Is the West Experiencing a Right-Wing Drift?

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

terrorist attacks will do that

It's also important not to treat the opinions of the youngest voters as the future, necessarily, because people's opinions can tend to moderate as they age.

"moderate"

I do think that we've seen an increase in a kind of hyper-emotional style of politics that drives people away from grudgingly settling on the middle. I think the internet and social media actually have begun to break up the hold that mainstream news channels and the sensible-sounding center had on US politics, with both good and bad effects. I think Sanders' substantial support is evidence of that every bit as much as Trump's -- it has to be the internet and social media that have allowed Sanders to raise the kind of funds he has from small donors while being given little attention in old guard press and tv outlets.

I think as far as a worldwide rightward drift, though, that was actually happening from the 80s through 00's and now may have pulled back a bit. Maybe not in every country, but in the US and much of Europe (in spite of surges in right-wing nationalism), I think so. Obviously Israel has gone further right, maybe India has.

The responses on the army-rule question are not necessarily comparable between countries -- a heavily destabilized country like Iraq might have good reasons for seeing army rule as an alternative beyond any "rightward drift"

India's internal politics don't track much with other countries afaict, lot of unique competing interests and circumstances there

re France our republicans are to the left of your American republicans, tbh the Front Nationale is to the left of your republicans

sort of impressive india has never been under military rule

in the United States there was a definite rightwards shift in center-left coalitions starting in the late seventies and peaking in the presidency of Bill Clinton.

i don't know if this phenomenon has as much to do with ideology as much as it has to do with structural changes in capitalism

xxp 1858–1947

fwiw i was arguing w my dad a month ago and he called me a progressive, which was weird, cos that's maybe the first time in my entire life anyone, let alone him, has said that. i blame Trump and Facebook.

you should tell your dad that you're a La Follette Republican

We all need to reach out to our Muslim family and friends, imo

Maybe that's condescending? I hate this shit. My irl friends (yes I have a few) know how I feel.

Also the left wing vote in France has held up..

"Almost one-third (31%) of Gen
Z men believe wives should
"obey" their husbands, compared to just 13% of Baby Boomer men, according to a study by Ipsos and King's College London."

There's gotta be something the matter with the methodology here because even though the study's conclusions always just contrast boomers and gen z, the charts include other generations too, and portray the thing as a rising tendency - i.e. more gen x respondents believe wives should obey their husbands than boomers, more millenials than gen x, more zoomers than millenials.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/almost-a-third-of-gen-z-men-agree-a-wife-should-obey-her-husband

I thought boomers were supposed to be the bad guys?

Not huge on generational warfare but the idea that the boomers hold the most progressive views on gender of anyone around feels...off, to say the least.

To me that study mostly shows how worthless it is to assume generational similarity across the entire globe -- do we really think attitudes towards gender can be so easily conflated in the UK, China, India, Argentina, etc.?

The other thing I thought about last time this finding crossed my radar is that a major difference between Boomer men and Gen Z men isn't their 'generation', it's the fact that Boomer men are far morel likely to have been married for decades and Gen Z men are far more likely to have never been — it seems p obvious to me that the former are going to have a different view on marriage / wives than the latter, one better informed by actually being in a long-term relationship with a real person.

also what kind of person born after 1965 actually answers a survey lol

Why are they hyping the minority response, is the real question. Using the exact same stats you could just as easily write a story that says "69% of Gen Z men believe in gender equality in marriage." But alarmism (these young men! so sexist! so dumb!) gets clicks.

Well no that wouldn't really make sense, if you want to hype the majority response "87% of boomer men believe in gender equality in marriage" would be both a more impressive figure and more surprising.

bye bye, Orban

Later, asshole. Amusing pre-defeat Guardian headline and subhed:

Hungary election live: Polls in Hungary close in tightly fought election after 16 years under Viktor Orbán

Prime minister has been trailing in the polls to Péter Magyar in race that could have repercussions for Europe, the US and Russia

If he'd been trailing in the polls, by double digits, was it really a tightly fought election?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/10/peter-magyar-leading-polls-hungary-election-tisza-opposition

Right let's keep the racist shit. Fine with European liberals.

With the exception of migration, where he has vowed to take a harder line than Orbán by scrapping the country’s guest worker scheme, Magyar has committed to doing away with many of the most problematic parts of Orbán’s programme.

yeah the celebrations seem a little premature

What a dummy.

Today could be a big turning-point. If Hungary votes to oust Viktor Orbán, Putin’s (and, weirdly, Trump’s) ally inside the EU and NATO will be gone. The EU can give more help to Ukraine, which is anyway doing better on the battlefield. And the tide could turn against populism.

— John Simpson (@JohnSimpsonNews) April 12, 2026

that's why he gets the big bucks

oh is "populism" a political ideology now?

Really want to see the EU giving more help to Ukraine now I'm sure Orban was the only blocker there.

US and Russia picked the wrong racist huh

Yeah Magyar doesn’t seem like a Good Guy. Obviously Orban losing seems objectively good though. Including as a fuck-you to all the American right-wing weirdos who have latched onto him.

This thread of real time reactions from someone there is pretty great, I think:

https://bsky.app/profile/youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com/post/3mjd3busdyk2j

Saw that (you may be aware that most UK politics ilxors think she’s a melt).

Lol what a pathetic shit.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT HE SAID BUT PRETTY SURE MAGYAR JUST MENTIONED MAGDA SZABO WE LOVE A LEADER WHO BIGS UP LITERATURE"

‪Olga Nesterova‬
✧@onestpr✧✧✧.onestnetw✧✧✧.c✧✧‬
· 5h
Peter Magyar confirmed that Szijjarto, Orbán's FM, has barricaded himself with some of his closest colleagues and is shredding documents related to the sanctions on Russia any other evidence of treason.

https://www.lilyslynch.com/p/the-end-of-orban

Good on the wider implications for the region

Lily Lynch lol

What's the gossip? I just came across that..

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/businesses-fear-economy-if-swiss-vote-cap-population-10-million-2026-06-08/

Swexit?

That is dumb as hell

eco-fascist drift in the air

maybe direct democracy isn’t so great

Surely there are some mercenary outfits they hire to make sure the population stays under 10 mil.

as well as driving up rents and crime

redundant

intrigued by Swiss gun nuts, they seem pretty different from US gun nuts

maybe direct democracy isn’t so great

as i understand it switzerland is an entire nation dedicated to proving this concept

Lol