Is there a country in the EU where the far right isn’t on the rise? I need a Backup plan in case the nazis are voted in Germany again
Denmark. You may not like how Frederiksen did it - she essentially opted for politics that are as anti-immigrant as legally possible - but she also obliterated the far right there. The two far-right parties in Folketing now total 10 of 179 seats…
And the difference between Frederiksen’s social democrats and the actual far right is huge. No climate change denying, no cozying up to Russia, no anti-lgbtq nonsense, no anti-EU propaganda and so on.
“Anti-immigrant” but welcoming people from select countries. Reminds me of how a Swedish person told me he thought there were too many immigrants but that I, a Canadian, would be perfectly welcome to go there.
Apparently some people are considered immigrants and that’s bad, while others are just expats looking for a new home.
Apparently some people are considered immigrants and that’s bad, while others are just expats looking for a new home.
I don’t think they’re considered expats if they plan to stay indefinitely. But yeah, there’s vastly different sentiments towards different types of immigrants. Usually the surveys ask for “European immigration”, but I guess a Canadian would fall into that as well, so they might just as well ask about Western immigration (the use European because of EU freedom of movement). In part sentiments obviously have a lot to do with racism and xenophobia, but it’s unfortunately not just that. The statistics for people who immigrated irregularly (i.e. without a visa) really don’t look good. E.g. here in Germany in 2022 foreign nationals made up some 16% of the population but 32% of crime suspects (excluding crimes around migration which Germans can’t commit). The percentages regarding people who actually get convicted are even worse and “Zugewanderte” (recent immigrants, mainly asylum seekers) used to have even worse numbers as well (before the refugees from Ukraine, largely women and children came).
Obviously there’s demographic and socioeconomic reasons for that discrepancy. The main issue is that there’s a lot of young men among immigrants and you men tend to commit most crimes, but that obviously doesn’t undo any of these crimes. Ukraine’s rather sexist border controls (they don’t allow men aged 18-60 to leave) really did their diaspora a solid here.
Ireland?
Switzerland is a well tested option
SVP currently holds 25% of the seats in the federal council of Switzerland. Not exactly what I’d call Nazi-free.
Worse still, they are at 27%. And they have been in this area for quite a long time, so the proportion is somewhat stable.
The last time the Nazis were in power in Germany, Switzerland closed its borders to most people trying to flee, so maybe a well tested, but still not so good option…
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spain’s fsr right wing party went down from 15% to 12% in the last elections.
This one hurt. The fight for the EU, the climate, diversity and the democracy just became harder.
Well, that’s not set in stone yet. If he doesn’t manage to form a coalition (and it’s very much in the realm of possibilities that he won’t be able to), the GreenLeft-Labour Party is next in line. In which case a GL-PvdA/VVD/NSC/D66 coalition (parties #2-#5) is not unlikely. Which I’m guessing would have to make some concessions when it comes to migration, but would probably be OK-ish news for the EU, the climate, and democracy and rule of law.
Sure, but it’s the amount of support he got that scares me. There’s a lot of support for the right wing in the Netherlands. That means that either a lot of people support those views or are willing to put up with these xenophobic zealots just to make a statement.
Yes, the Netherlands is really two different countries when you separate the big cities from the countryside.
That is true for almost every country (with the main exceptions not having one or the other at all).
Calm down. While he got the biggest share, it is “just” 35 seats in a 150 seats parliament. He would need another 41 seats in coalition to get anywhere, which means (as his share is the largest) he would not only need one, but at least two partners willing to form a coalition with and a government under him.
While those 35 seats are still 35 seats too many, I doubt he will run the country.
I really, really hate this kind of thinking.
Election in 2008: “Calm down, the far right only got 3%” Election in 2012: “Calm down, the far right only got 7%” Election in 2016: “Calm down, the far right only got 13%” Election in 2020: “Calm down, the far right only got 18%” And so on…
Can you people really not see a problem with this?
It’s the intolerance paradox in full view. Wilders should have been convicted and jailed years ago. A tolerant society must be fiercly intolerant towards intolerance.
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What does the parent comment have anything to do with the intolerance paradox. The population is increasingly voting far-right, it’s terrible and has nothing to do with the paradox.
A shift of the public opinion at that scale doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It can only happen if society as a whole tolerates increasingly intolerant messages and behaviour. Those far right rat catchers wouldn’t have much of a platform, if they weren’t tolerated, and their supporters wouldn’t be nearly as brazen if they were told off wherever they dare to publicly state their support.
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Ok, you jail him and maybe even his closest allies. What do you achieve with that?
Imo, at best you got a bunch of people protesting out in the streets, calling it political persecution. And at worst the party’s popularity might even increase, handing them an even larger victory.
If he had been convicted years ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation today.
I see the problem with it, but it also means they have not won (yet), and you can work towards the next election to fix it.
If anyone knew how to work to fix it, that would be somewhat calming. Instead this just gives reason for increasing panic and feeling helpless.
Well, the best way to fix political issues that concern you is getting active in politics.
That doesn’t help if you have no idea what works. Describe getting active, please, and how it can fix the rise of rightwing politics.
How about finding the political party you find best, and join?
And then what? No party has a working concept. I don’t have one either, so how should joining a party help in any way? Then I’ll be helpless in a party.
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Oh yea? I don’t see the US deal with their blatant fashism problem. One of the biggest American fashism problems actually wants to get back into the White House.
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At the same time, people are bound to compare it to e.g. Trump, who actually got a majority. It’s good to know that our electoral system works differently, if you’re unfamiliar with it.
Just FYI, Trump never won a majority of votes either, although he was a lot closer than Wilders.
Haha yeah fair enough, he got a majority of electors (I think that’s the right term?), but not of the popular vote, which is what counts in the Netherlands - another sign of how different the electoral systems are. But yeah, the larger point is that the level of popular support is way lower.
Or compare him to Trump whose trials are frankly far too little and far too late for their next election.
I can’t do this anymore, fuck.
Anyone who thinks this shocking needs to leave their social bubble.
The European liberal left is in losing battle for their voters and their solution is pretending that nothing’s happening.
I don’t think that they’re pretending that. However, the issue is that right-wing and right-of-center parties carelessly throw around lies and half-truths that match the way people tend to be thinking anyway.
It also doesn’t matter to them that they create rather than solve issues, as long as their narrative is stable. A very recent example: Conservatives normally claim that they are in favor of having a strong and growing economy. However, German conservatives just deliberately worsened the economic outlook of the entire country by suing against the 2021 state budget. To do so, they weaponized an overly aggressive debt ceiling they themselves[1] put into place in 2009 and which they themselves ignored for most of the years between 2009-2021.
[1] Along with the Social Democrats who unfortunately have been moving further to the right for at least the last 20 years. Since Conservatives, Free Liberals and Social Democrats all voted for this debt ceiling rule at the time, it’s now part of the constitution. Abolishing that rule is now an impossibility, as the coalition would need support from a large number of Conservatives to do so.
I think I heard that whoever made the current Russian flag design explicitly copied the Dutch flag design to make Russia look more European or something.
If I’m wrong, the downvote button is right there.
Close, but not quite. This flag was used on the first Russian ships in 17th century. At that time Russia didn’t have it’s own fleet, so they just used the flag of the most powerful fleet at the time, that just happened to be Dutch. But it was not considered as the national flag. Later, after the February revolution, the flag of the Russian Empire was considered a “symbol of tsarism” at could no longer be used, so the provisional government just decided to use this flag as a placeholder, before the new one could be created. And after the fall of USSR Russian Federation just returned everything to how it was between February an October revolutions.
So I guess I wasn’t wrong all along
I need to stop rhyming
Give it time enough and the Russian flag wíll be an European flag :/
:/
Welp, there goes my willingness to move to the Netherlands.
Oh you still can. Nothing will really change. Still has to make coalitions, compromisses blablabla if thats possible and if not well maybe new elections. Is he extreme? Yes allthi he seems to have lighten up a bit who knows. But its not like other countries. A Prime Minister is not a total ruler only a sort of spokes person. All the parties have to agree on things to make shit happen, and is why everything goes so slow here. Its not the best explanation but its the gist of it. Its still shit he MAY represent every dutch person but its not done yet. It way better then thierry beaudet (cunt). There a lot of assdicks in our parties.
Seems like Europe is turning against the Muslim community.
As a Canadian I’m curious why this is happening and what people think could be done to make for a more welcoming transition. We also accepted quite a few middle eastern refugees over the past few years and I’m wondering if there are lessons to be learned.
General problems being projected on foreigners, turning into racism.
These don’t seem like general problems but I can see the racism bubbling up.
Canada is extremely picky when it comes to refugees. And it has the choice to be picky, because crossing the sea from the Mid-East/North Africa to Canada is hard. Even refugees from South America need to travel through the US first. So in the end, Canada gets people who are relatively well-off and well-educated and who pose fewer problems integrating.
Europe on the other hand is the natural route for Mid-East/North African refugees which due to the geographical closeness is available to a lot more people, including some from social segments below the middle class of their original country. And since the people coming to the EU tend to integrate worse, need more education and social services, there’s a tremendous opening for right-wing parties to swoop in and make claims. The EU also really needs to work on integration of new arrivals, even a country that pretends to be fairly open like Germany is partly really steeped in outmoded, hostile, demotivating processes and a mentality of not seeing refugees as people but as a burden to society.
I would disagree that Germany has not been welcoming.
The public opinion has just shifted after numerous incidents including rape, murder, terrorism in addition to the bad integration and clashing cultures.
It is also obvious at this point that it’s not refuge but immigration we are looking at, which changes the entire deal a bit and makes the aforementioned problems look worse.
Freedom of movement is a human right! For everyone, everywhere, in every direction!
