Is the West Experiencing a Right-Wing Drift?

Sweeping Win for Cameron in Britain: Conservative Party Secures Majority

Netanyahu’s new government is more right, more religious than last

Liberal Party in charge in Australia, Conservative Party in Canada.

Lawmakers in France Move to Vastly Expand Surveillance

And if so, why?

I don't think so. The United States has a president, who, for all that leftists dislike him, is probably the most left-wing President since the 1970s. In England, the Conservative majority will be smaller than the center-right Conservative-LD coalition that was in charge before, and my sense is that the massive swing from Scottish Labour to SNP is in no way a move to the right. In Canada, NDP just took over one of the most conservative provinces in the country, and Liberals are polling way better than they were back in 2011 when Harper won his current majority; I don't think people are projecting he'll keep that majority in the upcoming election. I don't know much about Australia or France.

I don't think so either. Bibi's coalition not likely to last long, US drifting towards the left afaict. Europe's rightward drift seems largely driven by xenophobia (always with the petty regionalism/nationalism over there) which is sad to watch.

I don't think Canada is more right-wing that it was 10 or 20 years ago. It's just that the more left-leaning vote is split between two parties. Also the Liberals have had terrible leadership in the last decade or so.

The conservatives have been pretty good at keeping everyone together and keeping internal dissent to a minimum.

based on comments in this thread obv the answer is "hell yes"

XP xenophobia of Scots towards the english, maybe

other answer is "because the further right we go the further right people think of as 'left wing'"

Renzi's performance in the Euro elections seemed significant. Huge victory for pro-austerity leader who was thought to be much more divisive. It's mostly fiscal conservatism on the rise in Europe. Despite the growth of the far right the mainstream tends to be more socially liberal I think.

dont forget Greece lol

I guess if you look at the actual governments in place, they are more right-wing, but that feels more like the left not getting their shit together rather than the actual people being more conservative. I don't know. We probably don't have the best systems for electing governments.

XP xenophobia of Scots towards the english, maybe

You're making the assumption that people who vote SNP are nationalists... for a start.

just playing with the yanks tom

Suspected as much, but I remember them having difficulty understanding the concept to left wing nationalists during the referendum, bless 'em.

concept of

theyre some craic hey

The United States has a president, who, for all that leftists dislike him, is probably the most left-wing President since the 1970s

lol, picked that decade due to that anarchist Jimmy Carter? (who ruled out reparations to Vietnam because "the destruction was mutual")

the last liberal POTUS was a man named Lyndon Johnson.

both houses of congress and most of the state houses in the u.s. are controlled by a class of republicans who are probably the most right-wing major faction in america since the southern democrats of the antebellum era. i think the u.s. actually is drifting to the left in a lot of ways, but it's not always perceptible in our elections.

it seems hard to dispute that obama's the most progressive president since johnson, his foreign policy's certainly better.

yeah idk if electorates are drifting right as much as right-wing oligarchs are just tightening their reigns of power

xp

xp

well that's a high raw body count to match even when you bomb 7 Muslim countries

and have prosecuted more whistleblowers than all the other presidents in history

and

"progressive" sure is a versatile word is all im sayin'

I don't think Canada is more right-wing that it was 10 or 20 years ago. It's just that the more left-leaning vote is split between two parties.

Why do people always say this? The NDP has been around since 1961; before it, the CCF was winning seats in federal elections since 1935. The Liberals still managed to thoroughly dominate Canada in the 20th century, even with a single 'united' PC or Conservative party until the 90s.

In terms of economic policy, I still think the Liberals of the 90s were at least as right-wing as any other post-war federal government. I actually feel like the mood is shifting left these days (which the AB election demonstrates).

I specified "10 or 20 years" specifically because I didn't really follow politics before that. I think the fact that there were multiple right-wing parties in the 90s is a pretty significant reason as to why the Liberals were able to win elections with such large majorities back then.

Here in Quebec it definitely feels like we have shifted to the right. Every successive Liberal leader has been more right-wing than his predecessor.

The West is definitely rightward leaning. The US left is more or less non-existent, beholden to the same corporate interests as the right. They dangle civil rights issues like gay marriage as a carrot to voters, because they know without those issues, nothing much separates their war-and-banks-driven governmental style from the right's. The hope that Obama will close gitmo is certainly worth more monetarily than him actually closing it down.

The question is: is this a recent development or a general tendency of US representative democracy? I suppose it began as representing mainly the interests of those who could legally vote (white male landowners/oligarchs), which you could say is a rightward position. Since then women have been granted the vote and minorities as well, but is their vote worth the same as the oligarchs that have always monopolized representation? No way in hell.

Perhaps in a way we have become more socially liberal, but the systems of control and oppression are working against that development in a way that greatly negates it. Corporate personhood imo continues to devalue "free speech" and the spits at the virtue of representative democracy.

Going by Wiki numbers, the combined popular vote of the Reform and PC parties was still less than the Liberals' share of the popular vote in the 93 and 97 elections. The combined total of the Alliance's and PCs' share of the popular vote in 2000 was just under the Liberals' share and was well under the combined total of the Liberals and NDP. (I also doubt that all PC voters would have chosen the Alliance over the Liberals if they had to choose. Clark himself preferred the Liberals.) King's, St. Laurent's, Pearson's, and Pierre Trudeau's Liberals all managed to win elections (after elections) despite facing left-wing competition.

I get resentful about 'vote-splitting' arguments for a few reasons but especially because I feel that they are usually made by Liberals to unfairly marginalize/minimize/accuse any progressive alternative.

The Liberals lost in 2006 because they were corrupt, arrogant, and entitled. They haven't managed to convince the voting public since then.

for the record, I agree with you re: vote-splitting. I don't want any kind of NDP/Liberals merger and will most likely vote NDP in the next election.

Still, I think it's difficult to argue that the Conservatives being the only viable party right of center doesn't benefit them enormously, allowing them to form majority governments despite not being able to get beyond 40% support.

The real problem is a lack of any kind of proportional representation.

I don't have the nuanced take on what is left wing, probably a bit dated & old fashioned. Indiscriminately killing civilians with drones and police does throw up some red flags though

most nuanced take

It is all shifted right in the context of most other Western countries.

it seems hard to dispute that obama's the most progressive president since johnson

Obama Lashes Out at Liberal Foes of Pacific Trade Deal
By PETER BAKER 3:07 PM ET
At Nike headquarters in Oregon, the president lashed out at critics within his own party, accusing Democrats of deliberately distorting the impact of the trade agreement he is negotiating with Asia.

i didn't think it'd be terribly controversial to say that obama was more progressive than carter or clinton. but yes i'm aware that the guy isn't bernie sanders.

you are also aware some people never get tired of criticizing him

I don't think the left's popularity is waning. It's just that their appeal is becoming more selective.

http://i.imgur.com/OGFBhT3.jpg

Here in Quebec it definitely feels like we have shifted to the right. Every successive Liberal leader has been more right-wing than his predecessor.

― silverfish, Friday, May 8, 2015 2:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not only that, but like in many places across the West, our de facto left wing party has slowly and steadily become right wing.

love the passive voice thread question

plz put the q in active voice for me

present progressive, not passive

de facto left wing party

Had sort of a hollow lol when I realized that this probably refers to the PQ.

h/t the donald trump thread

https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_MxkTUjnGeBaoavzdNapdX_UqkI=/1600x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4082854/Figure_7_.0.png

I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "shift in the percentage replying..." -- e.g. if 1000 respondents were surveyed from the United States in 1995 and 50 said "good or very good" then, does the chart mean that the number/1000 increased to 55 in 2014, or does it mean it increased to 150?

i.e. are we talking percent change or percentage point change?

the way i understand it, if in 1955 20% said army rule is good, and then in 2015 30% said so, there would be an increase of 10%? does that make sense?

btw i think the premise of this thread is true more than ever right now.

I don't think there's an overall rightward drift in the US. I do think there's a rightward drift on the right.

xp that makes sense, as long as that's what vox means

btw i think the premise of this thread is true more than ever right now.

― Mordy

I dunno. hard to say. to play devil's advocate:

likelihood is the United States will elect a democrat next year for the third election in a row.

Canada just voted out the conservatives in an election where the conservatives purposefully used wedge issues and stoked islamophobia as a vote-winning tactic.

The ruling party the conservative PP in Spain failed to return a majority in the election on Sunday.

I do think there's a rightward drift on the right.

^^^this

otoh france has moved so far to the right that the socialists had to throw their support behind the republicans to keep the national front out of power

Good interview.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-uncertain-outcomes-of-emmanuel-macrons-election-maneuver

Update: it's now official, in a just-released communiqué Macron has rejected a government led by the New Popular Front (NPF).

It's an unprecedented situation in the history of the 5th French Republic: the loser in the election effectively rejects yielding power to the winner.… https://t.co/MP39ccYbpf pic.twitter.com/Tj8yvkD0Rr

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) August 26, 2024

He's in talks with the far right apparently.

talk social democracy, do fascism. that be the way of these cunts

Oof....

Germany’s far right is on course to win the most votes in a state election for the first time since the Nazi era.

no territory has been more charted but ok pic.twitter.com/BNGu6IhH26

— Farah-Silvana Kanaan (@farahkanaan) September 2, 2024

AfD loses blocking minority by one (1) seat. pic.twitter.com/S5H1F302uO

— New Left EViews (@NewLeftEViews) September 2, 2024

just a a note here
i'm a digital packrat (something that i'm finding to be more and more important these days as restrictions on what hegemonous sites enact increasing restrictions on what can and can't make available), but when i'm going down rabbitholes i typically do it in private windows, because i'm afraid yt will start feeding me fash shit that will upset me

i'm not as worried about that anymore. partly because i am, i think, more resilient to transphobic narratives. also, though, because subjectively i feel like youtube's management is... i'll say siloing content better. you _can_ get sucked into a right-wing echo chamber pretty quickly by clicking on a certain sort of political video, but this time, i actually found myself being sucked into left-wing content. this is good because i want to actively engage with certain kinds of left-wing content!

from what i can tell what got me there this time was looking for evangelion shitposts. watching the "king of the hill" parody of the evangelion OP will, apparently, click the hidden switch to tell you that you're a leftie. i'm actually getting better recommendations from this fresh browse than i am from my logged-in account, which heavily prioritizes the stuff i've already seen and have watched before - stuff i'll self-effacingly characterize as "boomer shit". oh, hey, st. vincent has some new content on her channel! that's great. but youtube _isn't_ going to recommend me femtanyl. actually i'm gonna watch stream some femtanyl shit in my main channel. we're talking peak transfem furry zoomer hypergarbage. they're huge around the people i know. from toronto, played PDX recently but i didn't go because i was too depressed and worn out from my shitty job to leave the house.

anyway the more stuff i watch the harder it is to disrupt the stuff the "algo" feeds me. particularly since i do most of my exploration logged out from temporary private browsing sessions. hmmm. maybe i'll login to my account on this session and see if it updates my recs. that would be cool.

yep. that seems to have done it, i'm now getting machine girl and sewerslvt recs in my feed alongside moldy fig "play for today" eps.

anyway. a young man with a cowboy hat and chest hair is telling me that "reagan" is the worst movie of 2024. i'm now getting interesting "popular" videos that i typically miss, like "why are bowling animations so weird?" and "the forgotten victims of 'SJW Freakouts'" (the scare quotes tell me that this is a leftist video).

btw, when i search "femtanyl" youtube does suggest that there is help and gives me a hotline number to call. i mean fair. probably more people search "femtanyl" because they're despairing and looking for fent than they do because they're looking for dope queer furry beats. i'd definitely call my E "femtanyl" because i think it's funny except i know people would think i was actually taking fent. (is "fent" boomer slang now? i don't know, there's all this alpha stuff now that i don't get. young people have started looking me funny when i compliment their "drip". am i using it wrong, or is it just "old person using young person words is cringe"?)

my point is it used to be that no matter what i did yt steered me towards fash content, and now yt is actually steering me towards young people talking about how capitalism is bullshit. i like this.

Fucking hell this Macron cunt.

Playing with fire

Fucking awful

Only reason Barnier is PM now is because it suits Marine. What a fucking joke.

Trying to recall who won the recent election hmm

a minority of people voted for EU/market imposed austerity and they are the winners. Love democracy.

Barnier should have just faded away and left only happy memories of his snippy condescension towards the Tory govt during their Brexit agonies

Side note: If there are new elections in 2025 or 2026, this all makes it harder to see a repeat of voter front against RN — boosting them.

(This is about voters. But also: Attal will no longer be in prominent role he was in July; & Macron won't be one pushing this on his side.)

— Taniel (@Taniel) September 5, 2024

Austrian far-right election win, sounds not good

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/29/far-right-freedom-party-winning-austrian-election-first-results-show

I have been a little puzzled by the news on this, reports spoke of "record" results (I also read "political earthquake") and made parallels with the AfD in Germany. But the FPÖ was already several times the first party in Austria, they were already in government, and they predate AfD by a long shot. Haider is 25 years ago, the Kurz coalition was with FPÖ... They've been as stable as such groups can be, hovering between 25-30%, and this time it sounds like they might not enter government and will be stuck in the opposition. At least the ÖVP seemed to be rather in a celebratory mode in spite of coming second and losing 11%. To be seen if they can quickly gather a coalition in yet another polarized political landscape...

Still crazy / depressing that they managed 28.8% with a video of their members singing a Nazi anthem at a funeral published two days before the election.

Good piece (warning: Marxist language).

The drift to the far-right are a set of tired, stagnant moves, 'experiments' with parties. The left can only hope for a bit of social democracy. Neither of which are allowed in a post deindustrialised landscape which produces no growth and productivity.

https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/52531/unpacking-working-class-reaction

Do think effects of climate change are the void in this piece, and maybe where the analysis falls off.

this is very accurate to my lived experience with my french father-in-law, former communist, union member etc. he has voted lepen a couple of times but it's a sour act of individual repudiation of 'elites', it's not as if he is all-in on her programme.

Demobilization thus gets mistaken for remobilization — working-class voters are experimenting with new parties, but the main response is a mixture of apathy and retreat, not rebellious defection. Even those voters who migrate to the Right, thereby feeding the optical illusion of a general switch, usually have much weaker ties with those new extreme-right parties than they used to have with their previous left-wing outfits (a pattern clearly visible in the North of France, where Le Pen has taken former Communist strongholds, and in eastern Germany). There, the vote for the extreme right is a secretive, private, individual affair, not an explicit engagement — more passive-aggressive than active, more informal than formal.

i would really like to see a kind of ontological mapping of this region:

a growing army of far-right social media entrepreneurs

because this is an absolutely massive part of why all these old people are voting for far right parties. they wind up brainwormed by endless youtube channels of slickly produced, seemingly trustworthy content, and it's like 60% conspiracy theories, 10% antisemitism, 20% actual relevant critiques of big business and uncaring government policies, and 10% hairspray and fake tans.

my FIL watches this stuff for many hours every day, sitting at his computer, in the laundry room. re: immigration he will say something like, there are too many people coming to this country, and when he gets pushed back on he'll say you don't understand, it's because there is no onfrastructure for them, no support for them, how are they supposed to get a job etc.

I thought this quote was bang-on:

By trying to represent normality and stability, the Democratic Party threatens to become the party of the status quo in a country where the status quo feels increasingly untenable.

what is the union movement lot up there? bc imo quite a few of these tattered remnants of the left are starting to reanimate. all the positive steps i can see are taking place outside of electoral politics

lot = like?

Since the provinces are in charge of labour laws, it’s not really a great scene afaict. I’m in management, so I’m the enemy, & don’t have much contact with the shop floor. Public employees and industrial workers at least typically have union representation, but when I was working as an electrician in construction everyone I knew was staunchly anti-union. I don’t think there’s much in the way of a “movement.” If anything, the working class is even more solidly brainwashed here than in the US. There’s less than no class consciousness here — possibly stemming partly from the social democracy shielding us a bit from the worst of capitalist abuses and inequality (though that state of affairs is starting to crumble). It’s all culture war, no class war.

I do see a bit of motion in the kinds of community organizing, mutual aid type stuff among Gen Z, but nothing as yet that feels like a real movement. Maybe I’m just not paying close enough attention.

I was an executive in a private-sector union in Vancouver. My coworkers as a whole only liked the union if they perceived it as protecting their benefits, and were pretty resistant to any lectures on lefty stuff. I think there is interest in unionizing from younger people, and 29% of all employees in BC are unionized, which I think is much higher than even in blue states in the US.

HD is OTM about how frustrations with centrist nominally left govt (like we have federally and provincially) lead voters to embrace lunacy. I would push back on BC being Canada's California, we've had long periods of right-wing parties with different names in power. The NDP have only won when the right-wing vote is split, with maybe the last mid-Covid election in 2020 as the only exception.

Re-reading this thread right now and I'm not surprised by anything that's happened since.

I remember this thread as having been, like, from twenty years ago, that's how it feels

Least favorite Fast and Furious sequel

I’m going with “yes”

Prepare yourself for a lot more of this ... in Germany this time.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/07/olaf-scholz-faces-calls-for-immediate-confidence-vote-after-coalition-collapses-german

This is what that parliament is passing.

🟡 BREAKING: Germany passed a new resolution that seeks to punish criticism of Israel with withdrawal of citizenship. Here’s what you need to know. pic.twitter.com/PCSDRcoSB6

— red. (@redstreamnet) November 7, 2024

jesus fucking christ

I was just reading about this Die Linke breakoff "left-conservative" German party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahra_Wagenknecht_Alliance

Their views seem contemptible overall, but they appear to be the only political force in Germany that views any criticism of Israel's actions as legitimate.

anti-woke anti-anti-Deutsch

I went to check that motion because the news in FRE/ENG did not mention the citizenship thing, and neither did the German branch of Amnesty International.

So the motion says (in the passage that talks about citizenship): "The National Strategy against Anti-Semitism and for Jewish Life must be fully and implemented in a sustainable manner. This includes, among other things, ‘closing gaps in the law and consistently utilising repressive options’ (NASAS, P. 39). This applies in particular to criminal law as well as residence, asylum and nationality law in order to ensure that anti-Semitism is combated as effectively as possible. The German Bundestag welcomes the fact that the Federal Government has already tackled this issue." (DeepL translation)

Which refers to a previous reform introduced in June of this year, which adds questions on Germany's responsibility in the Shoah and the recognition of the state of Israel in the process of access to citizenship. (To note that access to citizenship has otherwise been facilitated, for ex Germany used to ask non-EU people to renounce their other nationalities, and therefore the reform has been criticized by the right).

good check. here's an article about that other law: https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/europe/german-citizens-israel-right-to-exist-intl/index.html

this discussion probably belongs on the other thread. Canada is also passing the bullshit IHRA definition.

Romanians love a bit of Hitler too

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dlw5pq967o

That's one read, but a 51% turnout also says something

Need an update on Macrons politics please:

Les mots banalement mais ouvertement racistes de Macron soulignent que ses politiques racistes (frontières mortelles, traitement des sans papiers, islamophobie, violences policières…) ne le sont ni par accident ni par simple calcul politicien, mais par idéologie, par conviction. pic.twitter.com/PUC1i80gmN

— Olivier Lek-Lafferrière 🚩 (@Ol_Laff) December 19, 2024

Le Monde piece says he used an anti-Arab slur while giving an interview to a far right magazine and the Elysée got that cut out?!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GfL4uGpXcAAKfXr?format=png&name=medium

I don't think Macron does anything out of ideology or conviction. Obviously, when he judges it in his interest lick the fascist arse, that's exactly what he does.

yeah the 2 articles (out of 4) that have come out in le monde clearly paint the picture of a guy who’s willing to say anything and its opposite later if it’s useful for him. as well as being a treacherous asshole.
between saying rabzouze, being ultra friendly with a far right mag editor, his quote about emergency care being filled to the brim with mamadous, the homophobic chats with his buddies etc… I’m starting to believe he was truthful when he said he was neither right nor left wing, because he’s actually far right.

this too

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/20/emmanuel-macron-swears-amid-furious-exchange-with-cyclone-hit-mayotte-islanders

Macron swears amid furious exchange with cyclone-hit Mayotte islanders
French president makes remark when confronted by residents still without water after huge storm last week

Rachel Savage Southern Africa correspondent and agencies
Fri 20 Dec 2024 16.24 GMT
Share
Emmanuel Macron swore during a furious exchange with residents of the cyclone-hit islands of Mayotte on Thursday night, telling a jeering crowd in the French territory: “If it wasn’t for France, you’d be 10,000 times deeper in shit.”

Cyclone Chido swept through Mayotte, which lies between Madagascar and Mozambique, on 14 December, destroying vital infrastructure and flattening many of the tin-roofed shacks that make up its large slums. Almost a week after its worst storm in 90 years, France’s poorest territory still has shortages of water.

This satellite image released by Maxar Technologies shows damage at the Dzaoudzi Port on the French Territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean after Cyclone Chido, on 16 December 2024.
Mayotte before and after: satellite images show destruction by Cyclone Chido
Read more
Throughout Thursday, the French president was confronted by angry Mahorais demanding to know why aid had not yet reached them. At one point he told a crowd: “You are happy to be in France. Because if it wasn’t France, I tell you, you would be 10,000 times deeper in shit. There is no other place in the Indian Ocean that has received this much help. That’s a fact.”

German attack suspect: “I can say from experience, everything that [Tommy] Robinson says, what Musk says, what Alex Jones says, or anyone who is called radical or right-wing extremist by mainstream media - they are telling the truth” https://t.co/fKwMyrXiXc

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) December 21, 2024

I have a FB/Discord friend who lives 2.5 k away from that market and goes there often. She wasn't there at the time, fortunately.

So a Saudi doctor granted asylum, blackpilled by US/UK anti immigration nut jobs ? What a weird world.

Seems like something of a nut job himself.

some additional context on Mayotte that i found interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4FVIIQ6sYQ