Is the West Experiencing a Right-Wing Drift?

In a German beerhall today:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2sOHGJWIAAiwSX.jpg

somehow the traditional parties of the left have been stuck holding the can for the ravages of global neoliberalism. htf did that happen??

the fact that we've allowed the right to claim they're the ones who will stick up for the little guy in an uncaring world is just fucking preposterous

otm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38718286

so fucking stupid. might as well hand it to wilders now

Yep. He's trying to 'toughen up' his party to snatch Wilders votes. Instead left and right are roasting him right now. Rightfully so. And good that it takes a new fucking election to make him finally admit he thinks only white people can be Dutch.

The only good thing I can see coming from this is that the world better understands that our PM is a blackface loving, clueless-and-proud, post-vision-and-proud wanker.

dean baker implicitly chides me for contending that it's 'globalization' that has left workers in france and italy mad about ting:

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/it-s-austerity-not-globalization-that-is-making-workers-in-france-and-italy-unhappy

always good to be reminded that the forces of neoliberalism are not 'impersonal' (though it may feel like that) - they're the consequence of deliberate action taken by policymakers

i am happy about hamon. valls' statement could have been written by blairbots:

“There is now a very clear choice between certain defeat and possible victory, between unachievable promises and a credible left that takes responsibility"

among hamon's proposals: UBI, taxing robots, legal weed.

Christ, they really are shallow enough to think a mid-price suit and an NLP course will take them to power

they think it's still 1998

Just worked over here didn't it

Heyoooo

NLP = "tap 'em on the pussy" ?

That's more or less what the guy from Whitehouse was promising from his NLP course.

my problem with Hamon is that mentions of him remind me of this guy

http://img.20mn.fr/jHaz7H3NT8q73KEliE5n_w/2048x1536-fit_john-hamon-john-hamon.jpg

whose posters appear irregularly all over Paris. though I dunno, maybe that's why people voted for Hamon!

i feel bad for singling out the more headline-grabbing of hamon's proposals - he does have a lot of thought-through policies. but even the eccentric stuff is not that eccentric, and the left needs policies that cut through (i.e. fight for 15, etc)

also he was foursquare against any form of burkini ban and valls was for it so fuck valls forever honestly. that position should dog him to his grave.

i may have just heard this incorrectly on the radio but i think valls has said hamon will increase the likelihood of successful terrorist attacks against France.

lol at Fillon's wife getting paid a cool half mil for just being his wife. I'm not surprised, exactly. But it's an indicator of just how entitled and above the law these people think they are (and they're mainly right about this!) They really do think they're masters of the universe.

Hope to god this 1) Opens the race up 2) Does not swing support to Le Pen. These may be incompatible wishes.

i may have just heard this incorrectly on the radio but i think valls has said hamon will increase the likelihood of successful terrorist attacks against France.

I don't know if he actually said that but he and his side have been made not-so-subtle hints at this, calling Hamon an Islamo-leftist ("islamo-gauchiste").

*have made

"getting paid a cool half mil"

Never understood what "cool" means when people are talking about money. Surely it can't just mean that it's cool to have lots of money.

'cool' draws attention both to the amount and the casualness with which it has been dealt with imo

-with

it's only half a million euros - no big deal

what exactly is the FN position on taxing the rich?

from wiki:

Marine Le Pen denounces the current corporate tax as "a crying injustice". She claims that the main groups of CAC 40 only pay 8% of corporate tax whereas the small offices/home offices, the small and medium enterprises, the craftsmen and the shopkeepers fully pay 33.33%. She advocates to implement a flexible corporate tax according to the use of profits: heavier when the profits benefit the shareholders and lighter when the profits turn towards profit sharing, salaries, employment and productive investment, enabling a relocation of activities.[237]

from bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-11-20/the-far-left-economics-of-frances-far-right

Le Pen says France has been “left alone, naked” to face unchecked globalization. She wants France to leave the European Union and pull out of the euro currency so it can keep tight controls on imports while devaluing its currency “to relaunch exports and employment.” The FN platform calls for a 3 percent tax on all imports that would be used to give a €200 ($270) monthly bonus to the country’s lowest-paid workers.

She also wants the government to play a stronger role in managing the economy—for example, by temporarily nationalizing banks and forcing them to “clean up” their practices. “We still believe in free markets,” she says. “The danger is ultra-liberalism, where financial markets impose all the rules.”

While Hollande has been raising taxes in an effort to narrow the budget deficit, the FN’s economic platform is packed with expensive crowd-pleasers, such as a 20 percent cut in the gas tax and a lowering of the standard retirement age to 60. (Then-President Nicolas Sarkozy of the center-right raised it to 62 only three years ago.) Le Pen says the government can save money by cutting waste, ending social benefits for immigrants, and eliminating payments to the EU.

She’s not an anti-tax campaigner, though. “I am for a social protection system, à la française,” she says. “In this country we are willing to pay a certain level of taxes in order to assure a certain standard of living.”

Standard issue stuff for fascist parties until they actually get in power.

https://s29.postimg.org/ij487u1xz/image.png

thx Douglas Murray

One of the BBC's favourite go-to pundits of course.

Yes, along with Fraser Nelson.

And that woman from the Taxpayers Alliance.

various Labour figures are also associated with Murray via the Henry Jackson Society (of which hey is associate director):

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/20/labour-cut-ties-henry-jackson-society

It wasn't so much integration that Murray wanted to talk about, however, but skin colour:

"We long ago reached the point where the only thing white Britons can do is to remain silent about the change in their country. Ignored for a generation, they are expected to get on, silently but happily, with abolishing themselves, accepting the knocks and respecting the loss of their country. 'Get over it. It's nothing new. You're terrible. You're nothing'."

I knew Murray had bad opinions, but I hadn't quite realised that he's a full-on "white genocide" type

He's a full-on scumbag.

That Spectator piece by Murray is something else... Don't know where to begin.

Yet this time, there was a response to the rebuff. A new party — Forum for Democracy — arose out of the plebiscite. Led by one of Holland’s smartest and most prominent young intellectuals, Thierry Baudet,

Pour one out, I died laughing at "smartest and most prominent young intellectual".

Murray conveniently leaves out that Wilders has already had a seat at the table, supporting a minority cabinet. But he wasted his opportunity, retrieved support, the cabinet fell, and now no-one wants to govern with him anymore because he's proven to be deeply untrustworthy.

I'm not saying he won't be the biggest party (though he has lost four elections in a row up till now, mind) this time around. But Murray only pushes him more into the 'anti-establishment' position Wilders revels in. Together with two others, he's been in parliament the longest of all pm's: 18 years. That's how 'anti-establishment' and 'anti-elite' he is.

"smartest and most prominent young intellectuals"

This is so obviously how Murray sees himself.

Baudet is a querulant, who's biggest claim to fame to date is writing an atrociously bad novel, and promoting the work of those so-called 'pick up masters' (like Tom Cruise in Magnolia), saying "no doesn't mean no: women want to be overpowered".

douglas murray: proof that white genocide must happen, and soon

A couple more weeks like this one and I'll ... go see if there's a Kickstarter I can fund.

let us know, i'll set aside some cash now

16 days until the next big milestone in the West's march to the right - how are geert's odds looking?

Famous last words, but with all the hype about Wilders, I thought he would be polling 30-35% or something like that. He is at 13% in the last poll I saw. That's less than what the DPP gets in Denmark. Is there anything about the Dutch election system I have missed, or is he pretty far from winning?

If Wilders gets as low as 13% then I'm a Dutchman. But here's hoping.

Can't blame you for thinking that. But he's far from winning. He'll likely end up with 15% tops of the vote. His 'party' lost four times in a row. Everyone seems to forget this, all the time.

Not downplaying it, still way too many people voting for him, but he'll be no factor in forming a government. And I hope both national and international media will finally pay attention and stop giving him this ludicrous amount of coverage, because he's simply not as big a danger as is made out to be. He did a p good job at marginalizing himself this campaign, too, tbh.

(He's definitely left a mark on this country, making the center and right parties move more to the right, but that's a different story)

Honestly, I feel as if this won't end until the populists gets responsibility to do as they say, and fail miserably. That's what happened in Norway. The worst thing that happens is that all the other parties, spooked by the populist right, begins copying their politics with a 'respectable' sheen. In Denmark we have had 16 years and counting of populist immigration policy, and it's done fuck all to any problems. But the DPP won't go into government, even though they now are the biggest party on the right, so they still have a position where they get all the praise for being 'realists' on immigration, and everyone else gets the blame for all the shit they support.

It's exactly the same here. The Christian democrats (CDA) and conservatives (VVD) have shifted to the right a lot, copying slanderous words about refugees Wilders used four years ago. 'Respectable sheen' indeed... Like the DPP I think (but very different from Le Pen) Wilders simply does not want to govern. He doesn't want to be prime minister, because he'll have all to lose. He all but admits it when pushed on this.

It might be because France is a presidential system and Holland/Denmark are parliamental?

Oh definitely*. But I truly believe he wouldn't even want to. He'd have to compromise regardless.

(* Dutch system 101: 150 parliament seats, you need 76 to form a government. Since no party ever gets 75 or more seats, forming a coalition is standard practice, sometimes of three or even four parties. Biggest party has dibs on the prime minister post. None of the parties want to form w/ Wilders.)

Much like Denmark then. We currently have a three-party coalition (Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians) supported by the Populists (who as I said is the biggest of the four parties). It's a lot of fun, they are at each others throat the whole time, while fucking up my future on a daily basis. Sigh. At least the left is leading in the polls at the moment.