Is the West Experiencing a Right-Wing Drift?

Election taking place tomorrow, SMERs lead looks relatively small. Not that clear which way this might go

Fico/SMER wins as expected (though exit polls got it wrong, polls in the run in were correct)

He'll need to form a coalition, but the votes for it look to be there

Where is this?

Slovakia, election yesterday

Restrictions on L.G.B.T.Q. Depictions Rattle Hungary’s Cultural World

uh oh

Argentina?

seems like it's gonna get weird

Did he really fuck his sister

Dutch elections today, Geert Wilders' PVV in front

ffs

I'm just going to stop listening to or following the news tbh.

This what happens when the lovely, cushy centre lose

Tr**p winning flashback for this American in NL. What a disaster.

Not sure how the coalition prospects for him compare to, say, Poland's incumbent party. Could take some time anyway.

As the far-right Alternative for Germany continues to rise — and its radicalism becomes increasingly pronounced — a growing chorus of mainstream politicians is asking whether the best way to stop the party is to try to ban it.

The debate kicked off in earnest after Saskia Esken, the co-chief of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), came out earlier this month in favor of discussing a ban — if only, as she put it, to “shake voters” out of their complacency.

https://www.politico.eu/article/can-a-ban-stop-the-rise-of-germanys-far-right/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter

this seems nuts to me, banning a party that is polling at 23% nationally and getting over a third of the vote in some eastern states, is there any way that this could actually "work"?

Germany’s constitution allows for bans of parties that “seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order” — essentially allowing the state to use anti-democratic means to prevent an authoritarian party from corroding democracy from within.

In reality, the legal hurdle for imposing a ban is very high. Germany’s constitutional court has only done it twice: The Socialist Reich Party, an heir to the Nazi party, was banned in 1952, while the Communist Party of Germany was prohibited in 1956.

More recently, in 2017, the court ruled that a neo-Nazi party known as the National Democratic Party (NPD), while meeting the ideological criteria for a prohibition, was too fringe to ban, as it lacked popular support and therefore the power to endanger German democracy.

it seems like there's a catch-22 here where you can't ban a small party because it's too fringe to endanger democracy, but also if a party is large enough to endanger democracy you can't ban it either because it's just not practical and/or you are 'endangering democracy' by the act of banning it?

this seems nuts to me, banning a party that is polling at 23% nationally and getting over a third of the vote in some eastern states, is there any way that this could actually "work"?

Well, one way of looking at that is you could apply the same rationale to not banning the nazi party during the Weimar era.

So an apology is always good but this guy took the money at the time.

Today, first time in Polish TV, after 8 years of right-wing government, the LGBT+ activists appeared in live broadcast. I was seating there and heard journalist shaking voice. He made an apology after years of portraying LGBT-people a threat to Polish nation in the same studio.… pic.twitter.com/kOjzKrRHPf

— Bart Staszewski (@BartStaszewski) February 11, 2024

moving the overton window on LGBT acceptance in Poland surely more important at this juncture than this guy's individual morality/sincerity?

I mean, this is how it starts. Moving video, thanks xyzzzz__

Man, I spent half a year living in Poland as a 20-year-old, and I swore I would never return because of the homophobia and machismo of the culture. Hearing those words— and not needing the translation, even!— was really important to me. I sent it to my mom.

Can only echo the above, this is great to see, thanks also xyzzzz__

Chega, Portugal's far right party, have elected close to 50 MPs. The center right AD just squeezed by the center left PS and will now need a deal with one of the parties to govern - PS has already said they're not available, AD says they won't go into coalition with Chega but that doesn't mean they won't cut some sort of deal.

Actual left decimated, count them all together and they're accounting for 10% of the electorate at this stage.

Depressing.

How much of a surprise are these results?

Also, I was looking at the 2022 results, and it looks like Chega's level of support with 25-34 year olds wasn't just larger than their level of support with 55+ voters, it was double - which isn't something I would have assumed at all

Chega was predicted to hold on to its position of 3rd strongest party and to gain seats but not to this extent.

One historical particularity is in Portugal the 55+ demographic is likely to have first hand experience of having lived through a fascist dictatorship, even if only as small children.

The 55+ demographic in the post-soviet space varies quite a lot country to country in its relationships with previous soviet rule, which makes it not always that predictable what to expect with stuff like that

I also noticed last time around Chega did poorly in the northwest including what looks to be rural seats. And Faro was where they did best. (though thats presumably the whole Algarve not just the town), so it looks to be more than just a rural-urban divide? (though this is based off the much less pronounced 2022 results)

Well I won't say there aren't some fash nostalgists out there, but overall ppl who lived through a fascist dictatorship during which most of the country didn't receive primary education and lived in abject poverty, not to mention a draft for an unjust and bloody colonial war, aren't keen to see that return. Kind of strange to reach for the post-soviet spaces imo, if you want a point of comparison Spain is right next to us :)

Spain would definitely seem a more obvious comparison, but I have almost no conception of Spain at all. It wasn't to draw a direct comparison per se, but more to note that nostalgia prevalence levels for previous autocratic regimes across Europe are pretty varied - using the post-soviet spaces as an example as something that on the surface might seem uniform but vary considerably

Anyway, presuming 24 follows a similar pattern to 22, do you know why Chega appears to do worst in the North West relative to the rest of the country

I don't have a definitive answer to that but traditionally the North West is quite conservative, I would think local Chega candidates would have a tougher time establishing themselves against well connected centre right campaigns. I had a look and AD won handily there this time 'round, the only district where Chega got a majority was again Faro (which yes means the region not just the city).

Are expat “leave” Brits able to vote?

The Faro stuff is interesting, because as far as I can tell tell its the district with the most pronounced population increase, and the only district outside of Lisbon and a couple of surrounding districts to be increasing at all, with population decline elsewhere (may be looking at outdated figures)

although to Boring's point above an increase in the population doesnt necessarily mean an increase in population eligible to vote

Also was listening to this on my run this morning, which is more broadly about the decline of the center-left across Europe post 2004, creating the space for populist parties to move into. Touches briefly on Portugal and Spain. Probably familiar material to many but was useful for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39V5_ui0XAA

thought this article on Melenchon and the other French lefty parties was interesting:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/magazine/french-left-politics-melenchon.html

hope they can somehow beat Le Pen

One thing I think I might mention is Portugal is on the whole a rather homogenous country with not that much variation in demographics, no real separatist groups, centuries old coherence in language, religion, culture - I'm from the Azores which are probably the most distant within that context and it's still nowhere near comparable to the differences I've seen within the UK, Germany, US. So granular district by district analysis might yield limited results in a forest for the trees sense.

thought this article on Melenchon and the other French lefty parties was interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/magazine/french-left-politics-melenchon.html
hope they can somehow beat Le Pen

― symsymsym, Wednesday, March 13, 2024 6:58 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Le Pen is far ahead in polls, the left coalition is a disaster and full of dissensions, France needs a figure to preserve Macron's legacy (Attal ?) but the French hate themselves too much to know what's good for them. Mélenchon will do a good score again, but under Le Pen. Yet I think the far right will be pushed back yet again, unless Marine gives Jordan Bardella his chance, which I don't think she will.

Yes def need to preserve the glorious legacy of Macron

Has there been a significant increase in 'the same damn candidates for the third election in a row' situations worldwide or does it just seem like it?

Yes def need to preserve the glorious legacy of Macron
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, March 13, 2024 11:47 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Maybe I'm jaded, but I don't really expect more from politicians, and certainly nothing glorious. I see him as a center-right blueprint, and the alternatives as worse. I'm not French nor a close follower though.

He's been steadily dogwhistling to racists, trying to stop the rise of the FN by co-optinh its rhetoric into a more socially palpable framing. He's also presided over increasingly scarier initiatives to clamp down on the right to protest and give the cops more and more leeway for using violence. Even my wife's dad, who is centre left and hates Melenchon, is disgusted with him.

Less important but the fact that there's no obvious good replacement in line for Macron is, for the man himself, a feature not a bug - he hollowed out the PS to benefit a political movement based entirely around his own cult of personality.

I certainly dislike his minister of interior (Darmamin) and surely there are things to criticize, but I still think he's the most competent and likable of the French presidents I've known (counting from Chirac). The immigration bill appeared tactical and potentially a good electoral move: giving an image of toughness, letting the far-right introduce amendments, most of which will be eviscerated by the constitutional court. Anyway, I don't believe Macron is going on a right-wing drift, he's always balanced (maybe more clumsily than adroitly) between the two sides. The cult of personality thing is also a feature arguably.

centrists never gonna stop believing that reactionary immigration policy is 12D chess instead of what their guys actually believe in

what they actually believe in - nice liberals can't be racist so their support for racist policy always has to be framed as some kind of tactical move - it helps them to have a further-right villain to use as a threat against those who take issue with this bullshit

finding macron likeable is only slightly more fathomable to me than finding trump likeable and that's just on an aesthetic level

Security and foreign policy have always been the go-to for easy gains in electoral points, you won't convince me it's ideological.

But what's unfathomable to me is not seeing a difference between Trump and Macron

I guess Macron’s likeable if you don’t care about Muslims or black people or the poor.

You won't convince me that pandering to racists and the far right really is a positive electorally.

It was fun how he tried to move the press room at the Elysee so journalists couldn’t see who came and went, surely not something that would ever backfire with fascists in power