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151 points

Far right parties gaining significant popularity especially in France and Germany. It’s not great for the neo-liberal centre who created and perpetuated the economic downturn we’re all in and indicates a failure of the left to present a coherent alternative. There’s a lot to unpack about it. France has already dissolved their parliament and triggered an election because of these results.

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53 points

Netherlands also going great. At least the xenophobes hate Europe so much they don’t bother showing up for European elections to simply say they want less foreigners.

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Netherlands actually didn’t change much. PVV got +5, but FvD (a worse PVV) lost 4. And the VVD (where Wilders came from originally) also lost 1, so it kinda cancels out. Same goes for the left parties which went from 9 to 8, but that seat went to a progressive center party.

Overall very little has shifted here. And it seems at the European level the same coalition will continue too.

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15 points
*

But I still haven’t seen a definitive explanation of why so many voters are switching to far right parties, and how exactly they can be won back*. Because the far right parties sure aren’t going to solve their problems (although they do name them), and the center assume they just need to do more of the same but better, and that hasn’t and won’t work either.

It makes me wonder whether a) the whole system of parliamentary democracy has reached its limit and cannot logistically please its voters any more than now, or whether b) voters just have too high expectations/are too selfish.

*I imagine that some voters that have been sucked too deep down the propaganda hole, like those of Trump or Orbán, cannot be won back.

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1 point

I also saw the turnout polls for the Dutch vote. It was interesting to see that the portion of people who voted progressive in the last national elections and didn’t show up for the EU elections is smaller than the portion that voted fascist/populist.

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9 points

Eh, I wouldn’t say its a failure of “the left.” The problem is that American style neoliberalism has become the only game in town and any minor deviation is seen as dangerous extremism. Its easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.

Neo classical economics is simply “economics” or even worse “just basic economics” now. Every major media outlet going has been captured or compromised. Social media is bought and paid for by the same interests too. I mean, there’s some pockets of resistance here and there but the ultra wealthy control all the narratives.

To me, blaming “the left” for that and calling their resistancea failure is just bizarre. Its not like the narrative has changed or is remotely hard to comprehend. Its just that people like being told what they want to hear; that they were right all along.

They clearly prefer to be told its all those damn foreigners faults and that looking up is a waste of time.

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3 points

I totally agree that neoliberal economics are essentially what we understand to be economics now. To be clear, I’m not blaming the left, I think it’s a case of they have a more difficult message to convey. To explain the problems that neoliberal economics has and to propose a solution to them is a really hard task compared with “it’s the foreigners at fault”. It’s a much clearer, more concise and seemingly solvable problem compared with “we need to overhaul the global economy”.

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3 points

Sadly, I think you hit the nail right on the head there. People don’t want complicated answers to complicated questions. As you eluded to, blaming the out-group has worked since groups existed.

Through my own fault, I think I read too deeply into the word failure lol.

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2 points

American style neoliberalism has become the only game in town and any minor deviation is seen as dangerous extremism. Its easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.

I’m just gonna leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism

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2 points

Its easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.

Damn… it’s wild how true this is

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2 points

If you like that, I can’t recommend “capitalist realism: is there no alternative?” enough. It where I stole it from, without a hint of shame.

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7 points

Yes, yes… On est dans la merde !

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6 points

It’s not great for the neo-liberal centre

Neoliberals love fascism… why wouldn’t this be great for them?

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1 point

It’s not great for the neo-liberal centre who created and perpetuated the economic downturn we’re all in and indicates a failure of the left to present a coherent alternative

Without intending to disagree with this statement, how is voting far-right a better proposition regarding the economy?

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2 points

So I didn’t make a statement about that. I’m making a statement about what these results might tell us, admittedly in a very simplistic way.

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2 points

but what “coherent alternative” are the far right parties presenting? I felt that was the part of your sentence that implied some logic in voting far right

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