- cross-posted to:
- BoycottUnitedStates@europe.pub
- upliftingnews@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- BoycottUnitedStates@europe.pub
- upliftingnews@lemmy.world
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.
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I honestly don’t see a way out of this other than a war against the fascists. Something like the American civil war where the racists got their asses thoroughly beaten, or WWII, where the Nazis got absolutely crushed. I feel like it’s just one of those things that pops up once in a while. Basically, fascists are the herpes of society.
This American situation is partly the long tail of the failure of reconstruction; Confederates got their asses handed to them but they were never properly removed from power. Now the racists are once again in charge, their monuments still stand, their flag is still flown, and the southern strategy is central to their political power.
Compare this to Germany, who stripped Nazis from power, outlawed their symbols, and have guard rails to prevent fascist movements from rising again. (They are now being used against AfD.)
That combined with the fact that the US in many ways is a confederation jury rigged into a federation doesn’t help. Even if we killed every white person in the South after the civil war I suspect we would still be dealing with the same basil issues just with a different coat of paint. Most of the issues are caused by regional issues, proto-nationalism, and a failing Imperial identity.
While it’s true that tribalism is essentially a human, if not evolutionary trait, we could have made it damn near harder for fascists from gaining power. To start, stripping them from any political office (local or federal) and then banning them or any soldier that fought for the Confederacy.
States that seceded basically should have been converted to non-voting territories unless they agreed whole cloth to codify abolition into the Constitution, reparations to the North and to their slaves.
Exactly this. The Confederates should never have been allowed to rejoin society.
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Compare this to Germany, who stripped Nazis from power, outlawed their symbols, and have guard rails to prevent fascist movements from rising again. (They are now being used against AfD.)
Don’t know where you’re getting that from.
Most Nazis were never actually stripped from positions of power after the war (teachers, public services, our secret services, political parties, I could go on). Outlawing their symbols did fuck all obviously and isn’t even enforced as long as you don’t go around outright spraying swastikas on walls in broad daylight (or are an antifascist displaying one thrown into a bin, crossed out or otherwise clearly used with an opposing intention). The people in power are unwilling to use the guardrails and systems that we have to prevent Nazis from rising to power again. Meanwhile we have an extremism problem in our police force who won’t protect anybody from the mob when the time comes, and a “conservative” party that’s just always lagging 5 years behind the AfD in their policies, racing ever further to the right in their wind shadow.
We’re fucked.
Great news for ‘the rest of the world’ but I’d prefer not to deal with this shit here for 4 years as well god dammit.
That demotivator about your role in life serving as a teachable moment to others bites hard
Can we sequester him? In the dirt, please?
But the rise of the far right among the Western allies seems to be stalling out.
Sorry, wut??
Can’t imagine what in the screaming goat fuck would lead you to this conclusion other than pure blind idiocy…
🤷♂️ 🤡 🖕
Salon, huffpo, msnbc ffs. These are the hopium sites favored by the beaten left, because actual corporate journalism collapsed under it’s own ignorance and greed a long time ago.
The NYT will trot out a hopium piece every once in awhile like rainbow-flagging-the-logo for Pride month, but it’s all clickbait.
Who are you going to vote for in the midterms? The left needs to get its shit together. Propaganda, corruption, and blatant lies are kicking our ass.
The problem is that we don’t have a left party; the closest are the Democrats and they’re Republicans in all but name.
I don’t buy that. I think there are a number of old corporate Dems who need to get the boot. But that’s all up to the Democratic voters to do.
It’s not that complicated in principle, it’s just that complicated once one is out in the real world.
Copium is my preferred term.
The more cynical cousin of hopium.
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.
It’s not Trumpism, it’s fascism.
😂
Those things are, in fact, equivalent.
Squares are to rectangles as Trumpism is to fascism.
I think that - on a global scale - a fair amount of people has cause to be grateful to Trump. Whether it’s intended or not, he’s tearing down the current geopolitical statu quo and waking up people politically.
On the flipside, I do worry that we narrowly avoided the fire in order to stay in the pan, to subvert the old saying. Over in Canada, we reelected a party that has a lot of flaws, and that their defining benefit is “isn’t the conservative right”. I’m glad we avoided a conservative sweep, but let’s not pretend the shady opposition is significantly better.
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.
And has the world said thank you, even once?
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
No one is saying neoliberalism is as far right as fascism.
GP comment said exactly that though. Although they did throw in an “about”.
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%.
Ironically the crazy economic shitstorm that Trump made might just be the wakeup call the world needed. Hopefully he doesn’t get to reach the whole mass murder stage of his plans.
What might be scary is if America’s Auschwitz moment is revealed to be completely independent of administration. We’ve already heard many stories about ICE during each presidency, just that many details were hidden or unconfirmed.
It was the same way at the end of WW2. Even many Germans were aghast at what they’d been doing at the camps.
Isn’t that a bit problematic to say, though, in essence, you’re implying that Trump isn’t responsible for everything that’s going on, which is a ridiculous claim, because assuming that there is all of this going on, but it was hidden up until now and Trump is only revealing it is not just a conspiracy theory, but a very, very dangerous one.
Just to be clear, I am not praising other administrations. There has been a big problem in USA administrations for a long time. But I wouldn’t dare compare any recent administration to Trump’s latest and even his last administration.
I mean, you have to go where the evidence takes you, even if you don’t like the results. The best thing you could perhaps say about Biden or Obama, was simply that any of their direct participation in border patrol activities followed rule of law.
Generally, CBP/ICE has stayed above much direct scrutiny or supervision, and if an individual doesn’t have reporters, lawyers, or family asking after them (sometimes even then) a lot can be hidden even from administration.
It’s very likely Trump did not do much to “push” ICE’s behavior, he just enabled them, and they reward him by threatening his direct opponents.
Okay, show me the evidence. You are claiming that all trump did was enable them, when he is very clearly and publicly pushing a racist anti immigration agenda. Please show me how this and anyone else in recent years is the same.
Some context:
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c36e41dx425o
- https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/03/02/how-border-apprehensions-ice-arrests-and-deportations-have-changed-under-trump/
- https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/3266633/biden-did-not-abolish-ice-not-problem-democratic-party/
The basic idea is, while Trump aims for very visible rhetoric to inflame his racist base, ICE’s presence has still gone up regardless of which president is taking the chair. In fact, Biden beat Trump’s deportation numbers (and I’m sure given his ego, he aims to inflate that further, and finds due process one of his obstacles).
One thing that can be said is that when ICE has been in the news, it was never visibly aiming for cruelty under Democratic presidents. But that’s also only accounting for the cases that we know about. And, the last article points out how even through a full term, Biden not only failed to address the growing worries of cruel behavior within ICE, but built them a new quarter-billion-dollar headquarters.
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.
You have to wonder what infects the minds of people such that they fall for this in other countries.
I have a good idea what does it here.
To put it simply, the prosperity of Europeans and their descendants was paid for through the bloodshed of colonial exploitation. This created an inherently inequal world order.
The world has become more equal post WW2 and the descendants of the greatest beneficiaries of that exploitation are now displeased that they don’t hold the same advantages their ancestors did. That’s why we have to go back. That’s why we have to make _____ great again.
Most PoC can hear these dogwhistles (if you can even call them that) from a mile away.
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
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.
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.
Yes there are woefully evil regardless of education. Even if you tried to nurture them with better ideas they’d reject it.
Incels come to mind.
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.
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.
Even the dumbest person knows how to be kind to others. You don’t have to be smart to not want to wish ill upon others.
People vote for Trump purely because they want others to suffer more than they do. If you vote for someone who wants to deport “brown people” then you know fully he won’t be kind to them. If you vote for someone who wants to punish others for doing trade then you know fully well people will suffer. If you think being gay, trans or whatever is a disease and people should be punished for it then there is something very wrong with you.
I indeed have no sympathy for people who voted for Trump. If you voted for him you’re an asshole and just want people to suffer.
The trump voters I know of aren’t really people who want others to suffer. I am sure there are plenty who do of course. But ask why. The answer is that they have been fooled into thinking other people are effectively attacking thier way of life. Or that the people suffering are murderers and rapists. They simply don’t have the mental abilities to realize they have been fooled.
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.
I agree that “wisdom cannot flourish when we indulge foolishness.” So we need to change the system so that it does not indulge foolishness.
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
Social media really changed the playing field. It is much easier to inundate people with messaging and such that will fool a much greater part of the population. Yet the system hasn’t adjusted.
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full brunt of their
(in)decisionstupidity.Fixed it. :3
Be nice to the people threatening to annex and bomb an ally… ? you be nice first.
