Ahead of the European election, striking data shows where Gen Z and millennials’ allegiances lie.
Far-right parties are surging across Europe — and young voters are buying in.
Many parties with anti-immigrant agendas are even seeing support from first-time young voters in the upcoming June 6-9 European Parliament election.
In Belgium, France, Portugal, Germany and Finland, younger voters are backing anti-immigration and anti-establishment parties in numbers equal to and even exceeding older voters, analyses of recent elections and research of young people’s political preferences suggest.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration far-right Freedom Party won the 2023 election on a campaign that tied affordable housing to restrictions on immigration — a focus that struck a chord with young voters. In Portugal, too, the far-right party Chega, which means “enough” in Portuguese, drew on young people’s frustration with the housing crisis, among other quality-of-life concerns.
The analysis also points to a split: While young women often reported support for the Greens and other left-leaning parties, anti-migration parties did particularly well among young men. (Though there are some exceptions. See France, below, for example.)
It’s like people forgot that 4chan and the like exist.
Yep. This hardship has been coming at us for over 100years and, given the choice, most people will choose to have some faceless ‘other’ bear the problem than to share the hardship with the rest of the world. The climate crisis is real and this is just the tip of the mass migrations that will want to occur. If we don’t let them in, soon they will stop asking permission.
Perhaps, with enough propaganda, we could get them so turned back on themselves and they will be too weak to attack us before they realize their true enemy. Western-style politics has proven it a potentially viable strategy.
The right-wing promises you may be burdened, but others will be more burdened to make you feel like you are not the bottom. The left doesn’t understand, or is unwilling to accept, the emotional deficiency of people like the right.
This is so frustrating to watch as an American. I spent much of my youth on the internet getting clowned on by Europeans for the consequences of my country’s hard right policies. The UK has been deservedly getting clowned on for the consequences of embracing the Tories. It beggars belief that the same people clowning on the US and UK would then turn around and say to themselves “yes, but it will be different for us, it will work for us, our situation really is different, you don’t understand”. No, it won’t be different. Pretty soon, you’re going to be following the path that the Tories set the UK on, marvelling at how dysfunctional your government is, and hearing about how the only solution is even more gibs to the people who are already the most economically advantaged and the private sector. Before you click reply, just consider that you guys deserve to get fucking dunked on, because you guys spent decades laughing at other countries for doing this shit just to say “hmmm… but what if sticking the fork in the electrical socket works out for me?” I’m honestly sad and disappointed for Europe, not least of all because after years of deservedly shitting on the US for being racist, all it took was one big wave of immigration for you guys to hold up blonde dumbasses with bad hair and worse ideas as the solution to all of your problems.
“Oh, great bozo of the European trailer park, what is your wisdom to save our culture from the immigrants?”
“Deregulate sewage plants. You will certainly not regret deregulating sewage plants.”
Enjoy your US-style healthcare system in a few years, I guess.
I would always point out that European security has been subsidized by the American taxpayer for 70 years. Finally starting to see that change, I just hope idiots like Geert aren’t the ones leading that charge.
American hegemony was a conscious American policy choice. We didn’t want the Euros having an independent foreign policy, we wanted them reliant on American military protection. This was how the US kept those bits of its empire in line.
Notice how the only Western European country that even pays lip service to independent action is France, the one Western European country with a military capable of independent operation. And then we get “Freedom Fries” and all that shit whenever they don’t do whatever the current US admin wants.
The single biggest thing Trump fucked up for the US was pushing NATO countries to spend more on defence. This will drastically reduce US influence over the continent in the coming decades, speeding up America’s worsening diplomatic isolation.
I’d prefer a multipolar world provided the other poles are actual democracies. Europe should step up and have a bigger say
Freedom fries = that thing that was a week long 21 years ago.
If it were a person it could legally drink…but you are welcome to bring it up again for another 21 years as some sorta attempt a a deep conversation killer.
I think that’s a bad take. Here’s the thing, “freedom fries” wasn’t a self-enclosed phenomenon. It was part of a broader jingoistic fever that swept through the US post-9/11. Yeah, sure, it’s fair to joke about Americans being dumb, but our brains dead ass shut off after 9/11, and anyone could do anything if they just waved their hands and said “terrorists, 9/11”. And Operation Iraqi freedom was just one of the turd sandwiches we ferociously gobbled down under such framing. Freedom fries happened because France wouldn’t support our stupid, pointless invasion, and the boomer email network kicked into overdrive to create a new meme (in the literal sense of the word) of replacing anything having to do with the treacherous French with Freedom. And that was what we did to people who owed us nothing, so it felt much more dangerous to step out against it as an American, at least in the early days of the war.
Never found any of it funny. You go ahead and make your “jokes” for another 21 years. Maybe someone will laugh at them.
Oh and btw I went to the Iraq protests. Maybe you were afraid but I wasn’t. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel like making “jokes” to feel tough now.
Not my jokes, and I don’t think it’s funny. You might want to re-read my post, I certainly wasn’t celebrating the attitude that spawned freedom fries.
Was your jokes.
I mean, not trying to sound like a pessimist as much as a realist. Even if Europe started paying the full sum of what we’re paying in defense subsidies, I seriously doubt we’d cut that spending. Raytheon and Lockheed’s investors are counting on us.
Yeah you’re probably right. It’d likely just move the bulk of the expenditure over to Asia to contain China
Don’t worry man, we will get you a megaphone to shout “I told you so” as (only men) are conscripted to go throw our lives away for D-Day v2 in Europe, lol. Have fun in the tailgunner’s seat.
Every 70-100 years, some absolute cunt like Putin or Xi rises up and decides it’s a brilliant idea to kill all their young men, some other country’s young men, and the “undesirables” on the other side. They that the war will only last four weeks and victory is guaranteed. It. Never. Is.
Fuck populism and authoritarianism. People get bored and never learn.
This is so frustrating to watch as an American. I spent much of my youth on the internet getting clowned on by Europeans for the consequences of my country’s hard right policies. The UK has been deservedly getting clowned on for the consequences of embracing the Tories. It beggars belief that the same people clowning on the US and UK would then turn around and say to themselves “
If we can put it off just a few more years I’ll be too old to conscript back into the military and I can go hide in the mountains.
For what it’s worth, it’s incredibly frustrating as a European with a functioning brain too.
I don’t know what deregulation of sewage plants would even look like. Do you mean I’m how they are built or their design or their day to day operations or how many of the workers at them are private vs public?
IIRC, one of the effects of Brexit is that the UK’s sewage outlets to the ocean were no longer bound by EU regulations, which led to extremely high sewage contamination and closing of a number of English (specifically English, I want to say) beaches.
…thank you for informing me I guess.
It’s all about immigration and housing.
I’m pretty fair left. It’s weird that traditionally left leaning parties were about housing and jobs. But they seem to have lost their way.
The more you care about certain things the more you have to vote right because the left got their head in the sand.
I really wish the republicans weren’t trying to start a dictatorship and we had some actual options for who to vote for.
Arguably the hard right foreign policies of the US from the last 10-20 years are responsible for a lot of the migrant waves Europeans are fearing. You guys blew up the middle east…
You think the EU didn’t have a hand in that? Who did Libya again? Who was famous for doing stuff in Northern and Western Africa? Who drew the lines that fucked half the world? Who insisted on keeping their colonies until it was absolutely too late to stop strong man rebellions from becoming dictatorships?
The US is in the picture, but it’s not alone by a long shot.
God no, the EU countries are not blameless. But they by far not the prime mover of the blowing up of the Middle East.
Junior partners are junior.
Oh? The US forced the French to keep operating in Africa until (checks notes) last year? The US forced them to operate colonies until they couldn’t be militarily sustained anymore? The US forced the dumbest drawing of country borders? The US forced Europe to take part in cold war geopolitics?
Take some responsibility.
Are you aware of the concept of “orders of magnitude”?
Are you aware of what’s happening in Gaza right now? Did you know France was one of Saddam’s biggest arms suppliers during the Iran Iraq war?
You really really need to read more history.
None of this negates my argument.
I’m making the argument that the Europeans, while being junior partners in imperialist domination are not the main drivers, and are in fact an order of magnitude less powerful than the US. Wtf is your argument? That they are co-equal to the Americans?
Yep. Dunno what else to say, we’re absolutely responsible.
Must have been the freedom fries, right?
Yep
Tell me a joke funny man
What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?
are responsible for a lot of the migrant waves Europeans are fearing
The EU is could very much send them right back where they came from, but they don’t and in a lot of cases, outright sponsor it
This whole immigration kerfuffle is simply top down shenanigans from the ruling elite to divide the poor
All immigration is a plot to divide us? Are the immigrants actors? That’s ridiculous, I know many people who wouldn’t support sending immigrants back and many people who don’t want any.
It’s a shame that there are people in this world so selfish that it’s literally inconceivable that others would willingly accept some economic pain in order to ensure people can be saved from almost certain death…
If we can figure out how to land a goddamn satellite on an asteroid and then have it return, if we can design and land a freaking bus sized rover on another planet using a freaking sky crane, then I think we can handle figuring out how to properly incorporate immigrants into our economy if we’d only listen to actually intelligent experts…
But no, let’s listen to angry shitty business running orange man and his contemporaries around the world… He said mean things about the people that make me mad so he’s my man!
The EU is could very much send them right back where they came from, but they don’t
That’s only for the war refugees. Sending people back to, say, Eritrea, would mean they’d be executed for leaving the country (which is illegal there).
Those only represent a tiny fraction of the immigrants though, and they’re not the ones “taking all the jobs”, that’s the worker immigrants.
They aren’t even “taking” the jobs. That’s the suits doing that. They decide who to hire. And if they had to pay the immigrants what they have to pay you then it would be a lot more fair of a labor market. But they don’t want you thinking about that. They want you thinking the boss just had to go with this random immigrant who showed up one day. Like he got to work before you and the boss was like, “I guess I have to fire Quack now?”
Unfortunately, American politics is so toxic, its infected nearly every country its come into contact with.
Understanably, american money and election interference is the reason European politics is becoming more americanised. For example, it was regan who radicalised thatcher. It was American and Russian dark money that funded vote leave (brexit). It was the CIA who funded far right groups all over Europe. Its American, far right Christian groups who try to lobby to take away reproductive freedom for women etc. etc.
America is empire now and no ones laughing anymore.
Must suck living in a place with 450 million people none of which can think for themselves and instead are just vessels for the thoughts of other civilizations
Own up to your own crap if you want to fix it, or don’t own it and blame foreigners. See if I care.
Own up to your own crap if you want to fix it
They said, without a hint of irony.
Again, said without a hint of irony. Please get some self awareness before replying again. Youre taking the sport out of it.
Some of us are capable of holding all the contributing factors in their heads and not just ignore the ones they dont want to talk about. It doesn’t mean we don’t have our own problems but it also doesn’t mean that there isn’t another very serious problem at hand.
Hmm clearly I need to repeat myself with you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
Let me know if you need a primer on logical fallacies. I am sure I can find one for your level.
Clearly you think yourself far smarter than you are. Especially considering you can’t even see yourself fall foul of the fallacy you claim to see. As adorable as it is, I remember when I first found out about fallacies too, its a bit boring and it wouldn’t make me wrong either. That is if you bothered learning any of the other fallacies.
Let me help you, as you’re clearly struggling here: why is it that only the Europeans, in this instance, that have to own their crap? Why are we not allowed to consider any other contributing factors? How is me mentioning another factor, while not denying the problems at home, not owing it?
It doesn’t make sense does it?
You keep missing a few key words. American Corporations and Global Billionaires. Our politicians and far right think tanks have their marching orders. They aren’t the driving force themselves.
Its funny, no one insists on that correction, when it comes to the Roman or British empires.
I think it’s pretty clear the rich people fucked them up too. The working class isn’t chomping at the bit to go oppress people. The Royal Navy literally abducted sailors to keep it’s empire going, and Rome forced “barbarians” into the military to create a civil military divide that protected Italians from really feeling the cost. But then that system killed the Republic, and later the Western Roman Empire.
Workers want two things. To provide for their loved ones and to have a bit of time they can enjoy with their loved ones. The ideas of imperialism and especially radical conservatism have to be jammed down their throats from day 1 of school. That takes money and influence. You know who has money and influence?
It ain’t the people.
I agree completely and i respect you giving context. I hope you can understand, its not that common that people realise that.
Yeah. If we could get more people realizing that then maybe we could get representatives that are willing to hold the executive to account and not just play partisan games.
Those are quite some claims. Some I’ve never heard of.
You’ll have to excuse me for being skeptical.
I can understand that. I imagine the main cause is what you’ll find if you look into “operation gladio.”
That’s quite a stretch to blame America for the AfD.
It might well have been, had i made that claim.
Europe has had so many far right groups throughout history and they haven’t gone anywhere. You can definitely think of a few in recent history, not even mentioning Russia. You can just dismiss this away as some foreign influence, this is a problem the world is facing and it’s a problem with me and you.
I don’t think I dismissed it but mearly made sure that all the factors leading to it were included. In fact, its people taking issue with me mentioning them who are dismissing things they dont like. If you’re in denial about that, then you’re probably in detail about how much of an influence America was on Hitler too.
For sure, its not like we need any help with making far right groups. However, we have help making them none the less.
I mean, maybe the rise of the far right in America and then a similar rise across the world, with a sufficient lag time, is completely unrelated. Maybe operation galdio didn’t do exactly what it set out to do. Maybe its better to blame people for the additional effect it has on them, outside of their control. I mean, that would be very in keeping with far right thinking.
Europeans have a long history of blaming foreigners for their problems when times are tough. This isn’t really anything new.
Humanity has that long history.
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This comment shows a large misunderstanding of european culture, policits, everything really. And I mean this with no offense, but there’s no nice way to say it.
The people who were - and still are - clowning on Americans for their politics are a different group than the people currently voting far right. You’re not dunking on the people you think you are. It’s tragically funny in a way because internet active and mostly left leaning circles still spend a lot of their time dunking on american politics while failing to see the growing trend of far right acceptance in Europe.
Europeans also aren’t a singular entity. The comparison of the US vs Europe is almost always bad IMO, as much as people of the internet love to make it - both americans and europeans alike - because the differences between two neighboring european countries are often larger than those between the two most culturally different US states. The country next over is so radically different to mine in terms of politics, economic choices, language, culture, that the only thing making us both “European” is a similar looking ID card and similar looking road signs. When I cross the border and order a coffee they look at me strange and then serve me what I would expect to get at an american coffee shop.
Europe is facing some of the same problems of the US politically speaking. Summing it up to “getting one big wave of immigration” is naive to say the least. There’s a growing discontent with traditional and more moderate parties, which have fundamentally failed to solve what many people see as big issues in their lives. There’s a housing crisis, an ever increasing wealth gap - which even left leaning socialist european parties, which were in power for decades in countries such as mine, have done next to nothing to prevent. There’s a perceived decrease in security - which is real in some places, while false in others but amplified by social media -, a bunch of high profile corruption cases all throughout Europe - often associated with high ranking members in more moderate parties. In short, there’s an ever increasing number of real issues which traditional parties have fundamentally failed to solve. Some because they’re genuinely complex issues, others because of sheer incompetence.
The media in Europe has spent the last few years treating far right parties the same way the media in the US initially treated Trump - painting them and their followers as crazy people which should be ridiculed and often pushing aside whatever issue they pushed as their political flag. The problem is that far right parties in Europe often pick very real problems as their political flags - such as corruption in the case of my country. They offer no actual solutions to the problems, of course, but the attitude of the media helps them paint the idea that the media and traditional parties are aligned in protecting corrupt individuals and that the only way to tackle the problem is to vote for extreme parties. Whatever the “main” political flag is varies from country to country, but the logic is always the same: Problem exists -> problem is pushed aside by media and traditional parties for whatever reason -> far right party picks up problem as their political flag even though they offer no solutions -> people vote for far right party after years of seeing problem be apparently ignored.
The last part on healthcare makes little sense as well. Public or partly public health services are culturally ingrained in a lot of European countries and many of the far right parties have been very outspoken about defending these services - not because they like their existence I’m sure, but because these healthcare systems are too popular to openly attack. A common attribute in a lot of European far right parties is that though they often claim to despise “the left” and make big claims about socialism having destroyed everything and etc, they’ll quickly incorporate any left leaning measure they perceive as popular - often defending measures which are so far left that you won’t even find them in the political plans of far left parties. Far right parties in Europe will incorporate anything they see as popular in their political plans - which they then use as a promotion point, arguing that they are “above” the left and right divide, instead focusing on whatever is “better for the country”.
Add to all of this a fundamental failure in left wing and moderate right wing parties to address many of these issues, even while being in power for decades in the came of some European countries, and the constant attempts by these same parties to silence anyone who so much as mentions hot topics like immigration - often by labeling them as racists, fascists, etc and what you get is a growing distrust in these parties.
“as a European” is a sentence fragment I have read more than any other on the Internet.
I have a personal pet peeve with that. The expression “As a European” is almost always followed by something that’s entirely false or only concerns the commenter’s specific country or region. For some reason, people assume that things that are often specific to their country are “European”.
Just today I saw someone saying “us Europeans have to take a first aid course before getting a driver’s license”. WTF? I wish that was true. It’s certainly not true for my country. I’m not even sure that’s true for more than half of European countries. From a quick google search it seems that’s only a thing in maybe Germany, Austria, Hungary and Switzerland? There’s some twenty other European countries where that might not be a thing at all.
Like I said, even internet Europeans have the weird habit of assuming things specific to their country are some shared European value, when it’s almost always not the case.
Whenever I read that sentence I just mentally sub in for Europe “this one city I like in Europe” and move on.
The right in the US really isn’t so different. The thing we know for sure is that fascists lie and lie often. The fascists here in the US aren’t above paying lip service to certain issues; Trump tried to convince the libertarian party to vote for him by letting the guy who ran Silk Road out of jail, for example. But they’d be fools to believe them, as Europeans are fools to believe their own dollar store Trumps when they say they’ll protect or embrace the social programs. Exhibit A: what the Tories have done to the NHS. The program really isn’t all that complex, they just sneak in some modest reforms that erode the service and enshittify it slowly, or do some bullshit temporary measure that puts the service permanent behind in terms of (one to all) money, employees, or output. Then, they use that as evidence for why they must further enshittify the service and give more taxpayer money to the private sector.
Weirdest political take I’ve ever had, but European far right leaders aren’t “dollar store Trumps”. Unfortunately, they’re often fairly smart individuals, with great academic records and very well regarded in their areas of expertise. Very unlike Trump. Which makes them all the more dangerous, because they don’t make the same mistakes that Trump somehow gets away with on the regular: no real life actions that go against their purported ideals (cheating or banging pornstars, for example), no blatant involvement in corruption or financial crimes either. Even in the way they speak, they’re often vague enough in their (authoritarian) statements that they can still claim to hold democratic ideals and get away with it.
I don’t think the UK is a great example of European politics, simply because UK politics is more akin to US politics than to any other European country’s politics. Despite the UK technically being a multi party system, in practice it often acts like a two party system.
Outside of the UK, there’s many European countries - let’s say, as an example, Portugal, Spain and France - which have historically been governed by moderate parties, either on the center right or the center left (left and far left respectively on the American political compass), which have fundamentally failed to solve the respective country’s problems.
Portugal, for example, has been ruled by its Socialist Party for most of its democratic existence. Despite that, it’s currently dealing with chaos in its healthcare system. There’s a general lack of doctors, hours long emergency wait times, years long surgery waiting lines, all because of a fundamental failure in creating a good way of financing the healthcare system. Governments in Portugal, both socialist and center right ones, have until recently mostly agreed on the idea that healthcare should be free. But Portugal has never been very successful economically - which means supporting a free healthcare service has always been way more expensive than the country could financially handle. For a long time the problem of financing the healthcare system was simply postponed. But now it’s reached a point where many of its hospitals are in debt, it’s been unable to give any raises to any of its staff for years, these staff have been leaving in droves for the private sector, it’s been incapable of financing many medical acts, in many hospitals even basic maintenance has been indefinitely postponed, etc.
While I still fundamentally agree with you that people are fools to trust the far right, I do understand why there’s such a big distrust in traditional moderate parties, given how much they’ve recently fucked up in dealing with many of the core issues in our countries - regardless of whether they’re on the left or on the moderate right.
Thanks for this insightful response. It’s clear I need to do more reading on this.
Weirdest political take I’ve ever had, but European far right leaders aren’t “dollar store Trumps”. Unfortunately, they’re often fairly smart individuals, with great academic records and very well regarded in their areas of expertise
Could you provide examples about this? I only know of Abascal (Spain), and Meloni (Italy), the first never expressed any particularly insightful thought (to be generous), and the latter didn’t even go to college.
I didn’t mean to say they have insightful thoughts, but instead that they’re smart in the way they position themselves publicly and politically. André Ventura in Portugal is a good example. He has a doctorate in Law, is clearly a smart individual despite often playing a part of almost “anti-intellectualism”. He could easily fit in the description of your typical academic intellectual while somehow managing to gather the support of those who hate academic intellectuals.
He grew politically within the main center right party - a fact which he uses to claim that he’s not actually far right - and eventually jumped out of it and created his own party, arguing that his old party was part of the “establishment” - which he claims to be against. In truth, he left his old party because he had reached his political ceiling - his more extreme views meant he wasn’t realistically ever going to attain the kind of influence he wanted within a center right party.
Now, he offers no insightful thoughts of course. He often contradicts himself, changes positions wildly depending on the crowd or on the weather, offers no viable solutions to any of the problems he points out. But he’s very good at jumping on any mistake made by the bigger parties and capitalizing on those. He often points out the mistakes that everyone can recognize, exaggerates smaller issues to paint the parties in power as incompetent and then follows up with the dumbest solutions you can think of. But that’s the thing - since he isn’t in power, his solutions don’t actually have to resist the test of being implemented, they just have to exist. He can act like he has the solution to everything.
Publicly, he often toes the line of what’s “acceptable” speech, so he can both appeal to his more extreme supporters but simultaneously paint the idea that he’s actually a reasonable guy who’s unfairly vilified by the media and “the left”. In truth, like Trump, he grew up in part precisely because of how much the media insisted on attacking him - while giving him exactly the attention he wanted. As a somewhat funny stat, the lowest rating his party has had amongst the public in the last few years was during the pandemic, when the media was so focused on talking about Covid that his party practically disappeared from the public eye for a few months. In the last election they’ve got a really good result, so now they’ve officially become a permanent problem. They now have to be treated like a “normal” party, whether people like it or not.
I’d argue Meloni is a good example in terms of political intelligence as well. She has been able to successfully paint herself as a sort of reasonable and pragmatic far right leader, unlike any of the previous Italian far right leaders, which is a big part of her success. She claims to be pro-EU and is openly anti-Russia - contrary to her predecessors - which might seem like minor positions but have actually been very important for her to paint herself as a sort of far right leader that’s not that far right that she can’t work together with other European leaders. This is also important for many Italians since many see the EU favorably and a far right leader which is at least able to cooperate with the EU ensures that Italy can keep getting EU financing and can keep its influence within the Union. In practice, she represents the same ideas previous far right Italian leaders represented, but she tossed out many of their crazier positions in order to appear moderate by comparison.
The people who were - and still are - clowning on Americans for their politics are a different group than the people currently voting far right. You’re not dunking on the people you think you are.
But that’s sort of the point they were making, isn’t it? Left-leaning Europeans giving Americans across the spectrum shit for right-leaning politics even though the majority in all cases is slim and vulnerable to reversal?
This part
It beggars belief that the same people clowning on the US and UK would then turn around and say to themselves “yes, but it will be different for us, it will work for us, our situation really is different, you don’t understand”.
and this one
Before you click reply, just consider that you guys deserve to get fucking dunked on, because you guys spent decades laughing at other countries for doing this shit just to say “hmmm… but what if sticking the fork in the electrical socket works out for me?”
both imply the people laughing at other countries are the same group willing to “stick the fork in the electrical socket”. They aren’t.
Remember right before the last Italian election some Italian guy screaming at me how no one in the history of Europe was racist or right-wing. When I asked them afterwards about the election he said the CIA caused it.
Ok buddy. Italy has no history of fascism or racism. Nice to know.
I feel like a bad thing that happened to us started when, through science, we started finding more and more things that contradicted the bible, at the same time as some evangelical sects were pushing for a more and more literal interpretation of the bible, and so their only argument was that science is evil/blasphemous/whatever. So more and more people on the right got comfortable just disregarding scientists, facts, and information-driven conclusions. Instead, they just pick whatever narrative they’re comfortable with and even a lot of people who disagree with it treat it like a legitimate belief.
We used to call those people nutjobs. Now we call them Fox news viewers.
You know this isn’t new. People have always knew that there were problems with this book. Part of the reason why so many put corrections in it.
Bible literalism is a legacy of Luther. Once he rejected the church and it’s teachings all he had was the Bible.
Oh, completely agree, but for the first two thirds of the 20th century, most Christians, like most people generally, were very pro science and took the bible as a book of lessons. It’s only in the last several decades that such a huge percentage of Christians equate science as antithetical to Christianity.
Scopes Monkey Trial happened in 1925.
In the EU.
In America, it’s starkly divided by generational lines, with the remainder being down to race, education, wealth and urbanness, which actually makes me think what’s going on in Europe is a somewhat unrelated phenomenon.
In America, it’s starkly divided by generational lines,
Not as much as the “lol boomers” crowd would have you believe.
There’s a lot more <50 at Trump’s rallies than >60.
Same with the Jan6 traitors. Lots of them were <40
Jan 6 guys are nothing like a representative sample. Trailer park grandpa couldn’t show up to that for multiple reasons. Even then, I’d guess a median age of 45 just based on the videos. The shaman guy was like 32 and he was kind of a baby.
I know less about normal Trump rallies, but I don’t really need to because there’s actual polling to rely on. MAGA youth exist, but they’re underrepresented and even more heavily poor, white, uneducated and rural. Meanwhile, in Europe, there’s basically no correlation. Young and old alike support AfD about the same.
What we have on this continent is definitely fascism, fueled by pure, barely-directed hate and hostile to democracy. In Europe, I wonder if it’s more of a reversion to Japan-like policy, which might have been more natural for these ancient kingdoms all along. That’s just a wild guess, but I hope so, because I like democracy.
You need to leave your basement
Ooh, brilliant counterargument. /s
No, you really need to get out and look around.
Your debate skills are breathtaking. Say something about cheeto dust or mountain dew next. Then I’ll start asking how many teeth you have and what your family tree is shaped like. This is an excellent use of both our time. /s
I’m not debating. I’m telling you you need to travel and look around.
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America has a Boomergeoisie.
As for traitors:
https://time.com/5931320/businesses-boycotted-capitol-riots/
https://www.inc.com/inc-staff/capitol-insurrection-business-owners.html
From your first link:
Across the country, small business owners who attended the pro-Trump event are facing backlash
That gives me some small measure of hope for the future.
This is the result of the left focusing so hard on identity politics and immigration. The right didn’t have to do shit… it was inevitable.
Identity politics surely is to blame for the rise of fascism. Just like the last time in the years 1915-1945.
You are almost quoting the fascist playbook line of “look what you made me do”.
They’re kinda right, but not in the way they think they are. It’s not that the left has being advocating for minority rights that is the problem, it’s that they have been focusing on that while dropping policies to support the working class that is the issue. The fact that getting more women and black people on to corporate boards has been more of a focus than affordable housing has been slowly driving alienation from mainstream left wing parties.
In much of Europe the left have been victims of former success. Many of the (former) leftist political parties and their constituents have foregone leftist policies because said policies gave them the social mobility to move into a higher strata of society.
In effect it is successful class war waged by the capitalist class, who have dismantled their greatest political opposition and employed a tactic of divide and conquer for the lump sum of petty cash.
Note, I do not say that having a fair and egalitarian society isn’t a part of socialist ideology, but focusing on cultural symbolics instead of improving material conditions is just bourgeoisie propaganda.
I’m right, but you don’t have to like it, I’m okay with that.
In Europe…
Yes, as the blurb says in the fourth word or so.
Edit: did the math and counted up to the fourth word
What you just did is the equivalent to replying all to a mass email chain telling people to stop replying all
Why are you “all”? Lol
You’re the only one who got the notification
Weird you can comment on this chain without seeing it…
You must be fun at parties
A lot of people vote far-right out of despair. A “things are shit and can’t get any worse” mentality.
The best defence against the right is government that actually works for the people.
Which is why the right work so hard to assure Gov. does not work.
This is exactly, literally true. The hard right folks in all branches of government are always throwing wrenches in the machine and then complaining that we have to get rid of the machine because it doesn’t work.
Look! We gutted the public system. Clearly the privatized alternative must be the solution. We support privatization btw, so you need to vote for us!
And why they dismantle the systems they’re tasked with protecting the moment they can.
Chimps off the old bloc.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration far-right Freedom Party won the 2023 election on a campaign that tied affordable housing to restrictions on immigration — a focus that struck a chord with young voters.
In Portugal, too, the far-right party Chega, which means “enough” in Portuguese, drew on young people’s frustration with the housing crisis, among other quality-of-life concerns.
In 2022, while Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy received votes from every age bracket, data suggested the young favored left-wing parties more.
Bardella’s strong presence on TikTok might have something to do with it: Pollsters found that about one-third of young people said they rely on the app to follow the election campaign.
The survey results also don’t automatically translate into electoral success, as the researchers estimated just 30 percent of young people would end up casting a ballot.
“Flemish Interest is very well aware of this, and explicitly targets young women in its campaign to adjust its image,” said Peter Van Aelst, a professor at the University of Antwerp.
The original article contains 960 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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This level of delusion is usually reserved for people who huff aerosols.
Which god?
Because I’ve been cutting people’s hearts out on top of a pyramid to appease Huitzilopochtli and make sure the corn keeps growing every day for years now.
Corn’s still growing.
You’re welcome.
The only evil are ones are tricked by a false god. Your worthless fight will end in loneliness and self hatred.
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If only we had a few more human sacrifices to appease God we might be more worthy.
1000 BC called, they want their delusion back.
Edit: Oh god, your post history lmao. The narcissist who fucks prostitutes, cheats on his spouses, steals money from taxpayers, lies every day. THAT is your sAviOr? You think Jesus would have a good opinion of Trump, the false prophet?
People are losing faith with the failing status quo, so some are (incorrectly) adopting a highly reactionary position to cling to what they percieved has been lost, rather than progressing along to Socialism.
This is a consequence of the long term failings of Capitalism, coupled with weak leftist movements and a lack of general theory-reading.
That what I read out of it, too.
Disillusion with our future is setting in (and to what part it’s due to the negative news cycle, the growing gap between rich and poor, social media propaganda or other things can be argued).
But there was, and is, no large, left movement with an attractive message to pick up those people, and right wingers both own all the big media and have long been conditioned to blame liberals and the left at large for all of their problems.
During the Occupy Wallstreet days, I had hope, but what once was a movement of angry people with a good cause feels like it has since been replaced by a movement of even angrier people fighting those that want to fix things.
Look, socialism never fucking works. Far-right governments, while unpleasant, do.
Ah, I see, you’re one of them.
You lost the war; it wasn’t close. No, they don’t.
One of what? Person not fucking delusional? Just look at all those successful communist countries
Yeah, communism hasn’t worked impressively either. I’d still prefer them over the Nazis, especially as a Jew.
Not OP, to be clear, I got here through your post history because I wanted to check why criticising fascists made you so defensive.
Mostly the bullshit and lies, not the criticizing fascists part.
Why do you say Socialism doesn’t work? Why do you say far-right governments do? Is it vibes?
General knowledge of the last 150 years world history.
What part of that general knowledge of the last 150 years of world history says that worker ownership doesn’t work, and that fascism does?
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What exactly? I’ve read books and studied history, and just generally gesturing without making any coherent point is pretty worthless, don’t you think?
Also, I would rather not fuck you.
No. You clearly have not.
Sounds like you never have and can’t name one relevant to the conversation as a result.
“All of it” too complicated for you to grasp, or do you consider fucking Cuba a success? China doesn’t count, even if it pretends to be communist, its fascist amd capitalistic as hell.
This is like saying a meatgrinder is a good place to live because it works
Yes I already said it was unpleasant yet effective. You felt the need to repeat it for some reason
Because that’s a bullshit take. Effective at what exactly? Oppressing people? Killing minorities? Certainly not effective at making people’s lives better, unless you are part of the ruling class.
Yeah so you’re having an ideological discussion while I’m having a historical one. However, fascism does tend to make the general populations lives better than the average under socialism. Either way you can’t speak all that freely but less likely to starve than under communism.
(You’re ignoring how good socialist governments were at offing minorities and undesirables for “the common good”. Fuck man, socialism is like fascism on steroids)
A socialized capitalism will always be coopted by the ones with more money in pursuit of even more money.
What is a “Socialized Capitalism?”
I suspect they mean capitalism with a light sprinkle of social safety nets.
I do too, but I want to know exactly, because I don’t see how Social Democracy has anything to do with what I said, haha
To the surprise of no one. This is the result of neolibs that keep electing “moderates” which never fix any issues.
A great video for anyone that hasn’t seen it yet:
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Why liberals can’t counter conspiracy theories
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Yeah, there was a poll recently near me (online local news so sampling issue) that found zoomers and boomers were more often right wing while X and Y were more often left wing
That’s not actually all that surprising. The far-right, at least in Germany, is far more prominent on social media. It sucks but I don’t think we can prevent that. We have a lot of complex problems but social media favors short answers instead of complex ones. A lot of younger people simply lack the critical thinking to see these simple answers for what they are - bullshit. And I can’t blame them, they have been exposed to this bullshit for most of their lives.
I was coming in here to suggest this. The right around the world, almost certainly with the aid of Russia’s massive troll farm, has really stepped up its game in terms of internet outreach to young people.
I do agree that social media is a huge driver of our societal problems and not fixing them, but I think you have the order reversed, social media is extremely effective at transmitting short, easy answers to our problems because that’s what people gravitate to on the whole. Especially extremely scared and desperate people, and young people especially see a lot of reasons to be afraid about what the future is going to look like.
We haven’t even really gotten to ecoFascism yet, but I think it’s inevitable to rise as things continue marching forward without dramatic societal changes
We aren’t getting to eco fascism because pollution populism is all the rage. After all, if Taylor Swift can fly around the world easily, why can’t I drive around in my emotional support truck?
I don’t know how it is in Germany, though I am convinced our methods in the U.S to educate and school kids and teens actively hurt critical thinking skills. They’re not taught to make decisions. They’re taught to follow set rules, ask for permission, and be ashamed if they fail. They’re not taught to learn, they’re taught to work.
That’s a feature, not a bug. The far right has been attacking our educational system since Reagan, if not before.
They can’t exist with a well educated populace.
They’re taught to follow set rules, ask for permission, and be ashamed if they fail. They’re not taught to learn, they’re taught to work.
This might be even more ingrained in German culture.
some younger people like me are not allowed to vote because of bipartisan policies and laws
quit blaming us for everybody refusing to vote better people in
not our fault y’all refuse to vote better
That sounds pretty shit. I’m pretty ignorant of EU voting laws, what kind of laws prevent young folks from voting? Is it a high voting age or are there even more restrictions?
Being 12 years old
100% the fault of anyone that does not Vote.
100% the fault of a political class that puts the needs of donors ahead of all else. Fascism has always been the result of neoliberalism. It’s absolutely predictable. The best and the worst ballot choices that most people have all lead to the rise of fascism.
Only showing up to vote every four years, and assuming we won’t slide into fascism because you pushed the right button, is silly. On that we agree.
Not using the power of the ballot box in addition to all the other much more difficult / impactful things which are required for real change is much, much worse. It’s like, “Oh no the wrong people are in charge! This is very unfair. Better just give up and let them do whatever then.”
The rise of fascism is always the result of a long strong of causes. In a democracy the final cause in that chain will always be voters, but I think it’s intellectually lazy to assume that makes the failure of voters “worse”.
Most of the voters who don’t show up are just disinterested in politics for a variety of reasons. I don’t think there area many that say “Oh, no, a problem! Better ignore it”!
Blaming voters might be somehow cathartic, but the voters you’re blaming aren’t going to care. That’s the way to go if you care more about assigning blame than actually addressing the problems.
Lots more elections than every four! Every Election, no excuses!
Bellow I’ve filtered out the primaries, which often have issues not related to party as well, and excludes local elections.
link at end:
“2023 – November (Constitutional)
Registered Voters
17,759,273
Voting Age Population (VAP)
21,925,627
Percentage of VAP Registered
81.00%
Turnout
2,563,469
Percent of Turnout to Registered
14.43%
Percent of Turnout to VAP
11.69%
2022 – November (Gubernatorial)
Registered Voters
17,672,143
Voting Age Population (VAP)
21,866,700
Percentage of VAP Registered
80.82%
Turnout
8,102,908
Percent of Turnout to Registered
45.85%
Percent of Turnout to VAP
37.06%
2021 - November (Constitutional)
Registered Voters
16,968,756
Voting Age Population (VAP)
21,866,700
Percentage of VAP Registered
77.60%
Turnout
1,485,066
Percent of Turnout to Registered
8.75%
Percent of Turnout to VAP
6.79%
2020 – November (Presidential)
Registered Voters
16,955,519
Voting Age Population (VAP)
21,596,071
Percentage of VAP Registered
78.51%
Turnout
11,315,056
Percent of Turnout to Registered
66.73%
Percent of Turnout to VAP
52.39” - https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/70-92.shtml
those whom you call “political class”, are in fact the representatives of the very wealthy, are only there as lots of Eligible Voters sat out prior elections, and the “political class”'s owners paid for the propaganda that convinced them to do so. Exact same bullshit they’ve sold to you in fact.
I’m not sure why you assume I don’t know who’s pulling the strings. However, the impact of those who don’t vote is dwarfed by the impact of those who vote for the wrong candidates. I know it’s liberal orthodoxy to write off a ton of voters completely, but I think that’s a mistake.
If I have to blame voters for the predicament we’re in now, I would have to land on Biden voters in the 2020 primary. It’s hard to blame them though without blaming corporate mainstream media that lied constantly about electability in the general.
As for why Trump became president in 2016, I think the failures of the Obama presidency are pretty relevant. Obama ran as a reformer in 2008, and voters turned out for him in massive numbers. Then Obama betrayed them by being the most milquetoast establishment President possible.
There is plenty of blame to go around, but none of that interests me. What I care about is, what strategies might dig us out of this mess. Voters shaming is not a viable strategy, and it’s more likely to drive voters away than help.
The other big thing that voter shamers don’t get is that we don’t just need people to show up at the polls. Democrats tend to write off the youth vote because they vote in lower numbers than other demographics. However, when it comes to phone banking, knocking on doors, or marching in the streets, youth far outstrip other demographics. Enthusiasm is critical, and voter shaming destroys it. Whatever grassroots movement was behind Biden is utterly dead, and Zionist Biden is responsible.
I tore your entire bullshit position to shreds, so you whined a lot about unrelated crap in an effort to distract from your having no leg to stand on.
That’s an interesting take. Let me know if anyone lets you know that they decided to vote Biden because of voter shaming. I won’t hold my breath
It sounds like you’re an American citizen. As such you’re really not very relevant in the European election…
