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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
In fact, the rate of underemployment (gig workers who’d like to work more hours, etc.) is at historically low levels in the US.
You’re getting all these replies from me because of how many times you’ve used income inequality ir employment stats to cover for billionaires…
…who as you know, have the most concentrated wealth, and avoid income taxes by not taking a wage.
Income equality is so even because the ultra rich don’t take an income.
They buy up assets at inflated prices, they buy up the media companies you’re complaining are fascist AND MAKE THEM FASCIST.
Then they borrow against those assets and luve off loans. Buying more assets to get more loans, or getting paid in stocks to borrow more money against.
So they inflate prices on luxury homes, land, goods, vehicles, assets, and companies. Increasing their wealth further and further away from everyone else, whilst everyone else pays the taxes billionaires avoid… Suffers the more expensive land values, houses, goods.
… they’re totally corrupting society. Musk just recently silenced a Twitter account that tracks Donald Trump’s stock investments BECAUSE Musk bought Twitter then took out massive loans against it.
It’s the biggest corruption scam in your lifetime. Probably the biggest in history.
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.
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:
-
Alterations to monetary standards (petro dollar accounting).
-
Increase to two working parents as a mortgage requirement rather than banks only requiring a single income.
-
Deregulation of the banking system (Glass-stegal in America).
-
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.
I think what you’re missing is that if inequality were a major driver of the popularity of fascism, then how can it be the case that in many Western democracies other than the U.S. the popularity of fascist parties has also boomed? Some of these societies, while far from utopian, are among the most egalitarian in human history. Some have wealth taxes, almost all have far higher top income tax rates than the U.S., all all have dramatically lower levels of inequality.
Media had plenty of rightwing trash before “the 1990s”
Yeah, but unlike today, it wasn’t the dominant way public political debate was held.
Do you know how a coefficient works?
If you have the majority as middle class then one uber wealthy rich guy controlling everything… The gini score would pretend as if everything is fine in that society when it’s not.
Statistics aren’t the be all and end all, and can be used to obscure drastic levels of corruption and systemic issues…
You know, like all the billionaire fascists buying up media companies, houses, being in bed with the president and bribing supreme court justices.
Errr duh “that’s equality”. Noooo no it’s not.
Err durr… That has nothing to do with disenfranchisement.
Yes… Yes it does.
The Gini coefficient measures the distribution of incomes in a given economy. If a single individual has all income, then the coefficient is 1, if everyone’s income is equal, then the coefficient is 0.
In fact, in the scenario you’ve sketched, i.e., an individual or small number of individuals hoarding a large share of income, the Gini coefficient would be relatively high.
Not only do many of the aforementioned societies have dramatically lower income inequality (as measured by Gini coefficient) than the US, many furthermore have dramatically lower rates of corruption and judges and government officials are generally not bribed to the same degree. (Case in point: the Toblerone affair.)
However, what these countries very much have in common with the US is that the same social media companies owned by the same assholes are active there, flooding the zone with fascist propaganda.
Like what did you think inequality is? It’s the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few powerful people who make life horrible for everyone else. That’s why everyone knows their names.
That’s why they can turn a society fascist in the first place. You can’t buy a media company without a big fat bank loan borrowed against your stocks, or that huge house you bought with your last loan.
This also contributes to inflation, because they’re avoiding paying their dues to society so others - everyone else is covering their tax costs. They’re not giving back… And at the same time they’re jacking up prices! Every nice house they buy is bought at an inflated rate, and gives other sellers the idea to jack their prices up. Same with land, and luxury goods, and killing the planet with travel and super-yatchs. It’s all bought at inflated rates because money isn’t real to them, assests they can later borrow against are their wealth stores.
Billionaires mooch off society, don’t appear in income inequality statistics and contribute an outsized amount to inflation. Now you know the basics of how billionaires work.
What is this day 1 looking at this problem for you?
BILLIONAIRES DON’T HAVE AN INCOME!!!
Because having an income would mean paying income tax. So they don’t draw an income, as avoiding income provides a tax loophole.
What do they do instead?
They store cash in assests they borrow against instead.
They live off debts, they get paid by their companies in millions or billion dollar stock deals then borrow against that. They live off that loan then pay it back when they have to, usually via getting more loans and/or other financial tricks.
This is why everyone goes on about the importance of having a wealth tax rather than an income tax on billionaires. Go look it up.
It’s literally 101 of talking about this stuff. So when you come here talking about how “income equality” proves society has no problems with inequality, you’re just showing that you don’t know what your on about.
Go look up how Billionaires avoid income taxes.
In fact, the only reason income inequality is fairly even is BECAUSE OF progressive taxation and regulation. That’s only really allowed BECAUSE it doesn’t touch billionaires or the real problem makers in society.
In most of europe, until the 90s almost all media was state controlled by public broadcasters only. Only starting end 80s - early 90s radio and TV got flooded with commercial media.
-
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.
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.
Propaganda. The elite get people fighting a culture war instead of seeing what’s really happening: the continued funneling of wealth to the few.
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.
find an outgroup to blame it on
It’s propaganda that tells them who to blame it on.
The world is complex. Humans aren’t equipped to deal with that level of complexity. Also the amount of information we are bombarded with is far beyond what we have evolved to deal with.
The right offers a simple solution.
There is one group, “the other”, that is the root cause of all your problems. Get rid of them and everything will be swanky again.
This plays on one of our earliest and most ingrained senses of survival. As a social tribal species, we are very good at noticing things that are “like us” and “normal”. “Different” and “new” was a potential threat. It literally kept our species alive against far more powerful predators and competition from like species back we we huddled together against the dark night.
Unfortunately we’re just wired that way. It takes knowledge, wisdom and a healthy dose of curiosity/wonder to overcome that. Why do you think one of the first goals of the right is to dismantle education?
Sounds so very 1984
“GOLDSTEIN! GOLDSTEIN!!!” They cried out
Putin! Putin!
An infamous historic empire’s bloodthirsty nature is no news to me, but the Anglo American Empire has reached its end.
Russia has more natural resources than any other nation, ESPECIALLY per capita. That’s all you need to know about the West’s adversarial nature toward them.
Europe and America have never been satisfied without stealing what’s not theirs to feed this veracious appetite of the capitalist rulers.
It takes familiarity. It is likely why urban areas tend to be more liberal than spread out rural areas.
I agree that democracy doesn’t work without an informed and educated electorate. That’s why college should be free, like it is IN GERMANY.
It’s highly possible that at least some Germans voted for AFD because they’re the only major party offering an end to an unpopular war and sanctions that has destroyed the German economy and climate goals.
I’d probably just not vote at all, but I could understand how some might.
The problem is billionaires controlling policy, but not so much AFD’s policies.
But they’re fascists, so they will probably also support Ukraine once they get what they wanted. Power. Same as Trump’s empty promises on ending wars.
It started with the War on Terror of the 2000s destabilizing the Middle East and leading to an influx of refugees into Europe. White supremacists naturally freaked out when they saw more than one brown person, so this started an anti-immigrant sentiment which only continued to build throughout the years. Couple that with funding from rich white supremacists and propaganda from foreign agents like Steve Bannon, and here we are.
And the internet, it went mainstream in the 2000s, in everyone’s pockets by the mid 2010s. Where a village would have a couple of idiots, maybe a racist, maybe a pedo. They were all relatively isolated from others like them in the world. On the internet they banded together, like everyone else but without a society to tell them no, the impressionable and idiots started following the wrong people. Add in a rich sociopath on mainstream media and the foreign interference, and here we are
Left: why are bogans voting for Pauline Hanson
Left: well they’re evil white supremacists
Meanwhile Mohammed tells me we’re letting the wrong kind of people into this country (Indians).
Left: Only white people can be racist!
Until you accept that people everywhere hate mass immigration you have no fucking chance.
Without wanting to be controversial….
Society tends to swing back and forth wildly, attempting to find communality. Gay people were openly oppressed, then accepted, then granted legal equality in marriage, then some adoption agency starts giving gay couples a boost up the waiting list - and somebody completely loses their head and the reverse process begins.
We went from housewife who knew her place (/s) to “believe all women” in less than 3 generations. Some people can’t cope with the change of pace or seeming over-correction.
Again, immigration: they should stay over there. We actually do need some medical staff and shop keepers. Wow, their food is nice. He was born and grew-up here and is one of us. I look like I’m the foreigner in my own high street. Send them all back.
If society goes too far, or too quickly, one way then there tends to be a knee jerk reaction back there other way.
Conservatism has always been popular, because a lot of people like the status quo. WHEREVER THAT MAY BE AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME. The fact that conservative values change over time is immaterial.
It’s almost like using political power to enforce societal norms has limits? And when you hyper focus on one group instead of society as a whole. The ignored parts get angry??
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.
deleted by creator
not just the billionaires, but also state actors that want to see europe or britain or america or ‘the west’ in general, implode into chaos and disarray.
deleted by creator
Until actual power takes root. Ask how all those wealthy people who helped putin, stalin, mao, hitler into power did in the end.
Their wealth makes them powerful, that power makes them feel invincible. Until somone gains enough politial power to burry them.
See how quckly elon musk bent to trump when they started their little spat. Money is powerful, but the politically powerful still control the police and military.
Dictatorships hustorically are all supported by the wealthy. The wealthy think they can control the dictator. Then the dictator turns on them because he no longer needs their support.
You seem to be conflating democracy with capitalism, and history with a world of imagination.
Which actors from the State are you referring to?
It’s definitely what I want to see happening also, from the State of Washington.👍📉🔥
Same thing that happened to the US.
I see a lot of blame on “brainless idiots” or similar labels when discussing this, but I think that’s dismissive of issues many parties seems to be ignoring, or exacerbating, and that the alt-right is pouncing on.
Not everyone who voted Trump is an idiot, and doubling down on that thinking will make the issue worse.
Another is that the far-right parties tend to be “modern” and very social media savvy, whereas establishment centrist parties are out of touch, and campaign in archaic ways. And (from my impression on the outside) the more leftist European parties are prone to disunity and infighting. They don’t benefit from scandal and controversy like the far right does.
You’re right, they’re not all dumb. A lot of them are just plain evil.
This is dismissive.
I know otherwise smart, college or post grad people who voted Trump. I know working professionals, who aren’t religious or anything, who would probably vote for him again over whatever Dem runs. And the left blanket labeling them as evil idiots is exactly what Fox News, WSJ, or their social feeds harp on.
I’m not trying to drag the US into this, I’m just positing that Europe is falling into the same trap. You can dismiss these people, but the far right won’t; they will happily take their vote.
Stating the truth is not dismissive. The fact that you can dismiss their actions as not evil is the very evil that has allowed this to happen.
I know working professionals, who aren’t religious or anything, who would probably vote for him again over whatever Dem runs.
Ok but why?
Yeah that’s a good way to win elections.
Found the liberal
Billionaire money. Oligarch money.
not political
you should be. you need to be. because otherwise the assholes win.
Who in party politics isn’t an asshole?
Anti-immigration sentiment and Islamophobia have surged in Western and Central Europe, especially when many of the establishment parties have made moves to increase immigration, i.e. the Boriswave in the UK, enacted by the centre-right party that wooed voters just months earlier by promising to “Get Brexit Done.”
Can’t really elaborate on the rise of National Rally in France and the AfD in Germany, but here in the UK we’ve had grooming gang scandals that have led to several national inquiries, numerous protests focused around the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, and three riots in the last two years which were sparked by violent crimes.
Russia.
Something common among the rising rightwingers is a “Stop punishing poor Russia!”. The AfD in Saxony Anhalt and Meklenburg-Vorpommern for example are very heavy on “give us back the cheap Russian oil and gas!”
I actually hope that the AfD will somehow rule Saxony Anhalt - it would little damage, as it is an irrelevant backwater state, but it would show that they cannot put their election promises in reality. That would either violate the Grundgesetz (Constitution), violate federal law, require gift showers from the federal government, or plain and simple miracles like raining money. Or even several of those points at once.
The predominant online presence of leftist anarchists all but vanished as corporations and social media took root. For a long time the corporate world remained skeptical of the internet. It was “just a fad” that would go away eventually. They started buying everything up, monopolizing, and controlling the narratives.
I have no doubt the fediverse makes them nervous again like they haven’t been in years. There are obvious bad actors running around these parts.
