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.
This only holds true when you use the metrics that wealthy people use to know how well the economy is doing for them. For the vast majority of people the economic situation has been worsening for decades.
By what metric more appropriate for ordinary people has the situation significantly worsened since the 1990s, on average across Western democracies?
Stagnant real wage growth, sure. Stagnant, so not significantly worse.
Health care? US-specific - how do you explain the massive growth of fascism in countries with reasonably well-functioning health care systems and universal health care?
Union membership? US-specific - how do you explain the massive growth of fascism in countries with 50%+ union membership rates, massively more politically influential unions and widespread collective wage bargaining?
Minimum wage? US-specific - how do you explain the massive growth of fascism in countries where even the minimum income (i.e., for the unemployed) is far above the US federal minimum wage?
Inequality? A global problem, to be sure. But how do you explain the massive growth of fascism even in countries with dramatically lower inequality, poverty and crime, and with universal access to health care and top-tier education? In fact, some of these countries are among the most egalitarian in human history since the advent of agriculture thousands of years ago.
Why did fascism emerge now as suddenly so much more popular? Could it be, perhaps, not something economic at all, but something else? Like maybe people being bombarded with fascist propaganda 24/7?
Why are you out here lying and pretending like billionaires take a wage?
They don’t. They drive up prices buying over inflated assets then borrow against them and live off the loans (all to avoid income taxes, pushing their tax burden onto the rest of society in the process). So they inflate prices, don’t give back, buy up companies, give everyone else a burden and don’t appear in the wage equality stats you’re spraying everywhere in their defense.
I hope you get this now, because it’s one of the main problems corrupting society.
Don’t cover up for billionaires, you’ve done so much for them in these threads and need to stop.
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:
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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.
yep, wealth inequality is a big problem. more people should read piketty
…and people who believe income inequality is the key issue don’t understand that billionaires avoid income, and borrow against assets instead.
Wealth inequality is the big problem.
Billionaires avoid taxes because they don’t want to give back to society. They buy inflated assets instead, the borrow against them, driving up prices on purchase of land, houses, luxury goods, ect… Driving up prices, avoiding taxes. They’re all assholes, and they don’t take income.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
No it’s not, it’s a terrible explanation
but this explanation falls flat considering the lack of a significant economic downturn since the 1990s
…
How are people upvoting this? Wtf?
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.
Inequality and decades of painting anything left as evil communism.
Plus liberals would rather hand the reins to fascists than socialists.
Victim blaming is also something rapists do.
I would never blame the victims of fascism.
The Left is for sure partly responsible.
There’s a lot of things the ‘left’ will not address or even admit is a problem. There’s a stubbornness to them that is undoing them.
On top of them not being actually on the left… And apparently hating the actual left to the point of happily destroying themselves.
???
What are you actually trying to say? It’s extremely vague and hard to get at your point.
So this is why people don’t like your comment:
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It’s vague. You’re not actually taking a specific stance on anything; you’re just vaguely complaining about “things” that the left will not address, and “stubbornness”, so that someone can fill in the gaps with something it would be reasonable to complain about.
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It has the appearance of someone conflating “Leftism” with “The Democratic Party of the United States.” That’s generally bad form.
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The context of this post is a worldwide rise in right-wing views, so the above point is even worse than normal. Whatever issue you’re thinking of (which we don’t know, because you’re not actually taking a position, per the first point), it’s possible it isn’t associated with Leftism outside of the US at all.
No one can tell you that you’re wrong if you never actually make a specific claim, right?
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Not everyone is american bud
There’s an actual German party called The Left. You capitalized it, yet I still don’t think you’re referring to them. You’re just dumb and barely literate. You go on to out it in quotes. ??? If you are referring to the party, they won locally and are on the rise. They’re offering something the center doesn’t, an off-road to an unpopular war and sanctions that’s only hurt them and helped American billionaires. They’re offering something the right doesn’t, Mamdani-like reforms in Berlin.
Democracy works when you offer what your electorate need, not what your donor demand.
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.
People are dissatisfied with the economy and the far-right says, “This is happening because of immigrants,” the left says, correctly, “This is happening because of billionaires,” while liberals just say, “This isn’t happening, everything is fine.” The far right’s narrative beats the liberal one because it at least acknowledges that people are struggling, even if the reasons and solutions it offers are totally wrong. Unless the economic conditions can be reversed, and the far-right are the only ones people see offering an alternative, the growth of the far-right is inevitable.
As for the left’s (correct) narrative that the billionaires are the problem, it has the advantage of actually being true and making sense, but it has the disadvantage of threatening monied interests, which are going to try their best to subvert and silence it. Billionaires will generally prefer to promote the far-right because it doesn’t threaten their interests.
However, the left’s narrative is the only thing that can really counter the right’s narrative. You can’t keep insisting there’s no problem as things get worse and worse and expect it to work. The left is weak right now and faces an uphill battle, but it’s a battle where there’s a possibility of winning, while the liberals are ultimately doomed.
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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.
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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.
I’m extremely curious, what “wealthy people” put the Bolsheviks and CPC into power? Russian workers and peasants, and the Chinese peasantry, are “wealthy?”
wealthy people who helped putin, stalin, mao
Stalin
Mao
What the fuck are you talking about?
You could interpret this as Stalin and Mao’s opposition to capitalist parasites as what put them into power.
Thanks for the help, kulaks!
You seem to be conflating democracy with capitalism, and history with a world of imagination.
Yes yes, it’s all the fault of perfidious foreigners…
Which actors from the State are you referring to?
It’s definitely what I want to see happening also, from the State of Washington.👍📉🔥
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.
Also to add that the people with money and power control the game, they have total control over the news papers/channels/websites, the algorithms on social media, everything.
They push their agenda and whatever they need to keep us distracted, arguing, missing the actual things that matter and disillusioned to our ability to change the direction we are heading.
Power will always be in the interest of maintaining power.There is more than enough money and food to go around, there is the ability to throw our best and smartest at solving our problems and people as a whole generally are good and want to get along.
The cost of people with the mental sickness that allows them to disregard everybody else to continue endlessly sucking up every bit of power and money is immeasurable.The only real solution is to provide as much friction as possible. Push back when you can, be a voice of change or support somebody else who is that voice for you, dont be afraid to question your own beliefs, do what you can to help and be kind to your fellow human.
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.
- Rising costs / decline in incomes
- Failing infrastructure
- Decline in education
- Repression of history
- Brainwash through social media
- Nostalgia
Social media promoting far right content
People have drastically less free time than 30+ years ago. That free time was crucial for forming community, emotional fulfillment, and pursuing personal goals. Deprived of these things leaves people vulnerable to manipulation and mutually exclusive thinking.
Conservatism is a political movement masquerading as philosophical/principled. It appeals to peoples good intentions, validates their preconceptions, defines their identity in negative terms, and binds their self worth to their status within their group.
Anf a lot of the free time they now have isn’t spent con forming these communities, but on social media instead where they get a steady diet of right wing bullshit
I think it’s a combination of stupid people, misinformation, disinformation, and social media
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.
It depends on how broadly you interpret “the economy.” The economy is not GDP.
The west has been in the imperialist stage of capitalism for a bit more than a century. As was described back then, this is a parasitic, moribund stage of capitalism. It’s parasitic in an obvious way, but what’s most interesting is the moribund factor. Imperialism essentially becomes the dominant factor in a capitalist economy once it fully saturates the national economy, when monopoly bank and industrial capital begin consolidating into finance capital, and when these groups must expand outward, not just can.
The reason this is moribund is because it hollows out industrialization, seeking cheaper labor in the global south. It also seeks more specualtive than real returns, and sharpens the divide between rich and poor on an international scale, even if temporarily it reduces inequality in the national level (see FDR’s New Deal, before imperialism began decaying and Reaganomics forced austerity to preserve superprofits). What’s happening now is a sharp rightward turn in response to this system breaking down as the global south develops and gains independence from neocolonialism, giving them agency in how the world is run and tools at their disposal not purely linked to the west.
It’s the protracted death of imperialism that is forcing many people into austerity in the west, which drives reaction. Everyone trying to blame it on foreigners and propaganda are missing the point, the actual material system the west runs on is dying away as has already been predicted before by analyzing the very mechanisms of capitalism.
This is well written, but sadly for us, capitalism has proven to be more adaptable than Lenin predicted, having declared it as moribund over a century ago.
The manner in which imperialism is moribund is exactly as Lenin described. Lenin never gave a timeframe, because there was no way he could have predicted exactly. However, the process of capitalism needing to expand or die on a limited world is still progressing the way he predicted.
You are absolutely right about the ‘expand or die’ mechanics on a finite planet. However, it’s not entirely accurate that Lenin didn’t have a timeframe in mind. He subtitled his pamphlet ‘the eve of the social revolution’ because he genuinely believed the carnage of World War I was the terminal crisis. He didn’t foresee capitalism’s ability to mutate, adopt Keynesian reforms, and stabilise post-WWII. His mechanical diagnosis of finance capital was incredibly prescient, but he underestimated capitalism’s elasticity unfortunately 🥲
Lenin may have strongly thought that socialist revolution was more immediate worldwide, but he did not believe this to be certain, nor did his analysis require it to be so. Imperialism evolved to the present era of neoimperialism and unipolarity, but this doubled-down on the international stakes. With the clear era of decline we are in, it’s difficult to read Lenin and believe him wrong when what he predicted has come to pass, just not as quickly as he may have hoped it would.
It sounds like we are entirely on the same page. The timeline shifted and the system proved highly elastic by evolving into neocolonialism, but the fundamental mechanics of extraction remained the same. The real question now is whether the current rise of multipolarity is finally the breaking point of that system, or if capital will find yet another way to mutate.
Sure, the death of imperialism is a protracted process. What’s undeniable at this point is that it is dying, as it exists in a manner that cannot help but die in the long run.
Well said. The maths of infinite extraction on a finite planet always had an expiration date, even if the timeline is protracted. It’s going to be incredibly fascinating and probably pretty turbulent to watch how the rest of this century plays out as that reality fully sets in. Really enjoyed this discussion.
Billionaire money. Oligarch money.
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??
