The normalisation of the far-right continues

[BFTD]

1 minute ago, Granny Danger said:

I disagree, fringe politics is always there but in goes in and out of favour.  The real emergence has been quite recent and with a relatively sudden upward trajectory.

I'd like to think that was true, as it would mean that it could f**k off again just as quickly.

Sadly, there's been a lot of work gone into the build-up to this, and I reckon we're all going to have to relearn some hard lessons before there's any chance of improvement.

[Freedom Farter]

There's the wikipedia article on broad Gen Z leanings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Generation_Z

"Generation Z is generally alike to Millennials on political and social issues...".

I'd be shocked if that wasn't the case. It's not like housing has suddenly been fixed. Gen Z have arrived into the very same situation Millennials did before them. 

[Suspect Device]

It’s not just boomers, young people are voting far right too – POLITICOIt’s not just boomers, young people are voting far right too – POLITICO

From the other angle.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

As someone raised in post-war Britain 

Aye, the English Civil War.

M'rite? 

[Freedom Farter]

Nobody really knows why things happen but here's a suggested explanation via Twitter meme:

[coprolite]

It’s not difficult to reconcile increased support for the far right with people generally being more left wing.  

Centrist is a dirty word among the young. To a middle aged thought leader like myself, it’s just a cop out, not a sustainable ideology, ineffective and conducive to neoliberal economics in a sort of unwitting accomplice sort of way.

To the yoot*, Centrism evokes a similar reaction to whatTory does in my generation. A sort of visceral disgust.

Instead of having 5% each far right and far left, with the moderate left and right splitting the remaining 90% with a couple of % variation, we’ve a negligible hard left now and the right split 50/50 between reactionary fuckwits and traditional Tory types.

Increased inequality obviously plays a massive part but so does increasingly polarised discourse and culture war BS.  
 

Given my experience of trade union membership trends over time, i question the right of a lot of these younger types to claim the left.  Resharing twitter posts that embarrass right wing dickheads is not the same as taking collective action to improve material conditions. 
 

Of course any attempt to generalise based on birth dates being in an arbitrary range is bone headed. Some millennials might be actual socialists.

 

*we’ll go with 45 and under here. 
 

[tamthebam]

10 hours ago, Fullerene said:

Whatever happened to "the oxygen of publicity".

I think it would be great if when Farage appeared on the screen, his words were spoken by an actor.

Maybe an out-of-work Bollywood actor could be used.

I liked the words of the late Linda Smith

"Deny the BNP the oxygen of publicity? I think you should deny them the oxygen of oxygen"

[HibeeJibee]

On 25/02/2024 at 14:06, HibeeJibee said:

Some interesting - if generally rather alarming - latest polls from our friends in the former Anschluss ahead of their upcoming elections:

... 4 months on their polling has broadly increased :


AUSTRIA:

Austrian general election (September)
32% far right     21% Labour     20% Conservatives     8% Greens     8% Liberals     +9% others

Styria state election (autumn)
29% far right     22% Conservatives      21% Labour     11% Communists     10% Greens     6% Liberals     +1% others

Vorarlberg state election (autumn)
30% Conservatives     29% far right     14% Greens     12% Labour     10% Liberals     +3% others


GERMANY:

Brandenburg state election (September)
26% far right     22% Labour     18% Conservatives     10% far left     8% Greens     6% Communists     +10% others

Saxony state election (September)
31% Conservatives     30% far right     10% far left     6% Labour     6% Greens     5% Communists     3% Liberals     +9% others

Thuringia state election (September)
29% far right     20% Conservatives     16% Communists     15% far left     9% Labour     5% Greens     +6% others

[BFTD]

2 hours ago, tamthebam said:

I liked the words of the late Linda Smith

"Deny the BNP the oxygen of publicity? I think you should deny them the oxygen of oxygen"

"So much for the tolerant left!"

[Highlandmagar]

17 hours ago, Freedom Farter said:

Nobody really knows why things happen but here's a suggested explanation via Twitter meme:

Stock market crashes, poverty, cost of living crises, always lead to fascism.

[tamthebam]

10 hours ago, BFTD said:

"So much for the tolerant left!"

as compared to the tolerant right like the EDL! 

[Freedom Farter]

Orban is a keen supporter of the historical revisionism common in central and eastern Europe where Nazi collaborators are recast as the good guys. The Day of Honour commemoration each year is a parade for those Hungarian Nazis. An Italian teacher living in Hungary took part in a protest against it and had been in jail for 15 months as a result until these EU elections. The left-green alliance in Italy had entered her as a candidate on the Italian ballot and she won. This means Hungary now have to release her due to MEPs having immunity:

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/06/10/italian-activist-ilaria-salis-to-be-released-following-her-election-as-an-mep

[Granny Danger]

44 minutes ago, Freedom Farter said:

Orban is a keen supporter of the historical revisionism common in central and eastern Europe where Nazi collaborators are recast as the good guys. The Day of Honour commemoration each year is a parade for those Hungarian Nazis. An Italian teacher living in Hungary took part in a protest against it and had been in jail for 15 months as a result until these EU elections. The left-green alliance in Italy had entered her as a candidate on the Italian ballot and she won. This means Hungary now have to release her due to MEPs having immunity:

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/06/10/italian-activist-ilaria-salis-to-be-released-following-her-election-as-an-mep

Historical revisionism is a term that could well define the next five or ten years.

[BFTD]

6 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

Historical revisionism is a term that could well define the next five or ten years.

Odds on the first EU nation to propose a "the holocaust didn't happen" resolution?

[HibeeJibee]

France's Republicans ditch leader over far-right alliance deal - BBC News

Head of Conservatives in France (polling 8-9%) last night proposed a pact with far right; got denounced by leader in parliament; and has been deposed. Will be a pact of Labour-Greens-far left-extreme left-communists.


Aggregate of 3 polls since Macron called election:

33-35%     Far right
27-34%     leftist pact
16-19%     Centrists/Liberals (government)
      8-9%     Conservatives
      4-5%     Extreme right
      1-2%     Gaullists
      0-3%     Trotskyists
      0-2%     Ecologists
   +0-4%     others

Edited June 12 by HibeeJibee

[BFTD]

7 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

France's Republicans ditch leader over far-right alliance deal - BBC News

Head of Conservatives in France (polling 8-9%) last night proposed a pact with far right; got denounced by leader in parliament; and has been deposed. Will be a pact of Labour-Greens-far left-extreme left-communists (27-31%).

Sorry to keep doing this, but what's the difference between the French extreme left and the communists?

I've a horrible feeling it might be People's Front of Judea/Judean People's Front territory.

[Wee-Bey]

The Trotskyists not invited to the leftist pact. 

[HibeeJibee]

Just now, BFTD said:

Sorry to keep doing this, but what's the difference between the French extreme left and the communists?

I've a horrible feeling it might be People's Front of Judea/Judean People's Front territory.

I couldn't claim to understand in detail, but the Extreme Left (LFI) is populist and eurosceptic - they seem to be like BSW in Germany; the Far Left (PRG) kept out of a radical alliance some years ago - a continuing minority - and are more liberal; the Communists (PCF) are as-it-says-on-the-tin, and former Marxist-Leninists...
 

6 minutes ago, Cheese said:

The Trotskyists not invited to the leftist pact. 

...hence presumably a cold shoulder to allying with Trotskyists (LO).


Incidentally the LO has its own mini-'alliance' with the Anticapitalists (NPA) - and the PRG an 'alliance' with a federation of tiny socialist parties (FGR).

No wonder French politics appears gubbed.

[MazzyStar]

9 minutes ago, Cheese said:

The Trotskyists not invited to the leftist pact. 

Good 

[GordonS]

On 11/06/2024 at 05:14, dirty dingus said:

Incompetence? The flagship BBC politics show Question Time has a producer and audience picker who has in the past invited the EDL to apply to be on the show, shared and liked posts by Britain First was a member of Facebook group British Patriotic Front. She selects racist and bigots like Billy Mitchell who's been on the show numerous times and Sherri Peach a former candidate for the NF and a Free Tommeh lunatic.

The comfortable middle class truly believe that if you put these haufwits on TV everyone will see them as haufwits and it will go badly for them. Sherri Peach came across to people who can read as a slavering maniac, and they assume everyone will see that. Their incompetence is in not understanding how large a proportion of the British public will agree with it.

You talk to these people about racism and they'll say things like it needs to be pulled out into the open so it can be dealt with, otherwise it just continues in private. That's how they think.