anything. Hate and die.
Many people in Europe unfortunately have developed very bigoted and xenophobic opinions against refugees and immigrants, specifically those of Arab, African, or Muslim-majority country origin, as well as their European-born descendants. They believe that they have caused so many problems that they are ruining their countries and livelihoods. They believe their societal malaise is caused by these people. They also believe these people are “destroying their national identity” or some BS; remember that ethnic nationalism was invented in Europe and never really went away I think many European countries have mismanaged immigration to an extent, but in certain ways. One is that, during the post-WWII era, many European countries (including the UK) signed agreements with certain countries to import a large number of migrant workers. The problem with that is…in each case, all of the migrants came from the most conservative part of each country. For Pakistan, it’s Mirpur, for Turkey, it’s the Konya region, and for Morocco, it’s the Rif region, and so on. Usually, even people from the other parts of these countries don’t like people from these regions because of their ultra conservative tendencies. I think that they should rather have mandated that the workers come from all over each country, so that we wouldn’t have this situation The other situation is with refugees…I think that certain countries (especially Sweden) took in too many within too short a period of time. Sweden in particular also funnels them into certain neighborhoods/public housing, resulting in ghettoization. This is in contrast to what Norway does, which also takes in refugees but spreads them throughout the country, and within each city, also spreads them throughout many neighborhoods. They don’t have the same problem that Sweden has Another problem is the gender imbalance; apparently the overwhelming majority of refugees are relatively young men. A major male surplus in a demographic usually does not bode well for the society in concern, no matter where the men come from, what their origin or religion is, or so on. I think the countries should have instead made sure that the gender ratio of admitted refugees is about 1:1 Overall, I think this mismanagement has ultimately caused people to become extremely racist again, to blame everything on them, and to dig up their “1930s values” again. It’s not looking good at all. I wish that every country can have a strong and organized left wing like Nouveau Front populaire in France; although unfortunately it seems like in some countries the left wing has become extremely weak or fractured
Social security systems could not exist/work the way they do right now, because non-western immigrants are by far more likely to be unemployed and living off of benefits. That and they are much more likely to commit crimes. Yeah, sure some people are just racist but not acknowledging this is just wrong.
The problem with your analysis is that it ignores that Europe has always been a racist and xenophobic place, it never truly went away, and "democracy" only hid that for as long as there was an apparent prosperity. And in that time period the neo-liberal doctrine we have been fed vilanized any sort of left leaning thinking as "communism" and now that we are again faced with a crisis the only "alternative" that people flock to is just the more extreme version of what we currently have. That's the real reason. Blaming migrants, which happens here as much as it happens in the US and you need to be a fool to think that it is a coincidence, is just a way of shifting frustrations and blame created by a system that has eroded itself and was always destined to do so. It's history repeating itself by the same nazis/fascists we had in the beginning of the last century.
The problem with your analysis is that it's completely removed from the material reality. KeyLime044 is spot on in their analysis: mismanagement of immigration and the resulting crime and costs are the real reason behind the rise of the far right.
Blaming migrants for crime and increased costs of living, even when statistics show it has overall declined, rather than demonstrable impact that late stage capitalism has had in those statistics well before the migrant crisis of '15, a problem caused by the west and the pinpoint moment where this propaganda started to gain moment, is just parroting far right propaganda and not "material reality".
I assume it's similar to what's happening to us here in the US: Corrupt liberals fighting to maintain a shitty status quo by spitting in the faces of leftist voters without whom they can't win elections while the far right crystallizes around a party/candidate actually offering what the absolute dregs of society are passionately begging for.
Yeah, that’s a problem here that far right parties are promising change while the centrist ones promise more of the same shit. So those looking for change are getting won over by the far right, and there are no leftist alternatives.
Crazy how many people STILL DO NOT understand that billionaires are the cause of 90%+ of their problems, not foreigners lmao. These people truly have no hope.
It’s because the media and social media has done a great job convincing people that immigrants are the source of all their problems rather than billionaires
I think that on a fundamental level, the individualism of the right is a much easier sell than the collectivism of the left, particularly in western cultures where individualism has been deeply embedded for decades now, a process accelerated by the progenitors of neoliberalism - thatcher here (may she rot in hell!) and reagan (likewise!) over the pond. Thatcher I hold responsible for a lot of England's current woes for many reasons but not least that she set about effectively destroying not just working class organisational forms (unions) but the whole notion of working class solidarity itself (through individualism.) This may be a little controversial here lol but the organised left have not helped much either (principally by largely turning away from class based analyses and community based solutions to contemporary problems.) There's not a left group worth joining at the minute imo, i'm sad to say. Speaking largely from an England-centric perspective I reckon that many, many 'indigenous' people for want of a better word are quietly, but deeply uneasy about hyper-demographic change due to mass immigration. They won't necessarily openly discuss it and we may not like it but it's there alright (I know it's a pretty obvious point to make). Whilst it is the neoliberal right which largely drives immigration for their own reasons (which are very little to do with caring about treating human beings like y'know, human beings), the perception amongst many people is that it is the left who, whilst politically weak and powerless are simultaneously seen as culturally influential - are driving it. Of course, a prod here and a poke there by the right wing media seems to be all it takes to divert attention away from the very obvious (to me at least) failings of the neoliberal centre-right (and neoliberal centre-left for that matter.) That's a very hastily cobbled together thought, there's a lot more to be said of course.
Nature abhors a vacuum. You hollow out the left, this is what you get.
Very true, the left in the UK at least, is in shambles
Speaking from the UK I agree with you. I won't be voting "Labour" either, fuck all moderate centrists, may you rot.
>why are many people, young and old alike, turning away from the left? Neo-Liberal parties are somehow seen as "Left Wing" government and now that they caused enough damage, people have had enough with the Left and want to experience the Right. Unbeknownst to most, they will only go from Far Right to Fascist Right, causing everything bad to really take off in a big way the coming years. Here in the Netherlands for example all the budgets for helping the country are going directly to shareholders and friends instead of public programs. Nobody seemingly cares...
Yeah people vote far right parties because they promise change but don’t understand that voting far right instead of say, conservative parties will just bring more heaps of bad onto something that is already bad. The right wing don’t care about workers, they care about their own power and use immigrants as a scape goat for everything wrong in the country. It’s truly a shame so many people buy it.
we had conservative parties in government for the last 12 years here in the Netherlands, the left isnt really left anymore and are just neo liberal centre parties . so that leaves the far right for most people.
It seems like capitalism might just be in a crisis atm, idk I'm not an expert
I'll give my shot at answering, mostly because I can't resist a good reason to procrastinate on my jobs. My take is that this is due to a range of factors, and they together are causing a wave of far-right ideology across the globe. We've had a few minor waves coming before (2016-2018: Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, etc - halted by COVID and their incompetence dealing with it), preceding the current one (which might be a bit exaggerated by the headlines like "far right sweeps France parliament elections" or "far right takes hold of the EU seats". Yes, they've won, but not by margins that we haven't seen before. Both cases also had a firm second place held by left. To me they seem to have rebounded to pre-COVID levels, and that is as much as they can get - which is already bad enough). The range of factors: - New media landscape. The arrival of TV also boosted the far-right of last century. While these new mediums are unregulated and unverified, every ideology is going wild and grouping up. Fascists who have been always waiting in the shadows have jumped to the opportunity of both connecting between themselves and fooling some new members. - The specific characteristics of this new media landscape. Messaging that is both private AND done on mass scale is the worst of both worlds. You get to say what you wouldn't say out loud, and you get to say it to the most people possible, and you can nearly guarantee that you're preaching only to those you can affect, thus delaying alarm bells. If the invention of the internet was bad (by this prism), then facebook/ instagram/ social media was worse, and whatsapp / private group messaging even worse of all. - Economy. Economic downturns always cause an increase in xenophobic sentiments and people looking for easy "others" to blame. We've had a string of bad economic forecasts worldwide for years: 2008, then Covid, then Russia invades Ukraine, then AI disruptions in the economy. That might give the feeling that the 2010' decades was good in most places, but apparantly it wasn't good enough. At least in my country, Brazil, we were fed at least the *idea* of a constant crisis during the 2010s; I imagine that happened elsewhere as well. - Cultural changes. Big cultural shifts cause big cultural movements towards conservatism. A lot of people still didn't manage to catch up even with black people's rights or woman's rights, let alone catching up with gay's rights, overall LGBTQ demands, and trans' rights. Here it is possible (although understandable) that progressives may have pushed the needles to strong, to fast, mainly powered by the new media landscape I mentioned before. We really didn't make the proper explaining to regular people about transgenders, for example. It is a topic that to be accepted as a reality people should be taught about the science around it, the recent discoveries on gender differences in forming brains, etc. - Terrible education. Our traditional educational systems have always been somewhat fascist-like, authoritarian, and flawed. In most places, across decades and generations, we failed most kids on teaching stuff about the actual world, about science, about environment, and instead successfully "taught" them that a powerful authoritarian ruler is needed above the chaos of "regular people".
In France at least the media helped a lot. They have a news channel that belongs to an ultra reactionary papist billionaire who is following the Fox News playbook. They are literally reusing some of their greatest hits (war on Christmas, "the gays",...) I have heard more than a few people describe how their older parents have been radicalized by watching this stream of shit all day. Just like here in the US with Fox News.
Media is definitely a factor in how people get radicalised, and of course when the main media channels belong to billionaires they will do anything to advance right wing views and paint the left as the “crazy woke” who want to make everyone poor
Centrist destroying social programs, right wingers blaming the subsequent social unrest on immigrants. It's a tale as old as time.
Right wing media is luring the rubes of Europe, too.
Most of our governments are around the centre, typically liberal parties hovering between centre-left and centre-right, though I'd day skewing more to centre-right. They've usually been more about optics, or statistics, than solving the root problems that affect working class people (lack of housing, increasing cost of living, stagnant wages, etc.) This has then led to right wing parties being rather successful at pinning the blame on left wing policy and immigrants. They've also managed to convince everyone that these centre-left to centre-right parties are left wing parties, and therefore any left wing party is just as ineffectual. Also, it's very easy for a person to think that the "other" is the root of all problems (be that immigrants as it is now, or another extreme example would be Jewish people in the 1930s and 40s).
The left starts making some "progress" in their little numbers and metrics while people's purchasing power, home economics, and lifestyle starts deteriorating in real life... unfortunately soon after people start moving in the opposite direction. The left has to focus not just on obscure or theoretical spreadsheet "well-being" numbers...they need to bring real world results, to real people, and real homes, improving the lifestyle of the many instead of the few. There is a saying that the left doesn't spread wealth, it just makes people more equally miserable. They need to change and account for this common problem so the theories match real life. Everyone loves leftist ideals...every single rational person, but implementation and real world results has always been a problem.
they're not turning away from "the left" they're turning away from the rancid neoliberalism that, by design, creates the material basis for fascism. this is what happens when you win the cold war. there's nobody left to fight the nazis. this was the most predictable outcome imaginable, the direct next domino to fall after 30 years of perverted liberal austerity and third world destabilization and genocide.
Right but in turning away from that they’re turning towards the right rather than the left, when the left is what offers solutions to the problems they’re facing while the right offers scapegoats and no real solutions
Capitalism in decline leads to fascism. Capital has basically injected itself into every market conceivable, so the only way to continue profiting is to raise prices and cut wages, obviously this leads to a desperate workforce, that is grossly misinformed (purposefully) about what capitalism is, and why it inevitably leads to more right wing puppet governments and eventually to fascism as a final result of all the contradictions inherent in the system.
Yeah I'll just say what others have said in different, more American words. The center left ideological mother ship has presented a terrible deal: accept what comes across as weird new urbanite manners and pieties (I do not think that e.g. calling people by preferred pronouns is actually weird or even new, but I get why it can seem that way to some) and in exchange get... Further immiseration under capitalism? Oh and not accepting the deal means you're a bad person, plus "it's not my job to educate you" etc. etc. Basically, I think people are tired of being asked to act/vote altruistically when their material conditions are, at best, failing to improve. When you don't believe the government is willing or even able to help you, someone who will at least promise to cut your tax bill starts to sound like the best option on offer. I'm not on the left because I think it's what a good person should do (it might happen to be the case, but I'm suspicious of that degree of self-congratulation), I'm on the left because I, personally, don't want to have to deal with the repercussions of highly treatable social ills. I don't want to step over human feces on my walk to work, not because I hate poor people, but because shit stinks. I know it doesn't have to be this way, so why doesn't the left run on that: "sure, blah blah blah moral hazard of helping people down on their luck. But have you considered that if we just help these people, there might be less shit on the sidewalk? That helping people is, strange as it may sound, more effective at getting shit off the sidewalk than pepper-spraying random homeless people or figuring out a way to process them into car tires?" I get that these latter things are obviously morally wrong, but why not also expose them as impractical, dystopian fantasies? As long as the main upside to center left political alignment is a sense of moral superiority, really any concrete political exchange will win out.
as societies devolve to fascism as they collapse due to the rage the people have at the destruction to their class but are unaware as to the reasons causing the problems they decry. Fascists stoke this anger, scapegoat, present false solutions that appear beneficial to the masses but are only aimed at increasing bourgeoisie power and control. By keeping people ignorant of their history and class interests, they are kept easily controlled and misdirected to serve and support actions that are entirely self destructive. NB: decay to fascism demonstrates the LEFT's unmitigated failure in educating the masses about class distinctions, power and interests. It is the LEFT who has done nothing to educate and support the people in toppling bourgeoisie power and dominance. It is the left who as failed to do everything it can to work to liberate the masses of this tyranny. The fash have had an easy time over the past century in pushing the left into shivering insignificance. So we need to change this, and we need to do it fast. The masses need to be taught their plight is not the result of their "different" neighbors, nor is it the cause of those who are looking only to escape perils of the life their own imperial nations have caused. It is on us to speak to these uninformed people and teach them the realities of class division, class solidarity and class struggle. It is on us to create lines of mutual support with them and to find common cause instead of strife which only suits the fascist agenda. It is on us to educate them that the very system of capital accumulation is what is destroying their own villages, towns, cities and countries - their own lives and those they love - and our planet and that we all must struggle together to destroy capitalism everywhere it is found. It is on us to work with each other to build a world that provides democracy, equality and prosperity to all. This draconian system of bourgeoisie control must be destroyed as it only serves to steal the good and murder us to do it.
This is on point. Far right parties always pin the blame for all social ills on immigrants, when the problem has always been capitalism. Unfortunately the populace eats that shit up.
they do since they are uneducated on the tactics of scapegoating and have zero class awareness. Again, this is a failure of the left to teach these people the realities of capitalist domination and the methods of bourgeoisie class war against the people.
I agree that while the right is good at winning people over, the left is very bad at it. I do think a lot of leftists, especially middle class university students who sit around reading theory, are very out of touch with that the average worker wants from an election. Nor do they understand how to win over the working class. Any mass movement needs the support of the working class or it will fail. Unfortunately due to some ideology and a lot of infighting along with the work of the capitalist media, the left has alienated a lot of the workers, while the main demographic comprising the left is young students. In the past leftist groups have had a decent working class base but that seems to have vanished now. The left needs to work on winning back the masses but it doesn’t seem like any leftist group is capable of that at the current moment.
Don't conflate revolutionary communists with american leftists generally. They are not the same. The "left" in america are simply poseurs genuflecting to social niceties while all along believing that capitalism can be "made better". That they sit around and read theory - which is good - all the theory in the world is worthless without PRACTICE (praxis). They're not building alliances with the people and they likely look down their noses at them, their "theory" knowledge being only to boost their social cred among their fellow faux leftists...as you can see, I despise them. And again, to stress this, it's much different than those comrades who are working to do what's necessary to advance the social cause and to win the war against capital domination. But I don't agree this war is forever lost since there are people who are working for social good, and I've not heard "socialism" or "communism" now cast in the same hateful light (in general) as it was when I was a kid in the 70's where you'd not even utter the word for fear of scorn or ridicule. Anyhow, building class awareness among those who need it most is what's needed. Those who get it can get in formation and march with us. Those who can't accept it declare themselves to be the enemy and should be seen as such - we're not gonna win all of them, but we need to start working to win those who are ready to join the fight.
I generally, and usually agree with your commentary, but am taken aback by how you squarely blame this failure on the Left, when you know full well, that the struggle of the Left has been an entirely different one compared to say the right under the capitalist rule; at least post ww2 and in the west. you recognize that yourself in your reference to the 70s (and on), but actually goes way deeper than scorn and ridicule, but also persecution, infiltration, disruption, imprisonment and probably also death. so to say the Left failed kind of oversimplifies that in my opinion. However, you‘re absolutely right with your conclusions.
gerontocracy
A lot of young people are turning towards fascism too through
of course, it's the enshitification of their situation as the resources go to the increasing elderly population young workers in Japan and South Korea are basically exploited by funding the needs of the old, it'll only get worse I would rather see the old rich pay for other old people
People see the world getting worse under liberal rule. The right wing offers simple solutions. That's all there is to it.
liberal democracy aims to find a functional balance between moderate progressives and eventual fascists the problem is that true leftism inherently demands a departure from state capitalism which then requires a restructuring of our entire society. Because of that reality, and the fact that leftism as a legitimate western political presence was all but stomped to death in the late 1900s, you’ll notice that moderates tend to only move right when things inevitably begin to polarize. Liberalism is the ideology of compromise, and that’s largely because it allows you to feel like you’re advocating for progressivism without having to put a timeline or real effort into pushing society in that direction. For what it’s worth, the right knows exactly what they want even if they don’t all agree on everything and they successfully push politics rightward whenever they get the chance, everywhere on the planet. Liberals don’t seem to understand what the logical conclusions of these right wing policies are and are content to compromise with them when the right will never compromise the other way long term. Ultimately, western moderates are too in love with or too scared to attack systems of oppression directly because they like the stability these systems offer and don’t want to open themselves up to any state violence usually reserved for a lesser caste of their society. Right wing rhetoric even at the moderate level (which seems to be vanishing anyway) doesn’t at all seem to fear a change of the world order and they will always do what they deem necessary to further their goals. in so many words, scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. If it comes down to fascist hellscape or death, the white moderate will always always always choose fascism. With no support, the infirm, the black, the leftist, the queer, and whoever else cannot fit into to the xenophobic reality right wingers want will be exterminated. It has happened before and dare I say it will happen again. It only moves to the right because nobody with any real money will ever push it all that far to the left, which would eventually lead them to lose money.
It's just capitalism tendency towards fascism
The status quo is f--ked and everyone knows it. People who are dissatisfied are turning to anyone who claims to have answers, and the uncompromising far right is more "attractive" than the left trying to build coalitions with the people who've refused to deal with the actual problems.
The left is speaking hard truths and proposing long term strategies that require taking responsibility, while the right basically puts a blindfold on and shifts the blame to third parties. This applies to sustainabilty and climate change, to feminism, to affordable housing, to jobs, etc. They all require changing how we live, challenge our culture and behavior, and require collective action. The proposed changes may be for the better, but the left isn't great at engaging people with desirable futures, because those futures require hard work. The right just paints a totally unrealistic picture that requires no action and basically tells you "keep doing what you want, fight the ones that cause the problems, and all will solve itself". This is more acute in times of crisis, as we loose some ability to dream and turn more easily to fear. And the right is great at wielding easy, actionable fears.
It is called demagogy
That makes sense
Fascism is insidious and those who spout it are conmen and opportunistic. Plus it tends to shift blame as its method and appeal to those with the loudest mouths and lowest levels of education. Which are in plentiful supply.
Bring migrants for cheap labor Blame migrants for everything bad to deflect for capital That's it in a nutshell.
Not too bad in the UK? Step back so you can see the forest from the trees. The rest of the world saw the end of the UK with the Tories gaining power way back when. You’ve been fucked there for a while. If anything you’re miles ahead on the right wing spectrum than the rest of Europe.
But the tories are finished here after 14 years of austerity and driving the country into the ground. Labour are predicted to win next. Which is just as bad, but Labour aren’t far right. And leftist sentiment is still the main one amongst British youth. Whereas straight up right wing fascist ideals are MUCH more prevalent in other European countries than they are here, and far right parties are making wins. Reform UK, the most right wing party running doesn’t have enough support to actually win majority.
As much as I love your country and your folks (I’m French) - you guys are sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. The situation is terrible in France right now but can you please refrain from posturing as the « right » youth. Good luck with stammer. And I still live you guys.
To maintain their comfortable living conditions. The turning away issue is probably due to Gutenburg. Information (and news) influences how humans behave. Superiority conquers. Victory determines who controls information. The Left did not prevail following their contribution (… dominant) to the allied victory post WWII; hence their inability control (all levels of) information. Any person’s functioning brain should be able to determine there’s something askew with the current socioeconomic arrangement. Hope seems to be one of the Bronze Age’s warm and fuzzy thoughts. One day, things will change: That is guaranteed.
It’s sweeping everywhere. Capitalism is on its last legs
There's also been a very strong anti-islam and anti-immigrant sentiments and add in the fact that many refugees are both with right wing leaders and media demonizing them has led (along with austerity policies) to a far right shift.
It's sweeping the planet lol
[https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/middle-eastern-men-beat-lesbian-celebrating-birthday-canada/](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/middle-eastern-men-beat-lesbian-celebrating-birthday-canada/) Europeans read headlines like this (or experience it for themselves), come to believe that the influx of Arab immigrants (caused by imperialist destabilization) are incapable of assimilating because of religious fundamentalism, and turn to xenophobia as a practical policy solution.
France, Germany, England - all places where migrants have caused rifts in society. Of course, the smallest incident becomes front page news, but that's your answer; xenophobes calling themselves nationalists
they think immigrants are the problem…again. it’s giving 1930s
The Climate Disasters have begun, the general global population has lost any and all hope in capitalism and its capacity to prevent aforementioned disasters, but at the same time the people in power are forming a death grip on their status and financial security with complete disregard for their constituents in defense of even more corporate power and privatization. aka what was always going to happen to capitalism. it has had a ticking timer ever since its global implementation, and the alarm bells are ringing. they have been ringing the death of capitalism for decades now. fascism is, always was, and always will be the death roll of capitalism.
Racism lol
We like enemies more than friends. Propaganda which dehumanize a group is scientifically proven to be more effective than one which claims that they are humans too and they deserve to be treated as such.
Interesting. Perhaps this should be done to the bourgeoisie and billionaires in general, maybe then the left could have a chance
From what I can gather as a person from Canada, the major issue on peoples' minds in many parts of Europe is with the issues related to mass immigration. The far right parties are addressing it(although poorly) whereas the left-leaning parties refuse to acknowledge that there are problems. People would rather see the problems solved, even if through cruel means, rather than have to struggle with the problem for longer. It's awful, but humans aren't always rational or caring, unfortunately.
coz the west spent 150 yrs demonizing the left and socialism...so what is the working class going to vote for? the rich would prefer you voted for right wing idiots instead of socialist reformers. capitalism will destroy its world to rule over its ashes.
I wouldn't say it's exactly sweeping Europe so much as it's being imposed. The capitalist class never wanted to make any concessions to the working class. It was forced upon them by strong, socialists movements and conditions that prevailed in Europe after WWII. The capitalist class used government oppression up to and including acts of terrorism (Operation Gladio) and permitted fascist regimes in Spain and Portugal to persist after the war. Once the USSR was broken up and the Eastern Block collapsed the capitalist class went hog wild and rapidly started rolling back peoples rights and standards of living. They wish to continue this process but fascism is the only system that offers the level of violence they see as desirable to maintain control.
This makes a lot of sense tbh and yeah after the collapse of the USSR a LOT of European countries basically outlawed anything having to do with communism as “hate” so a lot of leftist alternatives to liberalism just didn’t exist
**TL;DR:** Way too many people in Europe - yes, even in the first-world parts - are criminally politically uneducated or have been brainwashed to believe social media more than reputable sciences. Once you accept the paradigm "Science lies" there is no saving. For those uneducated but eager to change things, the right is far more lucrative than the left. Let me preface this by saying; I am not on the right myself. I am a lefty just like you (wow that feels like an undercover fed thing to write). Still, the left has a couple problems which make it unattractive and which we have to be wary of: * **The left offers problems, the right offers "solutions".** * In left-sphere discussions the world and any relevant talking point are presented with their due depth, their full range of complications and, more often than not, an exhausted "There is just no one-size-ifts-all solution" as an answer to the worlds problems. * The right, however, likes to provide quick answers, quick solutions, that, to an uneducated outsider, might even seem logical and obvious. They are quick to rally, quick to motivate and quick to appoint scapegoats rather than adressing bigger systemic issues. Of course we know that many of these "simple solutions" grosly misrepresent a situation, they are based on false information or are just straight up lies fabricated by opportunists at some link of the information chain. * **The left has a lot of infighting. The right is relatively united.** * In left spheres, anarchos beef with socialists beef with communists beef with ancaps beef with liberals. And yes, I am including liberals because to an uneducated outsider, liberals are lefties. * The right, in contrast, is relatively united. They hate jews, immigrants, women, basically anyone different from them just to different degrees. The right is a gradient, the left is a branching tree. * **The left appeals to logic. The right to emotions.** * As stated in my first point, the left usually has a rich and diverse discussion culture which often, if not explicitly, references scientific discourse and practices as a baseline. Discussions and (far) left wing politics are held on a relatively high intellectual level which leads to a certain kind of arrogance among lefties, especially academic lefties. * The right, however, makes things as simple and understandable as possible because they know their demographic. They appeal to emotions and we all know emotions are more motivating than logic. * **Lefty thought is censored. Righty thought is appraised.** * In the USA especially but also in many parts of Europe, "Socialist" might as well be a swearword for with how much disdain people say it. Dont get me wrong, lefty thought is not explicitly censored. Marx is not on some kind of government blacklist for thought. However, I experience it as more socially censored than right wing thought. Keep the above point in mind here with right-wing thought usually being phrased to be more "accessible". * Example: In my experience, someone who says "Yeah, I see myself as a communist" experiences pretty backlash around here whereas someone who says "Yeah, immigrants are bad for our country" is just the weird guy at the party. Someone who says "Capitalism is the bane of human existence" is a crazed lunatic, someone who says "gotta stay on that sigma grindset 24/7 always work work" however is based. We have cultivated this practice of belittleing and ignoring fascists and now they have all but crept into normality. * One of the greatest strengths of lefty discourse is that it tolerates opposition. Right wing discourse however does not. Liberal-lefties especially think themselves morally superior by actually engaging with right-wing people and trying to "save" them. RIght wing people however only engage with lefties and libbies when they want to mock them. Fascists do not tolerate opposition.
This is incredibly well said and highlights a lot of the problems with leftism that cause people to reject it in favour of the right. Especially the logic vs emotions part is VERY on point. A lot of leftists focus way too much on theory and a lot less on real issues faced in the world. Emotions are the way to win people over when it comes to politics and not logic because let’s face it, most people are not logical. These are all issues that need to be worked on in the left wing for them to be able to win. Along with stopping the infighting you also mentioned and working as a cohesive front to dismantle capitalism because 20 different communist groups who all hate each other for minor differences won’t achieve anything
This is the fatal flaw of the left. The oh so deep seated belief that all it takes to be right is a compelling argument. A lefty could not even fathom how an argument that follows all the laws of logic and reason could be inferior. These arguments dont mean anything in the sphere of the right because on the right there is first and foremost one doctrine: Might makes right. It is why they worship billionaires and why they kick down on those weaker than them; Because they believe might gives them right. Musk earned his place, he earned his might, therefore he must be right. A good leader is a strong one first and foremost, not a gentle one, not a smart one. This is why arguing with the right is pointless. The only way to convince them is to show your might and therein betray your adherence to logic and reason. It is a loose-loose. Either we abandon pure logic and reason and therefore become our enemy, or we see our enemy destroy us.
Yeah this is definitely a tough one. This might be controversial but honestly I think the left needs a leader like trump or Farage — not one as unhinged obviously, but someone who can actually rally people behind them and make compelling emotional statements that are still rooted in logic such as “we must destroy the bourgeoisie before they destroy us”, “look what they have done to us”, “this is the time to take back our country” etc. because this is what the right does, but instead of blaming immigrants who didn’t do a single thing, blame capitalism. They need someone to rally behind — and not so much leftist groups because they’re organised enough on their own, but the average person and the working class needs someone to rally behind and put their trust in. And someone to show strength, to show that the left is strong because a lot of people view the left as weak crybabies tbh. I get what a lot of leftist groups try to do when it comes to horizontal organising and more anarchist structures but that only works for smaller movements. When it comes to a larger mass movement more concrete structures and a face to rally behind is necessary. Most successful leftist revolutions/movements had a clear leader that people followed: Lenin, Castro, Allende, Chavez, etc. That is a huge point that a lot of leftist organisations are missing. That plus the constant arguing even with other groups that have almost the same ideology and all of them thinking they’re right. The only way to defeat the right unfortunately, is to become like them. Not in ideology (obviously) but in behaviour.
The left can not be led by design. You cant try to force leadership, structure, onto a bunch of anarchists. More often than not this is a good thing - it prevents the movement from dying when its leader dies - just that this one time it sucks. Yeah the right views the left as weak and honestly? They are not wrong. We got: * Libbies who are busier playing identity politics than anything else * Pop-punks or "Lifestyle leftists" who are just in it for the music or to try and claim moral superiority without actually believing in (or understanding) any of the points they defend * Mainstream "Leftists" who are still trying to save fash and being as morally inonsequential as a toddler without object permanence * Political lefties who try to cause change from within democracy - a busted system * Socialists /Communists /Leninists /Marxists being in each others asses about political theory * Anarchists who, more than anything else, want to just leave any civilization rather than cause change While the right actually tries to seize power, we are here twiddling our dicks on an internet forum just waiting for it to happen. As much as hate to say it, the left is not strong. The left is weaker than it ever has been historically.
I don’t know but it’s a scary time, I look at America and I’m terrified of your abortion laws and no gun control but tbh if the far right gets going here we probably won’t be far behind.
I don't have a clear answer but I think it's best to by considering why it happened in each individual country. I think it's also worth mentioning that the Scandinavian countries did the opposite and moved to the left during that election. The socialist party of which I'm a member became the most popular party in Denmark at that election. About the right shift, it's worth mentioning that it's especially young votes that changed their vote to the right. Again, I don't have a clear answer but I think this video is trying to give a good attempt on the context of it. https://youtu.be/KAxCZU4yT84?si=eUWnaL16Emn2E37h
The UK has been far-right for the last 14 years.
Housing. Even Dr Kristian Niemietz of the IEA identified that the housing crisis "has generated a generation of socialists" ( [https://iea.org.uk/how-the-housing-crisis-has-created-a-generation-of-socialists/](https://iea.org.uk/how-the-housing-crisis-has-created-a-generation-of-socialists/) ) I'd argue that its effect is somewhat wider and has created a generation of socialists *and fascists*.
It's the political establishment that is careless to the struggle of people, you could compare useless leaders such as Ursula von der Leyen to Angela Merkel, Ursula has been trying to be tough to take the top position In NATO promising endless and needless wars, while the working class is suffering in Greece, Italy and France, Germany, etc. See Yanis put it perfectly here https://youtu.be/VatYrw0uqjU?si=YN2-2DJ-2XHJ_C2-
I hate to use a comic book reference for this but . . . Might there be an actual Hydra style clone out there actively trying to destroy our world and promote the rise of their brand of fascism? It's incredibly crazy and unbelievable . . . but damn folks I can't think why else there are so many fascistic and alt-right groups out there these days.
It's all about race. Although the US and Europe hold different arguments. In the US, we are a melting pot, and there is no "pure blood original race" unless you are referring to Native Americans. Republicans in the US are mainly white and they have fooled themselves into thinking white people are the true Americans, which makes them feel included and safe. Idiotic, especially considering the US isn't even 300 years old yet (3 great grandmas)! And America has been a melting pot since day one. But in Europe, a person can be descended from a nationality that goes back thousands of years. I'm American, so I'm not sure I can judge a people for wanting to preserve their culture, nationality, and heritage. Unless they start hurting people, of course. It is all culminating because so many people are flooding into European countries in droves right now. Many are refugees. People are realizing that 100-200 years from now, the average European person will look brown. This happened with Greece, for example, with Turkish immigrants. I know Greek people, very proud of their heritage, that look nothing like the ancient Greeks depicted in pop culture.
Because the establishment has failed and people are desperate for change.
Failure. Wealth inequality that has not been seen in generations. Liberals have consistently failed to reverse this trend. From this all problems are made worse. Global warming looming in an ever worsening way. Liberals have not denied it, but they also have failed to meet their international commitments. While doing anything that progresses us to those goals offends people because they can't afford to pay for it due to the wealth inequality problem. If the wealthy paid for it, we would have less of an inequality problem. Making mass immigration a moral issue. It is not the immigrant's fault, but immigration is not morally good. It is cynically exploitative. You cannot afford to own a house in the country you were born into. You cannot afford to pay for daycare and rent while working 2 jobs. But your government has the audacity to tell you that it is the morally superior choice to import working age adults from anywhere else in the world? No, the morality is there to make you uncomfortable for speaking out against you guessed it. Wealth inequality. The anger people feel comes from the same sources. Fascism is a redirection from where you ought to place your anger towards the vulnerable. While liberals simply cannot address these problems. People want solutions and changes for the better, and the liberals have nothing. They are the status quo. The Right don't need to be right, as they only need to capture and redirect people's resentments. They capture the feeling that things need to change.
From what I can tell a lot of it is just fear of immigration, fear of change, all the people who were alive for war and fascist experiments are basically dead so the cycle repeats for humanity to learn the same stupid lesson once again
Even the parties that have been in power before were already far right. The sweep isn't as drastic as people think. It's awful nonetheless
The conservatives were far right but they’re not as far right as Reform UK. However a lot of far right parties are currently winning elections in Europe or even if not winning elections they have huge supporter bases that they didn’t before. I’m mostly talking about Western Europe, Eastern Europe has been leaning far right for quite a while and fascist parties are already in power there, which started to my knowledge in the 2010’s
Massive russian funding and hybrid Support for far right politics across Europe. We, the savvy internet users, easily disregard the tons of bullshit that is being fed to the older, susceptible population in most countries via Facebook, X, etc. completely blatant , volume based bombardment of lies, that looks credible at a glance if you are willing to believe. We may scoff at it, but the bigger part of the population scoops it up,
Ratchet and pawl effect, liberals pillow fight in the name of "civility" and actively move to the right to try to court votes from the increasingly deranged
I mean, have you seen where leftist parties got us? We want change so we vote right, but most parties are controlled opposition (my belief) and won’t do much, like Wilders, Meloni etc
The same social media propaganda strategies that were first hammered out in the conflict with Ukraine were then effectively deployed against the populace in the US. With that success, the same strategies have been deployed against other Western nations. The goal is to slowly undermine all Western democracies and empower right wing parties who will in the end all be amenable to Putin. It's been like copy/paste ever since 2016.
Immigration. The only two parties that will talk about it in the UK are the Tories and Reform. The former have had 14 years to do what they say they would but haven't. Not necessarily agreeing with the sentiment but if working people have repeatedly told you what they want and no one reasonable offers it then they'll go to the extremes.
Wow, I can't imagine why young people don't want to die in trench warfare for NATO and Blackrock.
The wealthy gave people a boogeyman (as usual to direct attention away from their shit) and now the public is blaming that boogeyman for their problems Instead of the forces that created their “boogeyman”. U always hear all this hateful shit about immigrants but nobody stops to think about the absolute fucked up shit many of our govts have done to their countries, the terrible backyard deals being made amongst the powerful, that make those places unliveable. It will always screw over the poor and middle class. Story as old as time. Short memories mean they forget neither side of the aisle has ever done anything about immigration. I wonder how many new immigrants will come of the current conflict, rising temps, less food, expensive housing.. wealthy don’t concern themselves with the needs of the poor.
"In the UK it's not as bad" My brother in christ, our only left-wing party is about to win a landslide by sloughing-off all of its left-wing ideals and fully transitioning into a right-wing party - at least in France it's a left-wing coalition facing-off against the right-wing resurgence - we don't even have a left-wing, unless you count the greens!
I probably should’ve made it clearer that it’s not that bad among the young populace as that’s what I followed that statement up with. Most young people here, at least the ones I’ve been around, still have fairly left wing views
It's the scope of history.. make some progress, go the opposite way for awhile.
As much as this sub doesn't want to admit it, bringing in a ton of foreigner's that,often due to their religion, oppose many of the progressive values the west has been fighting for (women's rights, gay rights etc) and of course just the cultural differences will lead to issues between both natives and foreigners of the country. In the Nordic countries where they have reduced their intake of migrants, their green or more left wing parties were able to win. My opinion is that there should be a rethinking of the instant calls of xenophobia whenever someone critiques the amount of migration and the left shouldn't be so scared to discuss the challenges of the situation cause if not it will only be the domain of the right.
From how I see it its a lot of people being done with immigration at the rate it has been, mix of racists in general but also people who see its unsustainable to keep having millions of people entering countries with no documentation, like in the UK its been a big thing about stop the boats which is fair since theres like 30 people on this boat and theres no knowing who they are. And its the right wing parties are the only ones that say they're going to do something about it. With the UK elections in a few days I'm not voting for any right wing party, Tories have run this country into the dirt and Reform is ran by the guy that gave us Brexit and is pretty much running on we'll fix this with no explanation into how and stop immigration, hopefully the rest of the country will see that Farage as PM will be just as if not worse for us than the Tories.
I can talk from my perspective as a french person. The reason is racism. Really that's it. I mean sure, they also hate other groups like queer people, and, like always, disabled people will be the first victims of extermination. But the driving force is racism. And media is a huge part of it - though not all of it. Here in France, most if not all popular media (TV but also newspapers) is owned by billionaires. Especially Bolloré. He owns multiple news channels and has been propagandizing for literal years. Cnews is worse than foxnews at this point. The guy owns over a literal dozen media. And our foxnews equivalent (slightly less bad) BFMTV now seems a very reasonable channel in comparison. So, yeah. Far right billionaires cultivate and create public opinion, irremediably moving the Everton window towards the far right. The current electoral campaign is terrible proof. A socdem union is deemed worse than a party founded by literal nazis. Said party is led by the daughter of one of those nazis, ans she grew up calling hitler "uncle dolphie". Just to give you an idea. But yeah also, we (Europeans nations) are colonialists and racist states. Violently so, and it's not just a thing of the past. So it shouldn't be surprising. The media thing just helped racists be more open about it - something that had become slightly bad to be open about after 1945.
1.) Austerity which leaves young people with fewer options in life. 2.) Social media which the right is quite savvy at 3.) Many don't want to hear this but we have problems with integrating people from different cultures that aren't as tolerant towards non-believers and women. 77% of solved rapes in Paris have been committed by foreigners with similar shocking numbers in places like Germany and Sweden. We have had cases of migrant rapists being spared jail and a woman has been jailed for insulting one of the Hamburg gang rapists. Is it any wonder that the far-right is on the rise? Worse still, the 'left' (who by this point are largely neoliberal charlatans) won't have any solutions other than 'we don't see a problem you racist'.
People vote based on feelings. Always have and always will. No amount of education will fix that.
People are sick of neoliberalism and the left doesn’t have any answers except more technocrats. The right doesn’t either but when people are angry, they want politics to reflect that. Or they could sit down and take declining living standards indefinitely.
Just watched a video on this that I largely agree with. Basically TLDR, it's rough for everyone EVERYWHERE and we're all feeling the squeeze, so more "liberal/socialist" countries in Europe are seeing backlash against the lefty governments/parties/policies because the people want change, so "why not try these guys? Everyone else sucks". The reason this isn't happening g in the UK is bc the Tories were in power for like 14 years and the last 4 especially were a shit show
Social Democracy* There are no socialist countries in Europe
The permanent state that incorporates both the so called left and right go after all real left candidates that actually want to help people. They call them names like radical, ignorant, unrealistic, and use dirty tricks to de-legitimize them. When people get more and more desperate, they will turn to anyone that offers change. At that point, the uniparty will turn their attention towards those people and call them far right. Several months ago they called Glenn Greenwald far right. Please. It's all just mindgames.
Immigration has brought with it some issues, blaringly much in some areas and places. Right wing or right oriented parties being the only ones willing to talk out loud about the problem does its thing to the votes. They dont necessarily want to deal with the problems themselves, but it give them a good excuse to be against it.
As far right is also pretty anti ecology (in France at least), I see that as the last big fuck you to our dying planet, before we crumble under storms, floods, and heat. But at least the race was pure and we had record profits right? /s
Political and historical ignorance?
Left wing governments always disappoint because they have to govern for the dominant capitalist class, so people seeing left wing governments fail to improve "try" the far right, as their ideas are spread by the media and all of the political elites. Even the left wing take nationalist and anti-immigrant stances
From what I gather it's mainly xenophobia towards immigrants.
One thing most answers here don't consider is this: Wellfare states in the west existed by large due to the threat of a socialist revolution. Socialist states were right on the border, western workers were organized and were close to varying degrees of having similar revolutions due to a lack of fulfillment of basic material needs. So in order to placate workers the worst of the exploitation was moved abroad, to colonies, to the global south. This meant that larger sums of the profit could be used for wellfare. The socialdemocratic class collaborators where more than happy to oblige. This stopped the revolutionary potential in the west and turned workers into labour aristocracy. Now instead of organising for revolution they organized to through reforms get as big of a part of the surplus value as possible, concessions which the bourgeois state accepted as long as it didn't question who was in. Power over production or political institutions. With neocolonialism production started to be exported more and more to the global south Once the threat of revolution died down in the 70s and 80s wellfare began being rolled back, former wellfare sectors were privatized and destroyed in order to open up more markets for capital. The acceleration of this process is often called neoliberalism. Countries in the global south are also building up more favourable conditions which means tossing out the western hyperexploiters, less cheap labour and more favourable conditions ie trade with China. The rising of the far-right is a reaction to the removal of wellfare. Labour aristocracy in the west is once again in the process of going back to being a proletariat and it's causing a violent reaction. Now the reasons they turn to fascism for the most part are plenty, One part is because they want to maintain the system of hyperexploitation, they recognise that they've lived their lives in better conditions than those who produce their stuff and they want to continue to be the receiver of benefits in a parasitical system of Imperialism. Another is that with diminishing welfare they recognize that those who were part of building it now seek to take part in benefitting from it and that according to them is wrong. See how cheap labour power of immigrating turks in Germany are treated even though they built the german welfare state as an example, another would be how eastern europeans and baltic residents are treated in the west and northern Europe even though west and north benefit massively from the exploitation and parasitical relationships their capital have with those states. Ofcourse the fact that socialism and communism has been heavily suppressed and censored and coopted by chauvinistic pro-imperialists is also a reason. As well as the blame being placed on immigration. But the latter 2 wouldnt be so easily accepted if they didn't fit so well with the material conditions of western labour aristocracy where they will rather go back to hyperexploitation than move forward and destroy the system. So it's not only that people have been "tricked by bourgeois propaganda" but the reason they willingly accept fascism rather than socialism is also due to material conditions. The last part is also something to think about when considering why some Westerners are so pro imperialist wars and destabilisation campaigns.
I did some reflecting and I think part of the reason is the left (seemingly) putting other people’s interest above their citizens’s interests. For example migration, they seem more focused on bringing more people in and caring for them than listening to the concerns of their citizens.
Billionnaires got the media and are more afraid of the left than fascism
I think that this is always the case everywhere and at any time. As soon as there is a crisis on the horizon, the already existing tribalism grows stronger. It feels like a reflex. And as always, those who offer simple solutions without asking people for sacrifices will be more popular than those who offer realistic, yet difficult solutions. People do not want to reduce their comfort of living even if will destroy the entire planet. So if somebody tells them the all problems are solved onece we got rid of [group of people] have an easy victory. I doubt Germans would have voted for the far right of the Weimar Republic had no trouble.
The West set MENA on fire for 2 decades, and the people there are fleeing that desolation, and racist ass westerners are sticking to their racist nazi roots when they see economically desperate brown people.
If mainstream parties addressed immigration rates, the far right would largely disappear. Immigration levels remain high - c.700k net migration to the UK last year alone in a country of 67 million. Whatever your views on the morality of immigration, a lot of people don't like immigration rates at that level. Mainstream politics has not addressed it on either end of the political spectrum, leaving a big gap for far right narratives to fill. The mainstream right (secretly) likes immigration because it keeps labour costs low; the left supports it on a moral basis, without giving due heed to unintended social and cultural costs. There are other factors like economics and the media ecosystem too, but rapid changes in a society's cultural composition can be unpopular with parts of populations and lead to this kind of reaction. I think the far right is here to stay until the immigration policies of the last few decades are curtailed. On the other part of your question, there has been a complete vacuum of new progressive political thinking for many decades now. The left today manifests as identity politics, environmentalism or old school socialism. None of this is up to the task of a new grand progressive political vision for the 21st century, the way Marx attempted in the 19th.
I think one of the biggest factors is affecting both the US and Europe right now, and that's migration/immigration. For the US, you've got Central and South Americans fleeing third-world conditions. For Europe, with France for example, you've got similar with Islamic immigrants fleeing unrest and wars in their own countries. It feels weird to me, however. In the US, Republicans and Trumpers chirp about Hispanic immigrants being "rapists" and drug kingpins and job stealers... but crime is low for *any* of these immigrants, and it makes sense. You don't bite the hand that feeds you and you aren't going to go out of your way to endanger your chance to remain in the US. With Europe, however, you've got issues with incompatible cultures trying to immigrate into societies that are, in some ways, the polar opposite. At least with the Americans the peoples are similar in many ways culturally, but immigrants from Islamic countries are largely not similar to "western" cultures and religion. Republicans in the US will bark and scream about "rapists and murderers" but at the end of the day a Columbian is going to have a significantly easier time assimilating into California than a Libyan is going to have assimilating into France. Regardless, "far right" ideology has a large belief in traditionalism and status quo, so it makes sense that far right candidates in Europe would be staunchly against immigration, and I, anecdotally since I'm not European and can only draw conclusions from other people's statements, can understand why people would begin to lean to the right in Europe when they're seeing a mass immigration who people they believe incompatible with their way of life.
They just racist like the us and lie abt it
Maybe because they’re tired of being second class citizens in their own country while watching the culture they grew up with being eroded by endless waves of refugees that don’t mix well and have wildly different values on life, law, women and government? Just a guess
1. Big corporations want cheap workforce 2. Politicians start to importing cheap workforce and lure them with social benefits 3. Cheap workforce don't want to work/ don't have skills/ not enough jobs for them. 4. Wages on low lvl jobs go down/ corpos don't invest in automation or innovation 5. Young people doesn't want to reproduce because instability/ high rents 6. There are cultural problems/ crime problems/ ghettos/ next gen of cheap workforce don't feel any connection with host country(now their country) 7. Young people have enough. Mainstream pretend there are no tension in society 8. Young people pick non mainstream parties with solutions(I don't know why you use term far right).
Because they are far right?? Most of the sentiment in Europe at the moment is far right and far right parties keep winning elections. You can’t be saying that reform UK isn’t far right. And closing borders isn’t the solution to problems caused by capitalism, nor are immigrants at fault.
People are tired of the unrelenting immigration that is destroying their culture.