The West was moving to the right — and then Donald Trump got elected again
…
Something is happening among America’s allies, and it’s a tremendous relief. For some years now, we’ve seen the MAGA-infused global right gaining a foothold amongst western democracies, largely driven by the same demagogic, nationalist, pseudo-populism that has fueled Donald Trump’s dominance on the American right.
Some countries like Hungary have served as a sort of experiment for the kind of post-democratic autocracies dreamt of by the modern right wing in which government co-opts, intimidates and de-legitimizes the political opposition to create an authoritarianism that dominates the culture and the politics without a lot of overt violence.
But the rise of the far right among the Western allies seems to be stalling out.
Celebrating prematurely. The UK is about to go fascist, Germany is teetering on the brink, and Canada only just dodged a bullet for now.
And no mention of Italy?
Yes, Italy, Hungary and others are already well down the fascist path. Romania just went fascist. Austria is struggling not to be wholly under the far right’s control, depending on a coalition to hold them off. The far right has significant power in the governments of Slovakia, Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden. Portugal and Belgium are also dealing with surging far right movements.
It’s absurd to conclude it’s over because centrism squeaked through in Canada and Australia. It’s like everyone relaxing in 2020 because the US public were sure to see sense under Biden.
And Portugal overthrew fascism in the 1970s, too…
Wait… I thought the Romanian guy only won like 20ish percent in the first round? Did they have the second round already?
You’re right. Sorry for that inaccuracy. I updated my comment.
No worries! I just thought I might have missed something
I heard that Poland is also cheering for some MAGA guy in the next election… Troubling times ahead.
For Romania, there might still be a chance in the run-off. However, the difference between the two candidates was quite large (20% difference; 1.8 million votes). Similarly, the other candidates seemed to have voters that would rather vote for the nazi. Most likely all hope is lost, but that 1% chance is still there.
Italy has always been a joke, Hungary too
Greece was coming frighteningly close to nazism a few years back
It’s so frustrating to see
The UK is a bit away from “about to go fascist”
Nigel (Nazi-youth-song-singing, frequent RT guest apologist for Putin & emphatic volunteer for 2nd in line of any future human trumpepede) Farage is as close to actual power as he’s ever been—which is not at all.
His party’s existence actually potentially helps more reasonable parties because he is splitting the right wing vote
Labour are going to have to come up with something soon though or things could go bad; I get it’s their first year and they’re doing unpopular things early so they’re not fresh for next election, but they’re really unpopular right now.
You heard of this?
It’s a Facebook link… maybe at least give a blurb on why I should click it.
Yes. This didn’t happen in the UK because, instead of standing up to Trumpism, Starmer is tacking to the far-right.
The UK is hardly about to go fascist. Labour recently won power and there won’t be a national election for years. There were smaller council elections recently and Reform won a few seats, but so did the Greens and Lib Dems. Basically, there were some anti-establishment votes.
East Germany voted AfD, but the rest of the country defeated that.
Canada voted Liberal despite a strong anti-establishment sentiment. It’s likely that eventually it will flip back conservative. But, there’s a chance that before that happens, the chaos of Trumpism will make the conservatives in Canada try to become an adult, respectable party rather than Maple MAGA.
The UK is batshit insane and will be for some time.
Australia breaking from the murdoch triad is a big one.
We don’t have a general election for another 4 years in the UK.
Reform won some council seats and are already having issues.
The fact that they’re getting this far bothers me though.
Absolutely, but people believe the hype, just like they did when Farage was an MEP despite him effecting no positive changes.
With social media and the internet nowadays it’s easy to appeal to a disaffected part of the voting populace with lies and half truths.
What? No. All our (Canadian) fascists are gonna separate and join the US. Then we’ll be a fascist-free country!
Trade Alberta for the Western and Northeastern states
Yes but not Calgary or Edmonton, nor Lake Louise, nor Banff, or any of the other mountain resort towns! Plus we keep the full stretch of the trans Canada highway and all the major railways.
I’m happy with expelling Albertans for being secessionists but Canada is keeping the oil.
Like bacteria in a jar. They grow, then become toxic, then die off.
… Canada only just dodged a bullet for now
By 3 points; less than a basketball goal
And don’t forget that Italy, Poland and Hungary are already there and we’re about to invade the few countries that went left.
Poland actually got rid of their right wing government in the last election in 2023 and are hopefully dumping the president who’s been blocking reform. It can be done.
Poland is not out of the woods yet though
By 3 points; less than a basketball goal
Is there some weird form of Canadian basketball out there where this statement makes sense?
Nope.
Fascism. It’s called Fascism, not, “Trumpism.”
So fucking stupid.
At this point, if a news outlet or politician refuse to call it what it is, I assume they actually approve.
So far it’s most of them across the world.
I think a lot of them are afraid of being censored by the fascism for being alarmist. And then trying to hold onto a position of relative power via information is a tricky one, because you have to balance not only your tv station, but the backers, your audience, your managers, your coworkers, your position, your career, and also your life. These people are really REALLY risk adverse, for many different reasons. I’m not justifying it, but I’m imagining this is at least the intuition that some may be working through. Explanation is not justification.
So much for the 4th estate
That’s been gone for a lonnnnng time. Capitalism killed it.
You’re welcome rest of the world. Now be nice to those of us who have to suffer another 4 years.
As long as you voted against him, yes.
If someone said “oh they’re both the same” or “Kamala didn’t make her position clear enough on ______” or any of the other excuses, they need to bear the full brunt of their (in)decision.
I’ve zero sympathy for those fools.
both parties are the same in many ways doesn’t mean I voted for trump I voted Harris. I knew Trump’s hate was worse than the Dems obliviousness
full brunt of their
(in)decisionstupidity.Fixed it. :3
Very right wing of you to have no sympathy for people born less intelligent than you. Fools should not be blamed. A system that allows fools to be swayed and to be the deciding factor is where the blame should go.
The incels had a choice to listen to reason. They went out of their way to bully. Many ppl vulnerable got affected by this unfairly.
That’s not a stupidity that needs an advocate.
Blaming the system is a cop out. It didn’t happen before, because the electorate held their representatives to some kind of standard. Now, your representatives tell you what to think and y’all just nod your heads like lambs to the slaughter
I don’t know. Unintelligent or even uneducated is easy to label the Maga crowd, and certainly many of them deserve that. But not all of them. I know a few who are well educated but just seem racist or 'i got mine" types.
That’s really the crux. There are two trump voters: There are 1) the easily swayed, misled, gullible, uninformed, and other adjectives that imply they are just not fully aware of what is going on; and then 2) the evil assholes who know fully that they are breaking things because they stand to profit from the breakage.
Class 1 deserves our compassion, and should be helped to understand why their choices hurt themselves and society.
Class 2 needs to be evicted from this reality.
Fools should not be blamed. A system that allows fools to be swayed […bad grammar…] is where the blame should go.
While the system bears its share of blame, it is the unquestioning enablers, those who readily consume its dictates, who breathe life into its flaws. Just as tolerance cannot survive by tolerating intolerance, wisdom cannot flourish when we indulge foolishness. To dismantle a flawed system, we must first challenge those who sustain it.
Removed by mod
Be nice to the people threatening to annex and bomb an ally… ? you be nice first.
Better late than never I suppose. Congrats everyone else.
I’ll take it. Really. It sucks for us. But if this is what it takes to get everyone else to kick this bullshit ass ideology and actually get on with progress over stagnation let’s fucking go.
Agree. Let’s take the hit and move towards getting off this fucking planet.
Take the hit and learn the lessons. And fix this planet.
I think US commentators make far too much of Trump and US political influence on the world. It exists but we all have our own cultures, political systems etc out here and we proudly do our own thing. The arrogance of people on all sides of US politics who think an election result on the other side of a world is a reflection of their own domestic politics is incredible.
It would be convenient if the rest of the world could fix a broken US democracy but it is a fantasy. US citizens need to address their problems through struggle and resistance. Their current problems runs very deep in their society and isn’t simply an international fashion trend.
If you check the polls, nothing changed in Australia to justify the rapid drop of the right wing, except Trump.
Mate.
The Liberals lost so hard 2 elections ago that they were never going to win despite what any opinion poll may have said. Dutton ran on a platform of nothing, and never had one positive public moment. The party has been running around like a headless chook and will continue to do so.
The Libs lost because of Dutton, not because of Trump.
Lieberals were in front for a long time, and then trump started his bullshit and Labor came from behind and soared into victory.
Here in Canada the last-minute swing from Conservative to Liberal was definitely a response to Trump, particularly to his repeated threats to take over our country.
Worldwide it may be more that what causes the rise of fascism in the USA also causes it worldwide - and sometimes this is an actual network of wealthy right-wing organizations and nation states working to promote it through propaganda and funding.
Australia is in a very different position to Canada geographically and strategically. Our politics can be almost as different as our climate.
Australia’s major party primary vote has been declining for ages. In the most recent Canadian election the opposite happened and the major parties gained votes at the expense of the smaller parties. In Canada both the Libs and Conservatives increased their vote share. In Australia Labor had a relatively modest increase while the Liberals lost a few percent. The Green vote barely changed but independents and smaller populist parties did ok including One Nation which had a modest increase in votes. Nothing like Canada.
I think the consensus from most domestic commentators is that the Liberals in Australia ran a poor campaign, their policies failed to impress swing voters in marginals struggling with cost of living and looking for an alternative and Labor campaigned better than expected.
I mean the world can fix a broken US democracy by boycotting the US entirely on all fronts until a democratic country emerges.
This will take a while though as we have seen with South Africa.
I’m astounded that Theresa May wasn’t the calling that unrestricted liberal economics (aka trickle down) is a fairytale.
And that economic stability is held by the safety net the lower class makes use of and the middle class falls back to. (Social economics)
It’s not Trumpism, it’s fascism.
😂
Those things are, in fact, equivalent.
Squares are to rectangles as Trumpism is to fascism.
Wish we could have done this before the fucker was elected.
And it’s not like we don’t have this history where this failed before
Most people have to learn the hard way. They are dumb like that.
I always say I have to be hit over the head with a frying pan to learn my lesson, but jesus I could tell Trump was not good for America when he started running for his first term.
And now I’ll suffer for it because I’m part of the “parasite” class.
And the Republican Party is obviously a lost cause when they held that CPAC conference in Budapest of all places
Just be happy you aren’t an American, so it won’t be as bad.
:(
I can’t assuredly say we have beat conservative populism yet, but we are at least bringing competence to government.
The issue we haven’t solved is that many young people now are coming of age upon a platter of socially engineered falsehood.
I wouldn’t give Trump the credit for this. Yeah he is a great example of how bad it can get but the move to the left has been long on its way and picking up speednfornsome time! Trump may have boosted a snowball that was already rolling
Except it’s really not a move to the left, it’s just a slight slowing down of the move to the right. Fascism is currently gaining footholds in much of the western world.
So, while the handful of left victories are great, it’s super dangerous to frame them as a reversal of fascism.
As long as neoliberals are the only alternative, fascism will always come back.
You mean modern liberals? Neoliberalism is about as far-right as fascism.
Please explain how neoliberalism is as far-right as fascism.
No one is saying neoliberalism is as far right as fascism. However fascism has a cloak of populism that it can hide under that neoliberalism can never do because they are tied to corporate interests in varying degrees. As such, a lot of working class people gravitate towards fascists who pay lip service to working class struggles.
At the end of the day, both neoliberals and fascists benefit from an undereducated and overworked population. That is why we need true alternatives that support the working class
At the end of the day, both neoliberals and fascists benefit from an undereducated and overworked population. That is why we need true alternatives that support the working class
Pretty much what I was referring to. I think the difference is a matter of motivation. Fascists want power and complete control, neoliberals don’t, but either one would applaude streets paved with dead bodies if it lowered costs by 10%.
No one is saying neoliberalism is as far right as fascism.
GP comment said exactly that though. Although they did throw in an “about”.
Can we sequester him? In the dirt, please?
Looks like I’m gonna have to buy another newspaper tomorrow.
I can’t speak for all of us, but I don’t think “the world” at large ever supported “Trumpism” and we largely have always thought him to be a gigantic tit and those who voted him into office TWICE to be idiotic or miseducated.
If you replace “Trumpism” with “fascism”, it has clearly been on the rise all around the world for a decade or so now, and it’s taking over more and more countries all the time. However it’s far from clear that we’ve reached any kind of turning point where fascism starts to become less popular worldwide, just because of some fairly limp election results in Canada and Australia.
Headlines like this are for protecting the oligarchy. We all get involved until our lawmakers aren’t old rich people. We pass laws that require oversight and transparency. We protect those institutions and laws that serve democracy with our lives.
I feel it’s more like a fluke than a rule. We all just got lucky. It’s not like any of us are doing anything to prepare for that next election cycle. But I guarantee you that they are.
I seriously still see mailboxes in my neighborhood with flyers about conservative. They treated the election like they were Punk kids promoting their favorite band around town. They mobilized in ways the left only dream of and they didn’t vaporize when they lost. They will come back more determined
