In Germany, a right wing extremist party, the Alternative for German (AFD) has currently risen to be the second largest party in Germany. I find it remarkable they managed to do this building solely on unlogical speeches.
And while I am not a great fan of other parties, I am appalled by the AFD's intentional references to Nazist ideology. [They get fined for these, but I cannot explain why such behaviour should increase popularity.]
Basically, everyone hating the current establishment votes them.
We have seen this trend in central europe everywhere a multi party system currently exists. In France under Le Pen, in Italy under Meloni, in Poland under the PiS, etc...
So who is to blame these ultra right parties have such success?
My intuitive answer are the "moderate" governments who did not manage to uphold economic standards. But did the problem not always exist? And why this many large central european countries at once?
You have to be able to govern well, most people do not follow politics except during an election.
Worldwide inflation and unrestricted migration placed gigantic strains on low and middle class people and while they were suffering they were being told by economists and the wealthy that things are not so bad.
So they associated the bad times they are facing with ALL of the liberal policies that have governed in western civilization for at least the last 3 decades with only a few short breaks.
Leftists and liberals everywhere in the west lost touch with the working class and common people.
And the various right leaning groups have been speaking to their worries while pushing their viewpoints with nobody giving them an alternate voice.
the context is conducive to popular unrest against the regimes in place (inflation, illegal immigration, energy and housing crisis) so these radical far-right parties take advantage of this context to attract the electorate of the working classes, with theses flirting with conspiracy, such as the great replacement or the so-called "preservation of Western culture" and the reappropriation and exaggeration of news items in order to agitate their electorate and seek to establish a climate of fear and hatred towards people from another culture or religion.
Most people don't care about half of the strange extremist views they hear from political parties. Sure, it's a bit worrying, but most of it is stuff that no political candidate can actually carry out and more just empty promises meant to pander to certain crowds.
What people want to know is if you'll take care of their needs and wants. Not if you'll take care of their neighbors. Not if you'll take care of a different group of people. They want you to care about *them*, since after all their vote to support you might end up putting you in power. If they can't be sure if they'll be treated well, then they probably won't vote for you.
Republicans often rejected many different groups, but they made sure that their voter base was given plenty of reasons to vote for them. (Before anybody says "but they don't carry out on their promises!" Not the point. I don't care if any politician lies. The point is that they at least promised something that sounded good.) While this leads to a smaller voter base those voters are also more likely to have stronger support for you. In other words, those "unlogical speeches" might indeed be extremely far-fetched and extremist to your ear, but to some other person's ear, they are promises of a better future and a promise of someone that will represent what *they* want.
(Also, you don't need to worry about people being anti-Democrat, there are plenty of anti-Republicans to balance them out.)
@Mopman said in #2:.
>
> Worldwide inflation
So you finally admit there was worldwide inflation? I thought it was all Joe Biden’s fault?
@Sleepy_Gary said in #5:
> .
> So you finally admit there was worldwide inflation? I thought it was all Joe Biden’s fault?
Think you are mixing me up with another person. I did not care for either candidate(s) and would have preferred both parties to have selected more qualified candidates instead of two old men. I posted this weeks before they were chosen.
Then I could not accept Harris without remembering she either played a part in the deception about Biden's mental state or was totally in the dark, so either lying or ignorant. She was a vacuous candidate with no substance.
I ended up leaning towards Trump in the end as the lesser of two evils since I felt that he would be a better figure on the international front since he is vain enough to risk major conflict rather than appear weak and the various dangerous nations that truly despise western civilization would realize that and pull back. This is less risky than them seeing the United States as weak.
I would have loved to have seen a candidate who had decent qualifications instead of selecting one who's negative traits could prove useful but it did not happen.
Then who is to blame?
Either the democratic [I mean the system of Republics, not the party] politicians, or the people, or the system (and what system [capitalism causing economic strain or politics causing disstatisfaction?])
If it is the people, then why do these major parties struggle to find good leaders? These people were ib power before economic downturn so their faults cannot automatically attributed to social decline.
And if it were the people, then surely, letting these far right extremist parties run for an office should devalidate their promises, right?
As for the system, a systemic error is either the best of all the bad system, meaning far right extremists should struggle with any system. If it can be topped by better systems, then we act against our own good in rejecting alternative ideas.
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who is to blame for forcing the countries in the global south to start developing their own trading blocs and reserve currency? who has been invading countries that dont support whatever policy the US wants, whether it hurts their own populations that elected them or not? That would be US government, and the subservient countries of NATO.
the 2 more or less competing political machines that run the US are not struggling to find good leaders. They are struggling to suppress good leaders in order to impose their choices, regardless of how much popular support those leaders have. They sabotaged Sanders twice, the second time in order to impose a leader that had not managed to win the support of a single delegate in her disastrous failed 2020 presidential campaign, and now they affect suprise that she lost, not just in the Electoral College but in the popular vote, against a quiz show host. what a shock! and unlike H Clinton, she could not even claim that the US public did not know what he would do, because he had already had a 4 year terms. In yet another lesser of two evils election, the democrats lost the presidency, the Senate, and the House. typically, they want to blame the voters.
@Mopman "Think you are mixing me up with another person. I did not care for either candidate(s) and would have preferred both parties to have selected more qualified candidates instead of two old men. I posted this weeks before they were chosen"
Harris is not an old man. That was her major and only selling point.
as usual you buy into the myth of a US that is beset by foreign forces, to the point that you support Trump because his inordinate vanity will suppposedly not think that the US is weak and will lead him to catastrophic responses. and you claim that I am anti American.
it's ironic that typical Trump supporters view him as an anti war candidate. you at least don't have that rosy a view, but then you totally buy into the myth of America as force for good. The reason I oppose US foreign policy is because it has been so anti Freedom and anti Democracy, overthrowing one democratic government after another, in Iran, Guatemala, Chile--there is a long list of countries after that. There is a reason the US does not submit to the jurisdiction of International Courts, starting with Reagan. That is because it has committed, and continues to commit, so many war crimes. The US government at the end of World War 2 created this international system it now disavows. The Constitution allows us to oppose our own government and criticise it. That is not anti patriotic. It is the essence of US patriotism.
