The rise of right populism

[ping]

Interestingly enough, one of the main fuel sources for the growing success of the AfD (our right-wing populist party) might be too much (perceived) agreement between the established parties. Many feel that the political agendas of social democrats, christian democrats, green party and liberal party (which isn't liberal in the American meaning of the word) only differ marginally. AfD literally stands for "Alternative for Germany" and that's the image they are trying to groom: Them as the only group that isn't part of the big mainstream-leftist-PC unity party.

[Sylphid]

Populist rule just has to disappoint their supporters. I don't see a way around that.

To an extent, this is happening in Finland. Our socially right-wing populist party, the Finns Party, was winning big for past two government elections (rising from 2-4% of votes to slightly below 20% and becoming the second biggest political party). The first time they didn't enter the cabinet, becoming one of the biggest opposition parties instead and their popularity stayed about the same.

The second time, they joined the cabinet with two other parties. After they've had to make a lot of compromises with their cabinet partners, their voters are pretty upset about broken promises and such, and they've dropped to slightly below 10% popularity according to recent polls (to be fair the same is happening with all three government parties, but the effect is largest with Finns Party).

[UNLEASH IT]

Interestingly enough, one of the main fuel sources for the growing success of the AfD (our right-wing populist party) might be too much (perceived) agreement between the established parties. Many feel that the political agendas of social democrats, christian democrats, green party and liberal party (which isn't liberal in the American meaning of the word) only differ marginally. AfD literally stands for "Alternative for Germany" and that's the image they are trying to groom: Them as the only group that isn't part of the big mainstream-leftist-PC unity party.

Well there is some, if only a bit, of truth to that. There was a big change in the 1970's for the Democratic Party, which seemed to somewhat move away from the idea of breaking up the consolidation of economic power among banks and adopt a similar stance to Republicans.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-democrats-killed-their-populist-soul/504710/

[Yojinbo]

AfD is a special case because a.) they're a new party and b.) they have changed considerably from where they've started. They moved from moderate conservative to completely populist only one or two years ago.

[Res]

What I am is part of the Israeli working class (I have been a line cook for almost 3 years) and we feel the same (the only difference is that our right wing populist literally spits on conservatism) as the American/Canadian/British working classes.

You know pretty much everyone you speak up against is also a member of the working class? The rich are really quite a tiny minority of people and they're off in their own stratosphere most of the time, anyway. Who do you think you're addressing? The middle class? (Unlikely, when you're addressing the younger age groups). People on welfare? You'll have to be more specific since 'part of the working class' defines pretty much everyone in this forum, from what I've seen.

I personally have been trying to take myself out of this forum because this place has gotten pretty toxic

You call trans people sub-human, you gloat and you give the middle finger, and you say it's so toxic you're thinking of leaving? Like, every view you've espoused has criticized the left for being too sensitive...

I personally am unlikely to suffer under Trump/Pence. In fact, if they promise to do what they've said they do, I might even be better off, because my taxes would be lowered. So what do you think I have that you don't also have that would be my motivation for wanting Trump?

[ping]

AfD is a special case because a.) they're a new party and b.) they have changed considerably from where they've started. They moved from moderate conservative to completely populist only one or two years ago.

Eh, they started to throw out the lure towards the right pretty early. It's true that they've thrown out the last parts of moderation rather recently, but I do remember Lucke (one of the founders who got bullied out later) using rather questionable vocabulary (e.g. degenerate to descibe the current political system) and then being oh so surprised that saw any connections to neo-nazi vocabulary.

But whether or not we can agree on this, their claim to be the only party outside of the big unity party was part of their strategy from the very beginning.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Yes.

I was struggling to find the words yesterday, because I do understand the issues people've had with the democratic party and with Clinton. I understand wanting to protest. But voting for Trump is still a vote against anyone who isn't white or straight, regardless of your personal views/problems. My sister-in-law wrote this yesterday, which I largely agree with:

I am very sympathetic to our much-essayed poor white rural voters who are scared and desperate. I have tried to tell liberal friends who sneer about idiot rednecks to read Hillbilly Elegy, to point out that condescending to people who are genuinely struggling and have no easy way out isn’t making things better, to discuss ways in which liberal policies had unintended side effects that were making the issues they tried to solve worse.

But the poor white rural voters – as well as, more significantly, the middle-class and wealthier voters who make up a higher proportion of Trump supporters than poor voters - have chosen to elevate themselves by stepping on someone else’s neck. They are doing it deliberately, because they believe someone’s neck has to be stepped on (understandable: this has been true for most of the history of the world) and they’d rather it not be them.

I have read so many well-intending people talk about how you shouldn’t be upset with friends for voting for Trump and shouldn’t unfriend them (THE HORROR) and need to reach out with compassion them in order to move forward. It is true that to reach genuine understanding, both “sides” must reach out. That means Trump supporters need to extend to us the same compassion we have been told to extend to them, and they have not.

This bizarre presentation of white Trump voters (again, not as overwhelmingly poor and jobless they’re made out to be in so many editorials) as these fragile beings whom anti-Trumpers must coddle is just as condescending as liberals deriding them as ignorant rednecks. They are humans. They are humans who have made a choice to hurt other humans.

Nazis were humans who made the choice to hurt other humans. Oooh, look at how I tied that together in a super subtle way! It’s great to say everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and we should respect it but there are a few thousand years of history showing us that sometimes people do, in fact, hurt and kill others because of their opinions. And those people almost never think they do what they do out of hatred or racism or sexism, only to survive.

They are not doing this from ignorance of the consequences – they know what Donald Trump is, how he behaves, and they approve of it.

Holy shit this right here.

I live in a pretty rural area and really progressive thinking isnt exactly the majority here (except for on environmental issues). The reasons why rural people voted this way wasnt just because they didnt know any better, its because they dont realize they too, wil be victimized by their own ideologies. Those voters dont realize they are dooming their children because they will not be afford to pay health care if Trump's appeals happen. They dont realize their food stamps will be taken away and they wont be able to eat. They just angry because they feel like theres no jobs for them anymore. And they seem really fucking stubborn as to why that is and how to fix it. These people do not need to be coddled, they need to be educated. And the establishment fucking failed them on that score, loads over. Racism? Sexism? Its not them, so they dont care. They really, honestly dont majority of the time. Or just dont understand how it feels to be THAT marginalized. Its why even those who arent inherently bigoted are shrugging and saying "he will do positive things for this country."

Yeah i fail to see how to be quite honest.

and I've seen more anti-liberal rhetoric from my friends on the left than my friends on the right

This is happening all over the place. Many progressives voted third party and are getting reamed to pieces for it. I agreed that it was a bad idea to do that this year, but reaming them for it is rather pointless. And im not reaming Trump supporters i know either. (shocking, i know.) Im asking them all W H Y. Like in their own words. And i tell them that they need to understand why people are so outraged. I want to understand what drove otherwise good people to vote for hate.

[Radiant head]

As a liberal who has become increasingly disgusted with our behavior over the past 5-6 years, I feel like this movement is the result of our arrogance and the lack of empathy towards people who express different views to us, who we are too eager to dismiss with ridicule and condemnation, which in turn breeds feeling of hatred and spite. A small part of me is actually glad that Trump won, simply because it popped that bubble of liberal smugness that we've had for a long time.

dang, yeah i feel this post. some time last year i started distancing myself from that liberal bubble because i was realizing how toxic it is. this article sums it up.

i also realized how there's a clear difference between liberalism, which has proven now to be a really dangerous and enabling of the far right, and actually left-wing politics that bernie sanders was introducing in the mainstream for the first time. going to be really politically active now, feels like i kind of have to. democrats are going to need to go through some major transformation and a real left has to emerge to fight back.

[UNLEASH IT]

dang, yeah i feel this post. some time last year i started distancing myself from that liberal bubble because i was realizing how toxic it is. this article sums it up.

i also realized how there's a clear difference between liberalism, which has proven now to be a really dangerous and enabling of the far right, and actually left-wing politics that bernie sanders was introducing in the mainstream for the first time. going to be really politically active now, feels like i kind of have to. democrats are going to need to go through some major transformation and a real left has to emerge to fight back.

Yeah, I actually just realized that as well, from Res' post.

[Phoenix Wright]

I hope you're talking about Clinton here because Trump was brutally honest during his entire campaign.

really depends what you mean by brutally honest. if you mean lying about nearly every "fact" to push an anti-pc agenda and incite violence, then indeed brutally honest is a good way to describe it.

[Radiant head]

It's worth pointing out that a lot of these so-called right populist parties actually cater to left-wing ideals quite heavily in europe. In France, Front National's party program, for instance, is full of calls for socialization to the point where economically they actually stand left of the reigning Socialist Party. Part of the austrian FPÖ's recent election program has been about the introduction of a minimum wage of ~1500€/month and the german NPD, among several other right populists and extremeists, are openly anti-capitalistic - often far more so than left-wing parties.

That's why a lot of voters in europe are moving from social democrat parties to right populists. So it's not so much that people are increasingly assume a right-extreme ideology as much as they've been abandoned by the moderate left and helplessly exposed to the EU's heavy-handedly oppresive neoliberalism.

Yeah, hate to invoke godwin here, but there's a reason why hitler's party was called national socialists. fascism is all about reappropriating left-wing rhetoric to get the same kind of popular support, but it does the opposite of liberating and scapegoats minorities and poor people instead of the people actually doing the exploiting.

not saying trump is literally fascist, but at the same time i'm not interested in getting bogged down in the details here because the broader point about far right populist movements remains the same.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Radiant head

[Res]

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/09/democrats-trump-and-the-ongoing-dangerous-refusal-to-learn-the-lesson-of-brexit

found this article that goes pretty well with what you said, honestly this is really something that should be discussed more, but in the emotion of the times I doubt anyone will really have the sense to give it some good thought.

I can understand wanting change, I can understand hating the establishment, I think the U.S. political system is a complete farce, and both parties are a shambles.

I just couldn't prioritize any of that over LGBT+/women's/etc. rights.

dang, yeah i feel this post. some time last year i started distancing myself from that liberal bubble because i was realizing how toxic it is. this article sums it up.

i also realized how there's a clear difference between liberalism, which has proven now to be a really dangerous and enabling of the far right, and actually left-wing politics that bernie sanders was introducing in the mainstream for the first time. going to be really politically active now, feels like i kind of have to. democrats are going to need to go through some major transformation and a real left has to emerge to fight back.

I read that article yesterday and was really liking it up until it turned smug itself (the last 6th or so) and painted disenfranchised Trump voters as being poor and country, which the polls are disproving.

But yeah, I'll be aiming to be more politically active!

Edited November 11, 2016 by Res

[Radiant head]

I just couldn't prioritize any of that over LGBT+/women's/etc. rights.

hillary was definitely the lesser evil in this election. but our perspective/bubble is necessarily much different from the perspective of downtrodden people in detroit who hear trump is going to fix our trade deals that screwed them over while hillary doesn't hide she'll be more of the same. for those people, their economic situation is so bad that the social issues (see how many white women voted trump) are either less relevant or they're misinformed due to being in their own bubble from us.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Radiant head

[Loki Laufeyson]

dang, yeah i feel this post. some time last year i started distancing myself from that liberal bubble because i was realizing how toxic it is. this article sums it up.

i also realized how there's a clear difference between liberalism, which has proven now to be a really dangerous and enabling of the far right, and actually left-wing politics that bernie sanders was introducing in the mainstream for the first time. going to be really politically active now, feels like i kind of have to. democrats are going to need to go through some major transformation and a real left has to emerge to fight back.

Yarr. Liberalism vs Progressive is basically what its boiling down to. And the left in the US is now realizing this and its making us all really stop and think. One of my friends was being really obnoxious during the race about this. I hate to admit he was right lmao. He went Stein because he couldnt bring himself to vote Clinton. (i couldnt bring myself to vote third party because of the stakes. Otherwise, i would have.)

Yeah, hate to invoke godwin here, but there's a reason why hitler's party was called national socialists. fascism is all about reappropriating left-wing rhetoric to get the same kind of popular support, but it does the opposite of liberating and scapegoats minorities and poor people instead of the people actually doing the exploiting.

not saying trump is literally fascist, but at the same time i'm not interested in getting bogged down in the details here because the broader point about far right populist movements remains the same.

Sweden Democrats. COUGH yee that is a thing and it confuses me, but its a very real thing. Its one of the reasons why socialism is still a dirty word in the US.

I can understand wanting change, I can understand hating the establishment, I think the U.S. political system is a complete farce, and both parties are a shambles.

I just couldn't prioritize any of that over LGBT+/women's/etc. rights.

I read that article yesterday and was really liking it up until it turned smug itself (the last 6th or so) and painted disenfranchised Trump voters as being poor and country, which the polls are disproving.

But yeah, I'll be aiming to be more politically active.

I agree. Especially when i heard my brother talk about his former boss, a man he considered his friend, basically berate him and people like him (working class people who were really in the right place at the right time) as basically garbage. Touting on about how people who cannot afford health care do not deserve it. This man makes a high six figure income. Its not just the poor at all. And its not just minorities catching shit from the hard right either. Its really scary.

[Res]

hillary was definitely the lesser evil in this election. but our perspective/bubble is necessarily much different from the perspective of downtrodden people in detroit who hear trump is going to fix our trade deals that screwed them over while hillary doesn't hide she'll be more of the same. for those people, their economic situation is so bad that the social issues (see how many white women voted trump) are either less relevant or they're misinformed due to being in their own bubble from us.

Again, though, Hillary won out amongst the poorest voters. On a personal level, the few Trump supporters on my newsfeed are all better off than me, financially speaking.

Also, totally not relevant, but I'm having seriously bad deja vu over here, haha.

[Radiant head]

interesting, didn't know that. i was aware though that trump's support wasn't as working class as the liberal media tried to make it. still though, would have made a difference in michigan and ohio.

[UNLEASH IT]

Again, though, Hillary won out amongst the poorest voters. On a personal level, the few Trump supporters on my newsfeed are all better off than me, financially speaking.

Also, totally not relevant, but I'm having seriously bad deja vu over here, haha.

By chance, because I really don't know here, but what was the racial background of these poor voters?

[XeKr]

I think it's notable Feingold ran worse than Clinton in WI, so don't automatically assume progressive/left-wing populism is the answer.

edit: I guess you can argue Ron Johnson is stronger than Trump, but still. Not looking like the working class people are loving socialist-style answers right now.

Edited November 11, 2016 by XeKr

[Radiant head]

i won't claim to know much about how well received left-politics would be (though I have friends who campaigned for bernie in michigan and wisconsin and said that the people they talked to were always conflicted between trump and sanders), but the reality of the situation is that the left has to start providing real answers to the gripes of people who voted for trump, and stuff like "well trade deals are complicated" isn't going to cut it anymore, and that's what bernie did (who iirc won the michigan and wisconsin primaries).

and hillary was ultimately way too focused on trump being offensive (which is deserved don't get me wrong) but didn't sufficiently attack his actual economic message which is what gave him his voter base.

[UNLEASH IT]

If a certain demographic of people believe themselves to be marginalized and nothing is being done to help them, it really shouldn't be surprising if they act out in protest, regardless of what race they might be. What white people did here is not really is not really different from the BLM movement, with both having extremist crazies that people use to ignorantly generalize the entire group. Also, I have to make another apology, since I've been spending all this time confusing the terms liberal and progressive.

Edited November 11, 2016 by UNLEASH IT

[Res]

If a certain demographic of people believe themselves to be marginalized and nothing is being done to help them, it really shouldn't be surprising if they act out in protest, regardless of what race they might be. What white people did here is not really is not really different from the BLM movement, with both having extremist crazies that people use to ignorantly generalize the entire group. Also, I have to make another apology, since I've been spending all this time confusing the terms liberal and progressive.

I've thought of quite a bit to say but I probably won't have the opportunity to write it all up until tomorrow so I'll ask a similar question to what I asked Life, albeit for different reasons: given that polls haven't really indicated that people voted for Trump for primarily economic reasons, are they really lashing out and for what reason - what are they being denied/threatened by?

I do maintain that I'm seeing systemic/unconscious racism/religious (abortion/anti-gay marriage) reasons more than economic and I'm also seeing that for many, it wasn't so much a vote of protest as a vote of ordinary republicanism above all else.

That is to say, I'm not really seeing the extremism - just the usual conservatism.

I also don't think BLM is an apt comparison but that's a whoooole other discussion. :)

Edited November 11, 2016 by Res

[UNLEASH IT]

I've thought of quite a bit to say but I probably won't have the opportunity to write it all up until tomorrow so I'll ask a similar question to what I asked Life, albeit for different reasons: given that polls haven't really indicated that people voted for Trump for primarily economic reasons, are they really lashing out and for what reason - what are they being denied/threatened by?

I do maintain that I'm seeing systemic/unconscious racism/religious (abortion/anti-gay marriage) reasons more than economic and I'm also seeing that for many, it wasn't so much a vote of protest as a vote of ordinary republicanism above all else.

That is to say, I'm not really seeing the extremism - just the usual conservatism.

I also don't think BLM is an apt comparison but that's a whoooole other discussion. :)

I still disagree with this, since the states that ultimately cost Clinton this election are states that Obama won by notable margins in both 2008 and 2012. What did Clinton exactly do to lose support from these people?

[Time the Crestfallen]

I still disagree with this, since the states that ultimately cost Clinton this election are states that Obama won by notable margins in both 2008 and 2012. What did Clinton exactly do to lose support from these people?

There' some valid discussion on how the DNC didn't do themselves any favours, but I do see a lot of rather shoddy comparisons and opinions that, while valid, don't cover the fact that Trump did have major support from racists/misogynists/whatnot. To put it simply, not every Trump voter is a racist misogynist, but every racist misogynist was a Trump voter. Just look up any sort of opinion polling and you'll find some pretty disgusting percentages amongst Trump supporters.

[UNLEASH IT]

There' some valid discussion on how the DNC didn't do themselves any favours, but I do see a lot of rather shoddy comparisons and opinions that, while valid, don't cover the fact that Trump did have major support from racists/misogynists/whatnot. To put it simply, not every Trump voter is a racist misogynist, but every racist misogynist was a Trump voter. Just look up any sort of opinion polling and you'll find some pretty disgusting percentages amongst Trump supporters.

I agree that racists formed a major portion of Trump supporters, but I still feel like the idea portrayed in the media that every Trump supporter was a racist has led us to where we are at the moment and if we continue with this mindset, he can very well win a second term.

Edited November 11, 2016 by UNLEASH IT

[Time the Crestfallen]

I agree that racists formed a major portion of Trump supporters, but I still feel like the idea portrayed in the media that every Trump supporter was a racist has led us to where we are at the moment and if we continue with this mindset, he can very well win a second term.

I dunno, the media played a part but I think the beginning of the end was when it came to light that the DNC snubbed Sanders in favour of their chosen one Hillary.