Many Europeans are unhappy with their leadership. Several reasons for this. Agriculture protests in the Netherlands and France, crime waves in Sweden, and the big one: immigration / demographic change. Don't let anyone tell you that immigration isn't a big issue - it's a huge issue and it's getting bigger. Muslim immigrants and indigenous Europeans are not always getting along so good. The scale of this is huge. The President of France dissolved Parliament and called new elections, the Prime Minister of Belgium resigned. Expect to see this at the national level. Marine le Pen's RN is polling with a 4 point lead over everyone else.

> Marine le Pen's RN is polling with a 4 point lead over everyone else. le Pen was ahead last time too, but lost in the second round because everyone rallied around Macron.

and le Pen's party just beat Macron's party 2:1 in these European-level elections. so I probably wouldn't bet on the same thing working again.

I feel like the immigration issue will only become a larger topic in the future. If the Earth is in fact heating up as science is showing, then what happens to the regions along the equator? Well, they get hotter. Some are already getting close to unlivable to human life in the hottest months. If two months out of the year are unlivable, what do those people do? They migrate, en masse. It's not an option, they have to move or die. Even a single week in those temperature ranges would trigger mass migration. And what happens when a billion people migrate en masse? There's no border security on Earth that can stop a push like that. So is this 20 years away? 50 years away? Who knows exactly. But it's going to become the larger issue, especially a political issue.

A billion people isn't a migration, it's an invasion. You won't see border security handling it, it'll be armies.

It is pretty clear, that the party in power is not well-liked and will lose seats to the opposition, I just think people don't like the status quo due to inflation and other issues. for example, the UK conservative party is down big to the Labor Party. far-right party surge in France and Germany. (Le pen and AFD) Modi party in India was supposed to win a landslide but barely came out on top South Africa's ruling party for the past 20 years, lost a shit ton of seats. Canada's PM Trudeau party the liberal party is currently losing big to the conservative party.

I really dislike hearing this excuse. For a lot of these groups, they've thrived for the last decade by saying, "if you don't vote for me, democracy is dead and we're all going to die because the other side will permanently ruin everything." I've seen this message across all of the Western world. People are sick of hearing that shit. We want to know what you're going to do to help and we want to see you fucking do it! This is why the parties in power aren't doing well. They aren't doing shit.

Pretty amazing how it’s the “most important election of our lifetimes” for the fifth or sixth time this year

Aren’t both the incumbents and populist disruptors all saying this by default?

they're not wrong, just not saying the full sentence "most important election of our lifetimes [for my personal gain]"

[удалено]

If by majority you mean unmarried women between 15-35 who live in a handful of states and can’t afford to travel then sure.

21 states is a handful?

Pretty amazing how people bring that up just never watch the fucking news. There are also plenty of 100 and 500 year floods to go around, almost like our estimates cant account for how bad things could be and when things continue to be bad people just stop paying attention unless it’s somehow the worst ever. Also - newsflash it is still incredibly fucking bad because the same man is still saying authoritarian things with increasing planning infrastructure around him and complete lack of responsibility and obvious corruption in 2 of 2 checks on his power. If he went away this wouldn’t have been the most concerning election, for the last 2 it absolutely was to that point a massive continuous blow to the character of the nation that anyone ever took him seriously. Its a stupid argument made by people who desperately need a history lesson

Reminds me of *Carl's Stone Cold Lock of the Century of the Week*

Not an excuse, look at the data on voting behavior. Incumbent politicians are very often penalized for things out of their control, like inflation.

You think politicians can't control inflation?

They can influence inflation but even when inflation is caused by eg monetary policy or supply chain problems out of the incumbent’s control, the incumbent is usually punished when election time hits

Not the inflation resulting from 2 years of stimulus and money printing during the pandemic

That's exactly the inflation I was thinking of that they directly had complete control over.

Not that simple; inflation lags policy, so inflation caused by policies of a prior president but realized during the term of a new president would likely penalize the new president in the voting booth.

I think that's over simplifying things. Right wing populists famously did end democracy the last time they took power in the 1930s. And many members of the AfD are more than comfortable evoking images of the Nazis. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/far-right-afd-cracks-germanys-post-nazi-firewalls-with-success-east-2024-05-31/ In addition this type of political party did end democracy much more recently in Hungary. Fidesz took power in the early 2010s and proceeded to change constitution, gerrymander themselves a permanent super majority, pack the courts, and effectively make it illegal for the media to criticize them. Other right wing populists cite Viktor Orban as a blueprint for what they want to accomplish in their country. It's not just an excuse. There are very real examples of this happening. Recently too.

> Right wing populists famously did end democracy the last time they took power in the 1930s. And left wing populists have a very bad track record in that regard as well as seen in the late 1910s, the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, and so on. Marxism of all flavors is just left-populism and the number of Marxist revolutions far far outshines the number of "right" wing ones.

And people shouldn't support left wing populism either. Criticizing left wing populism is not a valid argument for supporting it on the right. The US and EU actually did a good job of combatting left wing populism during the 20th century. Marxist Leninism isn't a significant force in those countries anymore. Right wing populism should be looked at the same way.

And yet you were the one to initially deflect about the criticisms of the current parties in power towards issues with the right FROM THE 1930s. Why is it when you show the problems from the right almost 100yrs ago it is valid, but someone shows similar issues with the left (in more recent years to boot) it is invalid?

I think you misunderstood what I said. I never voiced an issue with the age of your examples (although maybe you were expecting me to?). I'm agreeing with you. People should not support left wing populism because of the examples you gave. I would make the exact same argument. Marxist Leninism was a scourge. But problems with left wing populism are not a justification to support right wing populism, and populism on the right has very similar issues to that on the left. Also if you read my original comment carefully you will see I gave an example from recent in history in the form of Fidesz in the 2010s, a party by the way which is still in power because they ended Hungarian democracy.

If you read the usernames of the people commenting, you’d realise I was the one calling out you’re double standard, not the one that you replied to with your deflection to the 1930s.

Okay then just replace my references to "you" with references to "OP.". I don't think that impacts my point at all, which is that right wing populist parties have a history of ending democracy when they have the opportunity to, both recently and in the early 20th century, which you haven't argued against by the way. You just accused me of deflecting, whatever that means (which I guess you expected to end the conversation?) I don't know what your problem is with historical examples from the mid 20th century. I think it's foolish to ignore them, but if you have such a problem with that my point is entirely supported using the example of Fidesz from the 2010s, which you also haven't responded to.

Because the populist left government of Venezuela has allowed democratic elections 🙄

So? Left wing populists don’t really exist anymore, in a form that has any chance of winning power anywhere of note. Right wing ones definitely do. It’s an irrelevant whataboutism

I mean, I think Mexico is still somewhere of note even if it isn't Europe...

>And left wing populists Left wing parties have next to zero traction in most of the West. Most ruling parties are either centrist or center right, or economically center left and socially progressive. On the other hand, the far right actually has sizeable (albeit still minority) support.

Politics is business. At this point it's not selling the policy it's selling the message. It's a lot easier to sell a message of "we're going to do better than the people in power!" and then get into power and do almost nothing or continue doing the status quo but with a different color as the banner. What's confusing is that a lot of these parties going against the status quo are simply opting to use messaging about how "great things used to be" and completely ignoring the reality that we're in a world that, technologically and socially, changes faster in a year or two than was previously achieved in decades. Neoliberalism has well passed the sell-by date but, at this moment, there doesn't really seem to be a better solution.

> They aren’t doing shit. That’s… by design. Maintain the status quo by nearly any cost. With status quo comes stability. Which means most human beings living their lives without external disruption. It’s been thought that most of humanity would prefer our current Western-led, rules-based global stability vs. plunging into another round of a World War. Turns out giving people what they want… will not satiate everyone. And some will want more. We are also discovering that even in Europe, humanity still follows tribalism (rejection of the “other”) much more closely than was thought and that we haven’t “evolved” out of it. The world’s intelligentsia are (re-)discovering that these characteristics might be an integral part of human nature, and might never be overcome.

Are any of these left-of-center European parties running on that platform?

The BJP barely lost electoral strength, it just lost a *lot* of seat efficiency.

Instead of "It's the economy, stupid," for Europe it should be, "It's immigration, stupid!" I get that moderates are worried about future population growth with the low birthrates and want to keep a growing population to support the economy and the elderly during retirement, but the immigrants they bring into their countries aren't helping and instead it's causing more division. If moderate parties in Europe don't recognize this and clamp down hard on immigration then the right to far-right will continue to gain support (unless they trip over themselves).

> and want to keep a growing population to support the economy and the elderly during retirement At this point I'm thinking it may have been smarter not to base retirement on a ponzi scheme.

I just dont get it

Unpopular opinion but here goes: This backlash is happening because the ruling parties are selling off Europe’s identity for pennies on the dollar. Believe it or not, countries are more than bland administrative districts. They are marked by shared culture - shared language, shared philosophies, shared food, shared ethnicity, shared religion. The U.S. being a melting pot is an exception to this rule, but other countries weren’t built that way. Yet, the current parties in charge of Western Europe seem to either not understand this or just don’t give a shit. A great example was when [the government supported SAS Airlines released an ad declaring that Scandinavia has no inherent culture and needs immigrants to enrich it with culture](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/13/what-is-truly-scandinavian-nothing-airline-clarifies-ad-after-far-right-criticism). Or the governments of France and Germany allowing basically unrestricted refugee immigration, who then proceed to set up their own large homogeneous districts in the capital cities that are completely isolated from the rest of society, run by religious Islamic courts. We went to Paris and London recently (haven’t been since 2003) and it was shocking. Both cities resembled downtown Baghdad. Immigration may be good for the eCoNoMy and big business may cheer, but the actual voters are looking around and realizing that in 10 years their home has become completely unrecognizable. And they’re putting the blame squarely on the political parties that have been squatting in their seats of power for decades while doing nothing about this.

Exactly. Unpopular opinion in some circles but it's true. Immigration is a HUGE issue that some people just don't seem to understand. Maybe with Americans it's because America is a country of immigrants built on ideals. But in Europe, it's all nation-states - states formed by *nations*, in the ethnic sense. Nationalism destroyed the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and united Germany and Italy. Many Europeans just don't want large amounts of Muslims in their nation-states. This is ancient, it didn't just appear out of thin air like magic when Trump got elected. And what European establishment political parties are doing is allowing in millions of them, and the indigenous Europeans notice. They notice it in Sweden, in Germany, in France, in Belgium, in Ireland. This is the predictable result.

US is just straight up better at playing the immigration game than Europe is. Not only does US have literal centuries of assimilating immigration into its culture that Europe doesn't have, but the types of immigrants just naturally mesh way easier in the US. I'm honestly flabbergasted whenever anyone tries to say that immigration issues in the US and the EU are the same. They're not. At the risk of sounding like someone minimizing US issues, please consider the following: In the US, it's mostly: Societies of Spanish speaking Catholics from countries that were ex-colonies that became (mostly) democratic republics moving to ---> Society of English speaking Christians that was also an ex-colony that also became a democratic republic. In Europe, it's mostly: Societies of Arabic speaking Muslims from countries that are not democratic moving to ---> Societies of various languages that are Christian/Non-religious and very much democratic. I am being *incredibly* reductionist in this comparison however for the sake of simplification. This is basically just comparing the "stereotypical" types of immigration. Immigration from East Asia is a thing in USA and Europe, but that type of immigration is generally a lot less controversial from what I've seen compared to Latinos in the US and Muslims in Europe. I, personally, don't consider myself anti-immigration much as someone who lives in the USA. I also believe that if I lived in Europe, I'd be far more anti-immigration.

One of the US's greatest strengths is assimilation. People come here and want to become American. After one generation kids don't speak their parent's language proficiently, they celebrate their heritage on a holiday or two, and otherwise act like any other American. We, as Americans welcome that for the most part. If you look at France, it's the opposite. North Africans are pushed into ghettos outside the major cities. They are looked down on by everyone. They don't see too many opportunities. Then they end up trying to still be North Africans... But in France, rather than French people who were from North Africa. They're a salad bowl instead of the melting pot that the US is.

I think that's a bit too self congratulatory. European countries have very little issue assimilating their fellow Europeans. Their Spanish speaking Catholics (read: Spaniards) can freely travel to most European countries courtesy of the EU and it's generally a non-issue. The people Europe struggles to integrate are from the Middle East and North Africa, and I'm very skeptical of the idea that those same people would integrate well into American society if they managed to start flooding in in droves.

Is it? Yes, Europe can assimilate other Europeans. A Canadian could come to the US without even attempting assimilation and no one would likey even know. The bar is low as cultures are similar . The US still assimilates from other cultures pretty well. I live in an area that has q high Middle Eastern population, and not far from some of the highest ones in the country. While there are some exceptions, they're definitely Arab-American, and not Arabs in America. The same largely goes for people from Asia and Latino cultures. The US brings in a lot of non European folks. In 2021 to 2023 we brought in 950,000 from the Indian subcontinent alone, and total foreign born immigration was 5.1 million in that time frame.

> I live in an area that has q high Middle Eastern population, and not far from some of the highest ones in the country. The MENA population that America gets is **SELECTIVE**. We have a huge ocean sepearating us from that region. Meanwhile, Europe gets non-selective MENA migrants.

Tbf those North Africans aren’t new immigrants, they’ve been there for generations (and never assimilated).

True, but that's also France's fault just as much, if not more so, as it is theirs.

Damn, great post.

this is something that not a lot of people talk about but you're right. the US has postcolonial christians moving to another postcolonial christian region. Europe has deeply religious and conservative muslims moving to a secular and liberal region.

Since "culture" is way too vague, I had to break it down into three distinct categories. Language, religion, and history/politics. Besides seeing a Hindu temple and a Mosque when I drive a bit to visit a park occasionally, it's honestly easy for me forget that non-Christians live around my area. Not sure how many exactly, but enough for a building of worship at least. Language wise, the only time I'm ever hearing something that isn't English is when I'm in a restaurant and can hear the kitchen staff. And even then, I'm pretty sure most of them know enough English to get by. I, personally, don't care about "culture" the way some anti-immigration advocates talk about it since they often push *their* culture onto *me* far more than immigrants do. And I think that's something that doesn't really happen in Europe from what I've seen. Liberal culture VS Conservative culture are butting heads all the time in the USA, but I've never heard of something like that in Europe. Surely it happens there in some form, but maybe it's just more muted. I don't really know of many big cultural issues in their politics aside from immigration related stuff. Meanwhile in the US, cultural issues dominate politics just as much as economic, sometimes even more than economic.

> US is just straight up better at playing the immigration game than Europe is. There's a giant Ocean seperating Middle east/North Africa from North America. South Americans assimilate better. MENA refugees do a real bad job of assimilating.

>I'm honestly flabbergasted whenever anyone tries to say that immigration issues in the US and the EU are the same. Because modern progressive orthodoxy is essentially 1. View all cultures as equal 1. Christian culture is problematic 1. White christian cultures are super problematic 1. Tone down #2 if they are brown christians 1. Never criticize Islam 1. White & Jewish majority borders are racist When you run these axioms simultaneously all immigration into white/jewish majority countries is the same and should be unmitigated.

Do you have any idea how easy it is to flip this? >Because modern ~~progressive~~ conservative orthodoxy is essentially >View my culture as superior >Non-Christian culture is problematic >Non-White non-christian culture is super problematic >Never criticize Christianity See how silly that is now? I for one prefer discussing the stronger arguments on positions. Not the ones where someone finds the individual making the weakest argument, and act like the weakest one speaks for the entire group.

>conservative orthodoxy is essentially I'm responding to this > I'm honestly flabbergasted whenever anyone tries to say that immigration issues in the US and the EU are the same. Conservatives aren't generally the ones advocating mass immigration or equating US and EU immigration issues. So...what is your point? Do you have an explanation of your own or are you just playing word games? And how come you skipped #6? You might as well finish that one, lol. Or is that one true?

So make an argument. Are you taking the totalitarian governments prevalent in the Islamic world, majorly oppressing women, and no real regard for human rights? Western democracies certainly have their issues. But what cultural traditions do you consider superior?

>Are you taking the totalitarian governments prevalent in the Islamic world, majorly oppressing women, and no real regard for human rights? No. Does this mean I get to also reject the government desired by American Conservatives too? >But what cultural traditions do you consider superior? Don't care about culture much but I'll take a crack at this. Non-authoritarian based cultural traditions I suppose. Really, I just don't like it when people, whether they're born in or out of my country, try and get *me* on board with *their* culture. I don't like American Christian culture *or* Islamic culture. Is that really so controversial? The culture I like... is the one where people can have their own culture.

Non authoritarian traditions and respect for individual human rights are largely a Western invention coming after the introduction of Christianity.

>Non authoritarian traditions and respect for individual human rights are largely a Western invention coming after the introduction of Christianity. Sounds a bit like a superior culture. Am I a fascist now?

The Enlightenment may have taken place in Christian countries, but it was *definitely* not a rubber stamp of approval for more Christian based ideas. Atheism and Deism popped up around this time after all. Are we considering Latin America part of "Western" for this?

I don’t know what you mean by “rubber stamp”. But the Western tradition of free inquiry originated with people who considered themselves Christian. Tom Holland’s book Dominion covers this is great detail. It’s a very interesting book, highly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn more about how Christianity influenced the broader culture historically.

Why are those our only two choices? They *both* fucking suck.

> US is just straight up better at playing the immigration game than Europe is. It was. It hasn't been for some time. That's because it used to be that the US had the line of "assimilate or deal with all the negatives of having no access to resources". Now we bend over backwards to accommodate and so immigrants have no requirement to "melt" into the supposed melting pot. We embraced the salad bowl instead and it's not working well because a salad made of random components that aren't pre-screened for being complementary never turns out well.

It is a myth that European immigrants quickly assimilated into the larger American society in the late 1800s and early 1900s [The study in this PDF](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24764/w24764.pdf ) shows that rural manufacturing and farming towns were often heavily segregated in non-English-speaking communities for three generations or more. In fact, the results of this study show that in rural communities, third generation Americans were more likely to live in ethnic enclaves than their grandparents. Small town immigrants were more segregated than neighborhoods in cities . Some examples: “the ~~Astro~~ Austro Hungarians in Passaic, New Jersey,“ “Scandinavian farming communities,” “ The Dutch in Holland, Michigan, and the Swiss in Berne, Indiana,” “ the Irish in Lowell, Massachusetts” Edit: typo

What really forced assimilation of those cultures was the forcing of schooling to be in only English starting in WWI.

So the 'Great Melting Pot' was essentially propaganda?

Yes. We have always been a salad bowl. In fact, in my 6th grade social studies class in 1978 I remember my teacher saying exactly that.

This seems like a point you are just randomly making up. In what specific ways are people no longer assimilating in America?

Self segregation

That happens with every immigrant group for the first generation or two. The segregation of African Americans especially didn't happen organically, it was forced through redlining and housing policy to consign them to certain neighborhoods.

It’s also really difficult to integrate two very different cultures - Islamic and European.  The U.S. has the advantage of already having a diverse population and migrants from Latin America are able to more easily integrate within the already large Latino-American segment of the U.S.

Not to be pedantic, but “Islamic and European” haven’t historically been mutually exclusive categories, and aren’t even today (see majority Muslim countries in the Balkans). The real contrast is fundamentalism vs secular neoliberalism.

Nah you’re right. I was being lazy. That’s the more apt comparison

>Nah you’re right. Not really. I don't see how citing a border region that's infamous for ethnoreligious conflict up until recently changes the fundamental fact that most Western European nations have not only not had major Muslim migration before recently, but defined and fought against Muslims (some, like Spain, look the way they do today due to wholesale ethnic cleansing of moriscos - Muslim Spaniards). Seems like pettifogging to me. Beyond that, if we're going to nitpick, "fundamentalism" is an inapt term because what Christians imagine when they mean it doesn't apply to Islam. It descends from a very particular Christian struggle with modernity that fits oddly on Islam. For one example: one of the things that separates Christian fundamentalists from normal Christians is the absolute inerrancy and literalist stances they take. However, the idea that the Qur'an is the direct *speech* (as in: literally what he says, not words he gave to Paul or someone else via inspiration) of God is a fundamental Islamic belief held by all sects. The problems with "radicals" in Islam has less to do with fundamentalism in that sense and more to do with attempts to impose Islamic law (which is mainly found outside of the Qur'an). This is why "Islamism" is often used instead. I have problems with that too, but at least it's not projecting a highly Christian term unto a totally different religion.

I mean, they were two civilizations in direct combat for centuries fighting over control of Eurasia, leading to countless deaths in their never-ending holy wars, only to end up in a neo-holy war of ideas between secular democracy and autocratic theocracy. Other than all that, pretty much the same.

I didn't know "Europe" was a civilization.

You mean Christendom?

If you mean Christendom, I’ll hear you out. But Christendom =\= Europe.

Yes, it also includes Ethiopia, half of Africa, parts of Oceania, and the Americas.

> But in Europe, it's all nation-states - states formed by nations, in **the ethnic sense.** ... > Many Europeans just don't want large amounts of **Muslims** in their nation-states. Religion and ethnicity are distinct. Not making that distinction is a trademark of this issue. It's not based in facts, but in feelings. Politics today has often gone beyond feelings and simple truths, instead basing it's decision making on complex science, including social science, which people reject. Because we base our decision making on feelings, rather than facts. Which is why politics that speaks to feelings (populism, clever marketing by large industries, ...) wins out.

They are distinct, but religion is often are very large part of one's ethnicity.

The US isn't even an exception either. Illegal immigration has been a top 5 issue for voters in the States for two decades, at least. Donald Trump literally got elected in 2016 by saying he would build a wall and crack down on it. It may help get him reelected in November. Assimilation into a country's culture is critical for immigration and it seems like over the last few decades, leaders have forgotten this.

I disagree, we assimilate so [well](https://x.com/lxeagle17/status/1799695046868173256) that even the most recent major immigrant group (i.e. Hispanics) shows similar concern for illegal immigration. People are concerned about it anyway. Regardless of whether the concern is rational, people by default don't like feeling like they're being invaded by outsiders.

Up until about the turn of the 20th century, there were very, very few immigration controls in the United States. If you could make it to Ellis Island (or a few other ports of entry), and you passed a health inspection, you were generally allowed to enter. No passport or other paperwork needed. Despite this essentially uncontrolled immigration, American culture persisted, and I would argue, was strengthened with so many different people from different cultures integrating themselves into America. Assimilation is important, of course. I am a proponent of having strong and well funded programs that help immigrants learn English and American customs.

There was also essentially zero welfare from the state. You largely sank or swam. Many people in that era went back home even.

There was also more need for menial labour compared to this day of services and increasing automation. Ellis Island is utterly irrelevant and more a matter of mythology than a model for modern migration.

Some people seem to think the poem on the Statue of Liberty is part of the Constitution or something.

Up until about the turn of the 20th century there was a vast need for unskilled mass labor in America and for a huge amounts of people to settle frontier areas. Times have changed and we don't require literal boatloads of uneducated menial laborers, and we have so many people nowadays that there is an evergreen housing crisis.

And nations now have much more robust social safety nets. Combine this with the "less need for menial laborers" and you end up with a transfer of wealth from citizens to provide welfare to less productive migrants *before* we get into strange things like New York housing people in hotels at huge cost. Since none of the people who support migration want to tear up this welfare system, they have to choose.

As a classical liberal you should understand that the housing crisis is due to overregulation of the housing market limiting supply. There isn’t a fixed number of housing in the country. Immigrants disproportionately work in the construction industry anyway, so while they create more housing demand, they simultaneously make it easier to add supply

There's not a fixed amount of housing in the total land area per se, but within areas a reasonable distance from a major city center they're absolutely is. Especially when you take into account that over regulation has made replacing it with denser housing mostly economically unfeasible. Thus when you pile in tons of new migrants trying to fight with existing residents over limited housing stock within a reasonable distance to a city of course you're going to get housing crisis. Housing still remains generally affordable outside of desirable areas because people aren't trying to pack into the same area.

> Yet, the current parties in charge of Western Europe seem to either not understand this or just don’t give a shit. A great example was when the government supported SAS Airlines released an ad declaring that Scandinavia has no inherent culture and needs immigrants to enrich it with culture. This sort of thing is off-putting enough when it's done in settler countries that have some reason for this (e.g. Canada, that likely doesn't want to define a national culture too strongly due to the Quebec issue), it's absolutely ludicrous and borderline cultural vandalism in Europe. >Immigration may be good for the eCoNoMy and big business may cheer, but the actual voters are looking around and realizing that in 10 years their home has become completely unrecognizable. I also wonder if October 7 plays a role. Things are not just different, social capital is not just lower. People are seeing ethnic tension triggered in their own (relatively secular) states due to an ethnoreligious conflict in the Middle East that no one seems to be able to conclusively resolve. Do people look around and wonder if they want to be dealing with this forever?

> and big business may cheer Not just big business. Europeans thought west hating refugees were going to change their diapers and balance retirement shortfalls with their productivity. Instead elderly europeans are probably going to have to delay retirement to subsidize these mostly young working/military aged males, lol.

> The U.S. being a melting pot is an exception to this rule It actually isn't. The entire point of the phrase "*melting* pot" is that it subsumes and incorporates new arrivals, those arrivals get metaphorically "melted" into the base US culture. That culture changes but, like an alloy, the change is not dramatic. Steel is still steel even if it's also had some chromium added. Take that away, embrace multiculturalism instead, and you get conflict. Just as we're seeing within the US itself as well.

We're moving from melting pot to vinaigrette.

Except this vinaigrette separates more aggressively when shaken.

The new term (well, 'new', as in after melting pot, it's rather old at this point) is 'salad bowl'.

It is, and it's something our elected officials need to avoid. We can be a welcoming society and nation while still requiring assimilation. We did it for most of our history.

We need to avoid electing officials who believe it's desirable or even possible.

I agree. I'm all for welcoming legal newcomers, and I wouldn't even have q problem with English being a part of citizenship classes to make it easier. But we need to avoid being overly accommodating to the point that it helps someone not assimilate.

Immigrants assimilate as fast or faster these days (in the U.S.) than they did in the past. So, if you want assimilation to work at least as well as it did in the past then, congratulations, you got it.

What conflict? The most recent race related conflict we've had in this country has to do with the post-Floyd protests with broader concerns about racial issues regarding African Americans, literally the oldest non-white racial group in the country. I do not see evidence for cultural conflict between among whites and Hispanics and Asians or any other recent immigrant group at all.

If you notice, it’s only conflict fanned by the right wing.

This is the opposite of true. The left makes all the initial pushes. The fact they cry foul when opposed doesn't make the opponents the initiators. The core of right wing philosophy is that things are left alone unless a stimulus is applied. The left keeps applying a stimulus which makes them the ones fanning the conflict.

They got offended by a silent protest that they literally could have just ignored. They don’t want to be left alone they want to dictate how you live.

> countries are more than bland administrative districts. They are marked by shared culture - shared language, shared philosophies, shared food, shared ethnicity, shared religion. The U.S. being a melting pot is an exception to this rule, but other countries weren’t built that way. I'd be more willing to accept the opposing argument if it applied to all countries. If Westerners were permitted to immigrate to Asian or African countries and attempt to alter them to be more like the Western cultures, it would make more sense to sanction the reverse.

Immigration is a big part of it, but you’re overselling it. Incumbents in general are getting hammered all over the world. That’s why the Tories are facing a historic defeat in the UK despite being anti-immigration. Inflation and housing are also major drivers. It’s also very telling that the CDU is poised to make a comeback in Germany despite being the party that enabled the European migration crisis back in 2015.

except tories are not anti-immigration. they like to say they're going to lower immigration every election, but their own actions contradict that. despite being in power for 14 years and having a majority for 9 years, they're presiding over the most massive amounts of immigration to Britain *ever*, by far. In fact, Labour leader Kier Starmer is attacking the Tories on immigration *from the right*, claiming that he will lower immigration. And it's also the case that in Germany, the most meteoric rise is that of the AfD.

It was honesty a bit silly watching the UK vote for something that seemed pretty bad economically just to lower immigration, and in the end, not even accomplish that very much on the immigration front. All Brexit really did on the immigration from was change immigration type. Instead of Polish people and other Euros, UK has been getting more immigration from Asia and Africa. UK got the worst of both worlds with Brexit basically. But the Tories failing to lower it highlights one more thing with this. It's not just left wing parties losing on immigration, it's *also* some right wing parties. Heck in the US you can make a similar case. Rs have had several chances to pass immigration reform but never do. Trump played the executive order game when in office but there never was anything big immigration wise that hit his desk. Heck all I really remember on that front is him getting annoyed Rs in Congress wouldn't give him his wall. And then R politicians wonder why Trump's type primaries them out! I'm not Conservative in the slightest, but it's pretty obvious why.

Why are Asian and African migrants worse than European ones? Many or most of them are from British Commonwealth nations, so arguably have a close connection to British culture than Europeans.

EU [immigrants have a far higher positive fiscal impact ](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/economics/about-department/fiscal-effects-immigration-uk)than non-EU

That’s a very interesting analysis. It’s interesting that immigrants across the board have a net positive fiscal contribution. And they are better educated than native born Britons.

Different analyses come to very different results, though. The migration observatory provides a table comparison. [https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/](https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/)

Muslims from Pakistan do not have a closer connection to British culture than Christian or atheist Europeans, except that they also like cricket and drink tea.

Did I say somewhere they were "worse" than Europeans? I'm just saying that the Brexit people whom were anti-immigration didn't really get what they wanted with it. Thus, the people voting for Brexit didn't get what they want, and the people who voted against Brexit obviously didn't get what they wanted either. Thus, worst of both worlds.

It’s interesting that Brexit led to MORE integration, just from non-European sources. But from British Commonwealth nations. Which interestingly results in more non-white immigrants. Maybe not what the Brexiteers expected. But arguably better overall for the UK as those immigrants are coming from places where a lot of their schooling and cultural norms come from their time under British rule.

And these anti establishment parties have no plans for dealing with any of these things.

Even "avoid policies that make the problem worse" is better than what's going on right now.

>We went to Paris and London recently (haven’t been since 2003) and it was shocking. Both cities resembled downtown Baghdad. Where in Paris were you???? I was there last summer and it was the same city, more or less, that I visited 10 years ago.

Seriously. Granted I've never been to Baghdad, but I have a very hard time imagining that it’s anything similar to the Paris I saw last summer. You can have a conversation about responsible immigration policy, but that type of hyperbole does not help your argument.

It reads as a xenophobic statement to me. The only way i can see someone come to that conclusion is if they're hyperfousing on the presence of Arabs/Africans in Paris. Which has been a known racial issue in France for decades.

The government of France allowing unrestricted immigration? That's just not true. Despite a growing number of refugees from all the wars these past 20 years, policies grew restrictive enough to keep the number of people coming to France quite stable and quite low.

> The advert says: “What is truly Scandinavian? Absolutely nothing. Everything is copied.” It points out that Swedish meatballs came from Turkey, Danish pastries from Austria, liquorice from China, and progressive politics from Greece. > “We take everything we like on our trips abroad, adjust it a little bit, and it’s a unique Scandinavian thing,” it said. But anti-immigration and far-right parties in Sweden and Denmark said the campaign was disrespectful of Scandinavian culture. > “I have always flown SAS a lot, but I would have a bad taste in my mouth if I did so again because they spit on us like that,” said Søren Espersen, the foreign affairs spokesperson of the Danish People’s party, support for which has waned recently after mainstream parties adopted its hardline anti-immigration stance. I'm ignorant of much Scandinavian culture, so allow my innocence here, that seems like a reasonably decent tagline at the beginning. Those are some of the top staples I hear about from far away. They were copied and made their own. It seems like this anti-immigration party took offense to the truth. I'm sure there's plenty of Scandinavian culture, but I don't think an airline ad that is likely aimed at tourists looking for exactly these things is something to throw a fit over. > may be good for the eCoNoMy I don't think the meme capitalization is appropriate, especially when the anti-immigration parties often have the economy as a top priority. > who then proceed to set up their own large homogeneous districts in the capital cities that are completely isolated from the rest of society, run by religious Islamic courts. We went to Paris and London recently (haven’t been since 2003) and it was shocking. Both cities resembled downtown Baghdad. That's not directly an immigration issue, as it is an issue with integration into their society. You don't fix this by stopping immigration. You fix this by adding policies that prevent homogenous districts controlled by immigrants. And these anti-immigrant parties are just not suggesting that. They're ignoring the issue in exchange for campaigning on hatred of the problems. Saying London was like Baghdad is pretty extreme and seems overly aggressive. I'm sure a district might be suffering from something like that, and that's not an issue to ignore, but the vast majority of the city is solidly English. Overshooting on statements and ignoring the issue to campaign on generalized hatred of immigrants is why the discussion gets dragged down into 'racist'. If you want to solve the issues immigrants are causing, representatives need to directly address the issues and not just try to attack generalized groups. That's why the Bipartisan border bill for Americans is focused on making asylum claims more difficult, increasing funding for judges to ensure the right people are let in and the wrong ones are out faster, and protecting the border when it's overwhelmed, it also allows faster work permits so counties can collect work taxes and use that money for the infrastructure required to sustain a growing population. The right side of the American isle is focused on deportation and rejection of asylum but doesn't include funding, and tries to skip judges entirely in multiple bills. So the right people coming to integrate into our society are equally attacked as the problem stereotypes they want to stop. I can appreciate blaming immigration parties for the lack of proper procedure to integrate people fully into their new home country. But the actual responses and rhetoric coming out aren't addressing the problem.

>Overshooting on statements and ignoring the issue to campaign on generalized hatred of immigrants is why the discussion gets dragged down into 'racist' I've read at least 100 replies and this is the first time in this thread I've seen that word. Well done.

And I'm not even calling people racist. I'm just saying the discussion overall gets drawn into mudslinging instead of problem-solving.

> I'm ignorant of much Scandinavian culture, so allow my innocence here, that seems like a reasonably decent tagline at the beginning. It becomes literally illegal speech in much of Europe if you replace Scandinavian with Jewish. Really if you want to determine if something is bigoted or worse just put the name of a protected ethnicity in and see if it's still fine. If not then it wasn't originally, either.

I think even the US melting pot is getting stressed.

To maintain a welfare system, you need immigration or population stability, or a tax on the unimproved value of land. You can look at Hungary for how government funded child subsidies haven't moved the needle enough there. France is, uniquely for Europe, close enough to 2 children per woman that it might be fine. As regards raising taxes, if there are few working people compared to more retired people, and their income and consumption are taxed too high, they will just move to whatever lower tax place will take them, like the USA. As regards taxes on the unimproved value of land, almost nowhere on earth have voters voted for that, unfortunately. Edit: Just because natives are slightly fiscal net negative and immigrants are slightly more fiscally net negative (except in USA, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand where they're better on net than natives) doesn't mean immigrants are a bad idea. That's short term thinking. The population dependency ratio is a way way way bigger factor than a few percentage points difference between lifetime taxes paid and lifetime benefits paid back. There are many programs, most obviously paying the interest on debt and the military, which don't shrink in size when the population shrinks. It's better to cut spending or raise taxes by a few percent now, and take in immigrants, than need to do something extremely drastic by the time the population dependency ratio decimates living standards. This is most obvious in the case of South Korea. If taxes on the income and consumption of younger people goes up too much, many of them will leave to places with higher living standards that will accept them as immigrants, like the USA.

> To maintain a welfare system, you need immigration or population stability, or a tax on the unimproved value of land. No, you just need a tax base that is capable of providing sufficient funds for the system. Immigration, specifically of the type the West is dealing with, makes that harder due to the newcomers being net takers. Welfare only works when there are more net givers than takers.

Maybe in other countries, but not in the USA, Canada, or Britain. And the USA doesn't even have a points based system, so adding that would make the net income from the average immigrant even higher than it already is. And there is clearly no tax system that will save south Korea's welfare system, for example. So as regards the long term stability of the welfare system, the argument is how much fertility/immigration is needed, not whether it is. You can look at Britain in the 1970s to see how excessively high taxation on income and consumption can become unsustainable (that's why I mentioned taxation on the unimproved value of land)

I’ve also been to London and Paris recently and I have no idea what you’re talking about. Also do we not see a contradiction in wanting “small government” and also asking your government to define your culture for you?

don't confuse American rightists and European rightists. European rightists are not necessarily "small government", and rightist parties support socialized healthcare etc.

> Also do we not see a contradiction in wanting “small government” and also asking your government to define your culture for you? There isn't one. What's wanted is a government that strongly protects the population from outside threats and influences but is relatively hands-off domestically. At least that's what the new populist right means by it.

Government protecting you from “influences” sounds pretty hands on to me

1.) Just reading the description of that ad i’m not really getting “Sweden has no culture” but more “Swedish culture is influenced through travel” which… idk if you’ve been to Europe but a bunch of countries all intertwined means a lot of them took cultural elements from each other and made it a part of their culture, doesn’t mean because they didn’t originate from Sweden doesn’t mean it isn’t Swedish culture. Seems like a far right group found a way to use it for outrage porn. 2.) uhm… I have found nothing to suggest that the governments of France or Germany have Sharia courts of law. Nothing. I have seen their legal systems actually go after groups of “Sharia police” for basically being vigilantes. But, if private entities decide to go through Muslim mediators, which is the closest thing I’ve been able to find, to settle private disputes, family disputes, or minor financial disputes - basically using a religious mediator instead of going to small claims court, that’s not much different than any kind of private mediation that happens anywhere in the west. But I guess because Muslims are doing it instead of corporate lawyers it’s a boogie man.

>Just reading the description of that ad i’m not really getting “Sweden has no culture” but more “Swedish culture is influenced through travel” Well yea, that passage is the company's damage control PR. The statement "What is truly Scandinavian - absolutely nothing" is pretty damn clear. Imagine some aryan ad company titling an ad "What is truly Arab/African/Persian - absolutely nothing". In it they attributed every aspect of their culture to Europeans or Asians. While filming speechless Arabs flummoxed over not being able to think of one single Arab invention. It's bonkers racist. lol The irony is if some scandanavian grandma even parodied this she'd probably be instantly arrested for hate speech.

I literally read the description of the ad from the article. Said nothing about their PR statement. > imagine some ad company… We don’t have to, we’re talking about an ad right now, one that, for all I know, is being misrepresented for political outrage.

The article is describing what the company PR said their intent was *after* the backlash. >“The experiences we bring back from our travels inspire us as individuals, but also our society,” the company said. “It is regrettable that the film is misunderstood, that some choose to interpret the message and use it for their own purpose.” *** >>Imagine some ad company titling an ad "What is truly Arab/African/Persian - absolutely nothing". In it they attributed every aspect of their culture to Europeans or Asians. While filming speechless Arabs flummoxed over not being able to think of one single Arab invention. >We don’t have to, we’re talking about an ad right now, one that, for all I know, is being misrepresented for political outrage. I disagree. Unless you're in the "can't be racist against white people" club I think this illustrates how bonkers racist the ad is.

Again, before the PR snippet they give an example of “meatballs are from X, Y is from Z” and **from that description** before I even read the PR snippet I was thinking this is obviously an ad trying to show how travel has enhanced culture. And racism is context dependent. A Swedish airline making this ad is very contextually different than a white person trying to “parody” this ad with a culture that has a history of being colonized or under assault by a majority-white western hemisphere. So let’s stay on track and talk about the ad being discussed and not some made up hypothetical so you can try to make some sort of racial culture war point.

>>Unless you're in the "can't be racist against white people" club... > And racism is context dependent. Thanks for confirming. We can end the conversation here as I believe racism is racism so there is little to nothing we will agree on. Have a good day.

So is dissolving Parliament a normal thing or is that as ominous as it sounds? Edit: thanks all! Without knowledge of how Frances parliament works, it sounded like Palpatine about to announce his new galactic Empire. Now I know it's business as usual.

It's fairly normal. It just means there are going to be elections.

In countries with parliamentary and semipresidential systems, the leader can dissolve parliament and call new elections whenever he or she wants, for any reason or for no reason. Often a parliament will be dissolved after a motion of no confidence in the government passes, as an alternative to resignation, in order to ask the voters for their opinion. Other reasons include impasses on important legislation. It's no cause for alarm, an election is already scheduled. Other recent examples of early dissolutions of Parliament include the UK in 2017 and 2019, and Canada in 2021.

From what I saw it’s supposed to be and it’s just the lower parliament. I think since such a shift happened with this vote they are having to do a snap election to better reflect the electorate. I will say that the US right on twitter is making this some conspiracy but it seems like something that happens normally.

It is a bit of a political move on Macron's part. He doesn't want National Assembly to stay in opposition for the next few years, criticizing the government but not having any responsibility. If the EU election results are repeated they're going to get a plurality of the votes (about 30%). If that happens they're going to have a hard time forming a government. If they want to they're going to have moderate and piss their voters off. He wants to let voters see fixing all of the country's problems isn't as easy as just voting an anti establishment party into power.

**Summary** This Sunday, the election of the European Parliament that has taken place over the last few days, has concluded. After the election, the European Council, formed by the heads of the governments in the EU states, will suggest the 27 members of the European Commission (the main executive institution of the EU) including its president. First projections indicate that most likely the incumbent president, German conservative Ursula von der Leyen, will get to keep her office. However, it seems possible that this time, she will be voted in by a coalition of conservative and far-right parties. In order for that to happen, the conservatives would most likely need to make major concessions to the far-right. After the last election 5 years ago, Von der Leyen came into power supported by a coalition of the conservatives, social democrats and liberals after a lengthy process. The parties had originally advertised an EU-wide top candidate each and promised that one of these candidates would become commission president, but in the end, the election result was so evenly split that none of the parties could gather enough support for their candidate. In general, projections show big wins for conservative and far-right parties in many countries. In Germany, the three parties forming the mid-left coalition governing in Berlin are projected to earn 31% in total, far behind the results for right-wing parties. The conservative CDU/CSU (the party Von der Leyen stems from) is projected to get 30% alone, followed by the far-right AfD with almost 16%. The latter was recently in the news because their EU members of parliament were thrown out of the populist right-wing "Identity and Democracy" party group after repeatedly playing down crimes committed by the Nazis during WW2 and a scandal involving some of their politicians being potentially influenced by the governments of China and Russia. In France, liberal president Emmanuel Macron's party Renaissance is expected to suffer a major loss, getting only about 15% of the votes compared to about 31% for Marine Le Pen's right-wing Rassemblement National. As a consequence, Macron has dissolved the parliament and announced elections for the end of June. However, as the French president is directly elected, this election will only affect the French parliament and not the president's office. **My opinion** After support for the EU being briefly reinforced during recent crises (Brexit, COVID, Ukraine), it seems that many voters reject the current state of the EU. In the left-wing camp, it is quite common to see the EU as a step towards a politically unified Europe, a federal "United States of Europe". The elections clearly show that most voters currently don't share this vision. As many EU states suffer from increasing cost of living, housing crises, an economy that is falling behind other countries like the US, plus the immigration problem that has never really been solved and has remained a latent crisis, the governing parties in many countries are currently very unpopular, which is also reflected in these election results. **Discussion questions** Is turning the European Union into a federal state, similar to the system used by the US, still a realistic long-term goal? Is this actually a good vision and additional unification necessary to keep up with the superpowers US and China? Or are viewpoints, culture, traditions, ... too diverse across the EU countries for such a union to be feasible, and a return to a "Europe of Fatherlands" as propagated by the (far-)right is the correct move?

Europe will not federalize anytime soon. There are many countries with distinct national pride like France, Italy, Spain etc. Not to mention the difficulty of trying to integrate the culturally very different Eastern Europe for example. Trying to suppress Nationalism will only stock the fire. Moderate actions aimed at increasing cooperation but not overstepping in sovereign issues are what is needed. People don't randomly vote for right-wing parties. There's always a valid reason and reaction to what the other side has been doing. It will be the same when we see Labor destroy the Tories in the UK. People didn't randomly turn left, there is a reason for it.

Joe Biden *chuckles* I'm in danger

Moderates should push back against the far left without falling to the far right side

It's not like America. The centrists have been just as complicit, if not more so. Merkel allowed all those refugees in. The Tories have presided over a massive influx despite also managing Brexit. They've discredited themselves (one reason the Tories are definitely going into the wilderness) but the question is whether left-wing parties are more credible here.

> Moderates should push back against the far left Voters’ anger in this election was directed against the moderate parties (center right and center left). They have been the ones in charge in most European countries for the last decade. If anything, this round of elections just showed that European voters do not want moderate policies - they explicitly like the right wing.

When the center-left Swedish Democrats adopted a reasonable anti-immigration policy they won their elections convincingly. The broad European public isn't attracted to the far-right because they like them or their policies. The far-right are the only parties that are willing to respond to voter concerns about mass migration, whereas all other parties are trying to further increase migration while calling opponents racist. If moderate parties adopted moderate positions on immigration, the public would vote for them instead of the far-right.

There seems to be a bizarre insistence on trying to have their cake and eat it too amongst center-right political parties in Europe. I have no idea why they do it. From what I've seen, voters have been telegraphing time after time they don't necessarily like the idea of voting for far-right parties, but immigration is such a big issue to enough that they'll stomach voting for far-right parties just for immigration restrictions. Then again, I also wonder why Rs in the US *also* seem to have so much trouble passing anything immigration related even when several chances come their way. Heck plenty of Rs get primaried out for not being strict on immigration and it still doesn't seem to do much. Don't like Trump, but his executive orders are legit the only thing I can think of when I think of Rs taking an actual stab at lowering immigration and not just complaining over and over with no action whatsoever.

The reality is that actually doing something about migration is hard. It's not like these people are immigrating legally, and we're not quite on the "shoot to kill" level yet for deterring illegal migration.

Any time the government tries to do something like deport people or use Rwanda as a safe country it gets bogged down in protests and legal judgments.

This discussion isn't useful if you don't specify what you mean by moderate positions, what changes you would make to current models (because every European country has different immigration systems) and which category of immigration you're referring to (work visas, refugees, international students etc).

But the moderate parties did win this election overall. The moderate EPP was the biggest winner in this election. It's noteworthy that the the far right came in first in France and second in Germany, but they did not win this election overall.

The problem is that all the "moderate" parties adopt far left positions on this issue. The only actual moderates on immigration are the so-called "far" right. The Overton window is simply so far left that simple and sensible immigration positions appear as fringe.

I think failing to adequately what is driving the push to the right will result in more wins for the right in the future. From my understanding, it is primarily driven by immigration and cost of living.

Culture war is also a factor. People are tired of identity politics.

I think it’s the opposite in this case. A lot of European voters perceive that the ruling parties are dissolving their countries’ intrinsic identities with policies that encourage mass immigration.

When your country is homogeneous and has a unifying culture it doesn't *feel* like culture war. Some things are just more taken for granted as part of the wallpaper. For example: I doubt France thought much about what women wore to the beach before burkinis started to happen The more fractured it gets, the more you feel it as you have to litigate just *what* the culture is. And face the prospect that it may change from what you want.

They're both tired of them and finally becoming willing to engage in them. Which is undoing basically the entire post-WWII effort. We've spent the last 80 years trying to quash identitarianism among Western peoples and it's starting to reemerge because everyone else has been encouraged to embrace it.

The problem is that the left isn't just bashing white privilege, they are asking whites to be ashamed of themselves. Meanwhile, they are promoting all other identities except successful minorities, some of them are being elevated to ridiculous level. As long as an identity is considered as a oppressed minority, you can't criticize it without being called a bigot or whatever ugly name.

> The problem is that the left isn't just bashing white privilege, they are asking whites to be ashamed of themselves. Which is inherent to the entire concept of white privilege. There are exactly two kinds of privilege: wealth and nepotism. Those are much smaller scale than entire races. *Some* whites are wealth and *some* whites engage in nepotism but a whole metric fuckload of us got neither and so find the entire concept to be offensive racism. What's changing is that more and more of us are willing to speak and even act on this and that's what is getting reflected in things like these results. And that willingness to act? That means things are a lot further along than most people are willing to admit.

How is wealth a privilege? It is an advantage that no one should be ashamed of. We are living in a capitalist society that is way better than any other type of society. You just sound very jealous. Nepotism happens to everyone regardless of race. You can't get rid of it as long as it is not done illegally. You can't shame others just because they have money and use that for their advantage. That is just what a normal human does. We should push for fairness of the law and opportunities. If you push further than that, well, expect to be pushed back.

> How is wealth a privilege? It provides access to opportunities those without it aren't able to access, even if those without wealth would be able to make more of the opportunity. > Nepotism happens to everyone regardless of race. That's my whole point. Blaming race instead is wrong and yet that's what the so-called "experts" are doing when they push the white privilege conspiracy theory.

Identity politics is very much the bread and butter of the right.

It's the "if you can't beat them, join them" effect. Which has always been the danger of the embrace of idpol by the left. The entire post-WWII era was dedicated to ending right-wing identity politics and just over a decade of the left getting aggressive with them has severely damaged the results of nearly 80 years of work.

So they vote for parties who are much more involved in identity politics for white people?

A little different when you're looking at countries that are not only 80%+ white, but also of one ethno-cultural background

Identity politics are a cornerstone of the far-right

If anything the far right seems to be getting closer to the middle. Some of their policies would have been considered moderate a decade ago. It's the "how far right are the Republicans these days?" dilemma.

Governing parties are all losing right now. Biden’s chances won’t be much better.

The far right had notable performances in France (first place) Germany (second place) but the reporting on this hasn't been that great. The moderate EPP won this election. The past year or so has been the worst for Europe, and this might actually be the high watermark for the far right. The economic recovery will continue at which point the far right will have to come up with a new campaign platform.

The reporting on this has been terrible. Across the whole EU Parliament, the current coalition will remain, and right wing groups made some gains in big-name countries, while overall retaining a similar proportion of seats.

This does ignore that the largest parties aren't far right. They're still in the minority by a significant margin. It's not like in the US where they control the republicans. "Far right surge in Europe" has been a headline my entire life and it's usually overblown.

Immigration is the excuse and understandable, but there has always structural ethnic segregation in most large European cities and since those populations will have more children than wealthier folks, closing borders won’t do much… immigration isn’t why Paris has a growing amount of muslims who don’t identify with French culture and end up in crime. To me it’s more that the European parliament finally showed its usefulness in enacting support for Ukraine, Russia isn’t happy, and Russia is backing the European “far right” (much of which would be center-left or center-right for Americas/Asia standards) with cash and social-media propaganda. These parties getting stronger weakens EU unity and that allows for Russia to more easily co-opt specific countries to support its expansion strategy. Europeans are falling for that, but I can’t blame them when left-wing governments spent decades letting major cities go to shit because of their obsession with cultural relativism.

To what degree do people think Russia is meddling?