It’s been reported that in the German elections, a far right party has made ‘significant gains’.
In the UK (at least before the scandals) Reform UK seems to have had a significant boost and has even surpassed the right-wing Conservative Party in some polls/predictions.
Even France, one or two years ago, was threatened with a far-right government due to the French far right party gaining a lot of support.
Now I’m not political, but it feels like in the last few years, the far-right has exceeded itself and had a surge in popularity. Is this the case? And if so, wtf is fuelling it?
Propaganda. The elite get people fighting a culture war instead of seeing what’s really happening: the continued funneling of wealth to the few.
Ignorance and propaganda
Chuds noticing things getting worse, and their leader offering solutions and someone to blame. It’s always been like that. Happened in Germany in the 1920s, happened in the US in the 2010s.
Now that it’s accelerating, it’s gonna be interesting to see which conclusions are drawn after their chosen ones have been in charge almost the entire time.
If Texas is any indication, the right wingers just get dumber and keep voting to destroy their communities. 30+ years of single party control there and it just keeps getting worse.
To me as a (jaded) centralist, it feels like the reason is a lack of action against societal issues and the far right always beating their chest saying “IM GONNA FIX EVERYTHING WITH AN IRON FIST!”.
But they never seem to do and then the far left gains popularity saying “WE’RE GONNA DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY TO THEM” and then the main issues hang around. Then both sides aim their hate at each other rather than the parties, and then the cycle repeats years later.
Misinformation to the highest degree, constant propaganda seems to be the issue and the fact that a lot of civilians in Europe are uninformed how their government works. It doesn’t help that the said left wing democrats have been failing at their jobs, and Europe’s infrastracture can’t even handle a influx of immigrants.
It doesn’t also help that Europe also is quite racist in it’s old age. The constant testimonies of visitors from America and many more places of darker skin tone, you’d be surprised to see how the Italians treat black people. Makes you think they learned from their American Cousins in hospitality.
Let me get this straight: the land that bred the fascist regime has racist elements???
Who would’ve guessed.
you’d be surprised to see how the Italians treat black people
Can it be worse than that of the Borgias, Medicis, Sforzas, Popes, etc. of the common people. And people wonder why Italy is a shithole with this sort of history? I’m with you on that one
largely stupid humanity paired with interference from the usual suspects
Standard of living is going down, via cost of living crisis, not being able to pollute like we did in the past, and billionaires taking all the productivity increases. People don’t understand why, they can’t accept the situation, so they get angry, find an outgroup to blame it on, which the right says they’ll fix by getting rid of the outgroup.
Changes in the media landscape. Up to the 1990s, mainstream media in Western democracies were dominated by intellectuals, who are typically against racism and fascism. This gradually changed as media became more commercialized and sensationalist, a change that rapidly accelerated with the advent of social media, which is completely flooded by hate speech.
Economic reasons are often proposed, but this explanation falls flat considering the lack of a significant economic downturn since the 1990s, and the fact that we have seen fascists massively gaining popularity even in societies that are among the most prosperous in human history. This is especially obvious in Germany, where in East Germany (where the fascist strongholds are) the economic situation has in fact dramatically improved since the 90s.
This is stupid. Media had plenty of rightwing trash before “the 1990s”… And economics isn’t a matter of “significant downturns” - which in a cyclical economy happen REGULARLY the problem is ACTUAL WEALTH DISPARITY has been on an increasing trajectory since the 1970s. We’re talking about a long term trend of racheting up, not just a brief stint of “social media is bad now”.
Wages vs productivity:
https://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/800px-US_productivity_and_real_wages.jpg
You can do something similar for median wages vs GDP:
https://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/us-wage-gdp-compared-800x604.jpg
And income inequality globally:
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/MB7z1WodhP7LDJeH0YX67-1OtxdaT6BH8Qbb4wPHYjU.png
Same trend, relating to changes to the banking system in the 1970s and beyond:
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Alterations to monetary standards (petro dollar accounting).
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Increase to two working parents as a mortgage requirement rather than banks only requiring a single income.
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Deregulation of the banking system (Glass-stegal in America).
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Combined with repeatedly reducing income taxes on the wealthy (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NbAzw1SjuCk/TpO1gyZIJ9I/AAAAAAAAACU/q9Qhy04L1H8/s1600/Federal+Tax+Rates.jpg, https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/percentilegroup.png).
These are continuing and long term shifts that have made it easier for the wealthy to accelerate wealth, and be less morally culpable, whilst poorer people have consistently hit greater barriers, requirements, and burdens.
The idea it’s “just the media is particularly bad right now” is stupid. Right wing media has always been prevalent and dogshit. Could not downvote your over simplification of the world more.
WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A CONSISTENT INCREASE IN SPECIFIC DISPARITIES… Which then become economic pressures and grievances, which are then misdirected by the media. But the media IS NOT the cause. That’s like pretending the symptom is the cause. It’s just not the case.
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There was one particular morning in 2014 when Google dropped articles from The Daily Stormer directly into the personalized news feed widget on my phone. I grew up in the South, so I know the ins and outs of racism there. This was completely different. It was wildly genocidal anti-Semitism; straight up Nazi shit. Right there on my phone and presented as news.
That’s when I knew that something was seriously wrong.
Economic reasons are often proposed, but this explanation falls flat considering the lack of a significant economic downturn since the 1990s,
wut
I don’t mean there haven’t been recessions, just that on the whole the economic situation is not significantly worse (and in fact probably somewhat better) than in the 1990s.
The “on the whole” economic situation is not what you want to be looking at.
If you look at the real wage growth compared to expenses, life has been being getting grimmer and grimmer for the vast majority of individuals since the 1970s, even if GDP continues to climb.
Did you, in fact, look at real wage growth?
Here is data for the US specifically, which shows modest growth of median real wages over the past decades.
You’re literally linking to a graph that ONLY measures the wages of fully employed people in the US. It doesn’t measure the under employed, part time employees, or contract/gig workers - at a time when all those categories all became more prevalent…
…and it certainly doesn’t measure changes in wealth share globally. So way to cherry pick.
Edit: I’d also see the shift in the media landscape as a very conscious effort made by oligarchs to control the media landscape, including Reagan removing the Fairness Doctrine, and Fox News being explicitly created to allow Republican presidents to engage in criminal activity.
Not sure what you’re seeing. Everything I see things pointing to life getting worse and harder economically.
Rise in consumer debt: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCLACBW027SBOG
Decline in housing affordability: https://worththen.com/tools/housing-affordability
Increase in student loand debt: https://thecollegeinvestor.com/32031/average-student-loan-debt-by-year/Medical bankruptcy is another thing to look into.
Culture is another window, maybe less valid. The idea behind the Simpsons was a family of 3 was barely scraping by, yet they owned two cars, a house, and Homer had a union job and no college degree, and usually Marge didn´t need to work. In the 1980’s Anthony’s Song complained about, “Who needs a house out in Hackensack? Is that all you get for your money?” would be a flop today because a house out in Hackensack isn’t conformity, it’s just unattainable.
Well, even if we accept (which I don’t) that things like increasing student debt would be a major factor, how do you explain fascism being on the rise in many other (pretty much all of them) Western democracies? You can’t really use US-specific things like medical bankruptcy and student debt as explanations for a trend in societies where these aspects just are not relevant at all. Most Western democracies have universal access to health care and education.
The Fairness Doctrine, however, has clear parallels in other societies. Not because they have legislation similar to it (though some did or still do, like France) - but because even in those places where no such formal legislation exists, social media have almost completely negated the role journalists used to play in moderating public debate from a (relatively) neutral and, more importantly, non-fascist viewpoint.
You’re too smart to convince of anything.
Have a great rest of your day.
social media, which is completely flooded by hate speech.
Well, you’re not wrong there.
Thats interesting, good explanation.
It’s really not, each new age/epoch of media has had its share of rightwing grifters.
You don’t have to be right wing to spout hate speech. Modern Social media does have a lot of hate speech in any case (right wing grifters too, and yes there is some overlap, but there also isn’t too).
Hate speach relates to hate crimes, which are a category of crime punching down on minorities specifically.
So do you want to show me the examples of left wing people spouting hate speech?
Show me what makes them not rightwing, in the same era as they were spouting the hate speech against minorities. Give some examples if you want me to see your point as true and correct.
I’m not disagreeing with your point from a legal definition, I’m just saying the far left can also spout venomous speech which, though it might not be considered ‘hate speech’ from a legal standpoint, can be as bad as in terms of its content.
I agree with the horseshoe theory — or, as Parker put it, people on the far left and far right are pretty much the same.
Then again, I guess it is, to some extent, a moot point, since anyone can spout venom if they are pushed hard enough regardless of left, right, above or beyond.
I don’t think that’s the case, I think over the past several years a series of media figures have promoted right wing explanations of the world, almost all of which have relied on finding the most extreme examples of the worst people on the left, taking them out of context, and distributing them en mass in an organized fashion.
This process started with the “Russian troll farm” influence story in 2014, and was a huge part of the popularising of the alt-right. People like Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk also started running influence campaigns.
So we have these vestigial bad ideas and examples the vitriol of the left, like “big red”, or this artist, or the screeching leftist, or this person.
These are then (as with that last example) combined with rightwing messages, or explanations about the left, citing the worst of them, to make memes and political propaganda.
Along with this comes things like horse shoe theory, the fourth turning theory (weak men create bad times ect), and things like “Post-modern Cultural Marxism caused all the problems”.
This sort of popularization of bad ideas and misdirected grievances doesn’t have to go on very long before society is left with a bunch of bad ideas, like feminism is hate speech against men (not saying this is your particular claim), or that poverty is caused by recent immigration rather than long term regulatory choices.
Long story short, due to the left having more reasonable explanations and models, in context and statistically there’s far worse going on in the extreme “horse shoe” ends of the right, than in the left.
I guarantee you can find kidnap plans and migrant bashings by right wingers far more quickly and abundantly than you could anything like that on the left. It’s drastically one sided.
Left wing rage is probably stronger, but it also tends to be better placed and more accurate.
True, very true, it’s a trade-off, I guess.
I do think the far left can be just as unreasonable though (or could be, if given the means/opportunity). Possibly they don’t express/execute it as the far right does, which explains your point of view, which is completely valid also.
But I get your point: the far right has misconstrued the far left to some extent regardless. with media manipulation, etc.
The media was always racist, they just hid it better… Sometimes.
Wealth and power.
Unscrupulous rich people benefit from the far right, so it is to their advantage to amplify it in media and technology.
There is real and legitimate discontent and disillusionment with the political mainstream, and they’re steering those people towards the far right by feeding the public lies that are plausible on the surface and provide an easy target for blame.
They’re supported by opportunic charlatans who can get rich by being the mouthpiece.Do you think that the boost has more to do with the fact that the general political mainstream is collapsing (i.e. perceived as useless) across multiple nations all at once? I mean, we’ve had wealthy businessmen pretty much all throughout history, so is this like a ‘trigger event’, so to speak?
I think the change is that today’s ultra-rich don’t act the same way the rich of the past did.
The “robber-barons” of the early 20th century were phenomenally rich and powerful, and they built schools, libraries, parks, and other public goods with a small fraction of their wealth because they understood that they had at least some tiny obligation to give back to the society that provided the conditions under which they could get so wealthy.
Today’s rich are actively preaching against the concept of empathy, and resisting any notion that they owe anyone anything. They are convinced that even a single dollar of their fortunes going to anything other than their own personal aggrandizement is a deeply offensive idea. And they are so willing to resist doing anything positive for the world that they spend enormous amounts of money to create propaganda networks to convince others that they don’t owe anyone a single cent of their fortunes. They buy ad campaigns to convince people that taxing them is bad, spending in some cases more money than the taxes would cost them… all because they firmly believe no one but themselves should see even the tiniest benefit from their money.
The legitimate reasons for discontentment have existed for a long time, but I suspect that powerful people have found a way to capitalize on it en masse. They’re taking the kernel of truth (that the mainstream political options aren’t being effective) and directing people to solutions that benefit themselves.
Idk if it happening internationally is just collateral damage, if they’re trying to operate internationally, or other powerful people elsewhere have just learned from the previous successes.So no, I don’t think there is a trigger event, so much as reaching a critical mass. They’ve come into the means of control (digital media making distribution of ideas so cheap, making manipulation of media exposure so easy), and a public who is so used to being lied to and mislead that they can’t identify trustworthy sources (FUD), and they’re striking while the iron is hot.
Ah, I see. So it’s more like a ‘tipping point’ that’s built up over a long time?
I think so. And they’ve certainly helped us toward a that tipping point, but there is no single event that got us there.
Imo that is. I’m not exactly a political scientist.
In the early 2000s in Europe, many governments significantly worsened social services, including “centre-left” governments like Blair in the UK and Schröder in Germany. This eroded trust in the established parties, and the large influx of migrants from 2015 on in many European coutries on was easily exploited by rightwing parties. Add the significant rightwing bias of US social media that dominates the social media landscape in most western countries and voila, people voting for neonazi parties en masse.
General economic dissatisfaction combined with bucketloads of propaganda designed to point the ire of said dissatisfied people downwards instead of upwards.
Occupy Wallstreet.
People like to joke that it did nothing, but it terrified the corporate masters of the world. They have been trying to teach us uppity poors a lesson ever since.
Billionaire money. Oligarch money.
Billionaires.
What I don’t get though, is we’ve had millionaires and billionaires all throughout history, so what’s triggered this specific boost?
It’s finally gotten to a point where wealth and power are concentrated into a sufficiently small enough group of people they can:
- Collectively agree to all do the same thing
- All benefit from their cooperative action
- Afford to bribe as many officials as it takes to have complete control of any political system of their choosing
- Wield enough of the world’s resources that everyone else has no choice but to follow suit
Millionaires didn’t have enough clout to control the media or didn’t need to, billionaires do and do need to.
Nobody said it and I’m sure it’s not the only source, but Russia has funded at least Germany’s main right wing party. I think I read about them funding others as well.
Plus they try to make their own sabotage look like left wing extremism. And they employ bot farms to spread hate online.
This has done a great job of destabilising basically every western country.
Economic despair.
We all know something is deeply wrong with the world, but it’s easier to see and blame brown people than to see all the ways that we are being squeezed by the Epstein class.
In a US context, but perhaps the dynamic is the same around the world, is that Republicans blame immigrants and the Democrats, defenders of the status quo, blame nobody.
This is a serious electoral handicap, when your side is prevented from effective world building, when you are not allowed to identify enemies.
The dynamic is quite different around the world.
For one, most other Western democracies have multi-party systems where the choice is not restricted to just moderate conservatives and fascists.
Secondly, many of these democracies where the popularity of fascists has surged are doing much better than the US economically.
By which metric is the economy better than the US’s?
Overall the US economy has been fairly strong since the mid 2010’s, with the exception of inflation and a Covid related unemployment blip. And a chronic shortage of housing that has been brewing for decades.
Of course, the products of that economy haven’t been distributed equitably so perhaps that’s what you mean?
By which metric is the economy better than the US’s?
By compound broad economic metrics (IHDI, etc.), as well as certain specific metrics like life expectancy, poverty and violent crime rates, income inequality, corruption, and so on.
True but I don’t really see those as merely economic metrics, with the exception of income inequality. They’re affected by many things, not all of which are part of the economy directly.
