Is the West Experiencing a Right-Wing Drift?

Of which?

I really dunno about that. Brexit and Trump are lumped in together a lot in the media and amongst Remainers, but I don't know if many Leavers make the association (even with Farage advising Trump and etc.)

It is probably a wash between 'the world is becoming more chaotic so we need the stability of old alliances' and 'the world is becoming more chaotic so we need the freedom and flexibility to create new alliances' depending on your existing biases.

We are about to hand a massive majority to a leader promising a much more extreme version of Brexit than was ever hinted at - on the assumption that she can work out a sweet deal with Trump.

For much of last year, even the UKIP people who too regularly appear on QUESTION TIME would respond to questions about Trump by saying they disagreed with him and wouldn't vote for him if they were American.

I suppose this implies that for them, Brexit was much less extreme than Trump.

Also they knew that even their own supporters regarded Trump as a disaster.

I was thinking that if Trump had won already, the voters who were soft on Brexit but showed up just to vote Leave out of spite might have chosen otherwise. I think Trump's win seems to have been an effective warning to moderates to turn out and vote for the sane option. Swinging the result two points in the other direction doesn't seem improbable.

Of all the causes of the vote for leave in the referendum (of which there were many), I don't think what is or was happening in the US was very high up the list, and I don't think a change to the chronology would have made much of a difference to the result of the vote.

Nor do I think Trump/Brexit had much to do with yesterday's French election. Neither of those results has had enough impact *yet* to persuade/dissuade voters concerned with, for instance, immigration.

It's impossible to say for certain of course but it's entirely possible that Trump's massive, world-famous incompetence at being president has taken the wind out of the sails of some of the people who think their country needs a fascist outsider to "shake things up a bit"

yeah our fascist outsider should be enough to shake things up a bit for everyone, for at least a while

y'know Tracer given your triple threat of France/UK/USA affiliations I am kind of surprised you have not had some kind of health event over all this shit

All his oafs in difference basketcases

This is definitely the wrong thread, but I wanted to ask something some place where the politically interested posters from many countries would see it. Because in Denmark we just had the end of yet another court trial against greedy bankers, and yet another complete acquittal and a lot of wasted tax payer money. So wanted to ask, has any other countries had more luck? Any good writing on what the differences has been in countries, what laws there were to defend against this, what strategies countries has taken.

More proper for this thread: Finns Party kicked out of Finnish governing coalition, and apparently, according to polls they've lost half their support since last election. From 17% to 9%.

Yeah I'm not entirely sure I get that. The two Finns I talk to had differing views on how much of a swing that was and what it meant.

I would love to hear expert opinions about the swing, but personally I note that populist movements fall apart whenever they have to take responsibility. The lesson for me is to never compromise in the fight against populism, since even if we lose they will then fall apart themselves, while in Denmark and elsewhere, compromising has meant giving them power without responsibility.

We've not had any luck with bankers probably because it's all murky as fuck and they could justifiably (legally) argue that the system was rotten and they acted in good faith etc etc etc

Everyone cites Iceland as an example of how to do it I'm not convinced Iceland is a useful comparator for any other country in the world tbh

I note that populist movements fall apart whenever they have to take responsibility.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/12/italys-populist-five-star-movement-humiliated-municipal-elections/

Great news! Some good examples this week, then.

Yeah, Iceland seems like a special case that has given everyone unrealistic ideas. I mean, fuck the guys in the Danish court case, the manager got payed a 10 million kr bonus right before they went under and their costumers lost everything, but it wasn't illegal at the time, and... I'm not sure it's constructive. x-post.

Oh, and the story in Finland seems to be that the membership of the party did a sort of coup when the old leader stepped down, and chose a much more radical candidate than expected. And the other parties just went 'nope'.

Lol, this just in: Old leader of True Finns now trying to make a new party with 20 other members, to stay in government coalition...

The lesson for me is to never compromise in the fight against populism

u unaccountably seem to have left 'right wing' out of that formulation

Ffs, the thread is named 'Is the West Experiencing a Right-Wing Drift'

"populist" has an almost exclusively right-wing connotation in europe, as i learned to my chagrin when i interviewed the then-head of the hackney empire and called his programming "populist" - he grew visibly and audibly incensed (which improved the interview tbh)

Seems otm

I mean left wing populism just dies on its feet as soon as anyone asks who's paying usually

I'm not so sure that's the case anymore.

Podemos, Syriza, *gulp* Corbyn...

Fair to note that was more a comment on the debate shutting down but yeah

tbh I don't even know where the Five Star Movement is, ideologically, but any political party started by a comedian has to be resisted at all costs.

aye, it could so easily lead to tyranny

I'd probably include Podemos and Syriza as unfortunate examples of my point about populist movements crumbling once they're unable to deliver as promised - though the circumstances are completely different, of course. Corbyn smart to make a fully costed popular manifesto that could hopefully begin being implemented as soon as he gets power in 2018.

Wait, sorry, I actually thought Podemos was in power. My bad.

as soon as he gets power in 2018

or sooner, the way things are going

Well, yeah, but I just wanted to use a cautious estimate ;)

first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they ripoff your messaging in a half ass attempt to hold onto power pic.twitter.com/uITiNNJrI8

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) June 13, 2017

No one in the Democratic leadership–not Schumer, Pelosi or Perez–has congratulated Corbyn. Our Dems are tighter with Netanyahu than Corbyn.

— Chase Madar (@ChaseMadar) June 9, 2017

congratulations on not losing quite as badly as had been predicted

I know I have no right to police this thread, especially since it was started by Mordy, but wouldn't it make more sense as a sort of trans-national discussion on left-wing / right-wing politics, rather than turning it into the latest forum for US Dem-bashing?

Can anyone point me to some really good analysis of the Labour manifesto, especially it's funding mechanisms? It was 'fully costed', but... How? I'm asking, because I got reminded of a Soc Dem manifesto from 2010, which was also supposedly fully costed, but through a gimmicky funding mechanism, which mostly was based on workers all working 12 min more a day, giving a massive boost to productivity. 'Give us 12 min, we'll give you welfare', that sort of slogans. It turned out, of course, to not really work, and not really being legal either, so it all fell apart, and they had a rubbish election where really they should have won decisively. (They still won, just not as big as they looked to do)

What I mean is, a lot of good politics lately has been 'policy wonk' stuff, moving bills around, trying to make them disappear. The idea of Paul Ryan as a great politician, rather than a stupid fraud. And it would be a good take away from this election, that the simple answer would actually be best: The money is coming from higher taxes.

Or the latest forum for Corbyn-bashing by Mordy?

corbyn and mcdonnell have been quite explicit that the money would come from higher taxes on the top 5% of earners. the IFS says it would have to be more like the top 10% iirc but that's the gist. Labour would also introduce a "land value tax" which for the first time would tax land wealth.

& corporation tax bumped back up a bit

My suspicion is that the US election was kind of watershed moment where a lot of other people in other countries sat up and went "this can't be allowed to happen here". There was bound to be backlash against all this shit sooner or later and we're in the early stages of that now.

The fact that it was won by an absolute clown is possibly a blessing in that sense - standing with him has damaged serious politicians, though obviously existing dangerous clowns (eg Farage) haven't minded.

A high-level view is that, as Trump is riding the high point of various anti-progressive waves, his eventual ignominious departure will tie those attitudes to him - a Don Draper that you either hate or pretend you hate.

Like lots of high-level views it will be of no comfort for those getting it in the neck now and for some time to come.

if u believe that there are systemic reasons for the right-wing tide then trump may end up temporarily discrediting the notion but the underlying push isn't going to vanish just bc he's a buffoon.

But with the right-wingers being beaten left and right by everyone from Macron to Corbyn to, well, themselves in Finland, it's probably worth reconsidering what the 'systemic reasons' for the rise might be.

if u believe that there are systemic reasons for the right-wing tide

I don't, really, I believe political motion of this kind is largely driven by fads which are arbitrary and contingent and for which we invent plausible explanations after the fact

A lot of the "systemic reasons" that don't amount to straight up racism and bigotry can also work to the benefit of left-wing parties as well. That definitely happened in Britain last week.

I believe there are systemic reasons for the current instability/discontent but don't think they need lead to a right-wing resurgence: they can benefit the left just as easily. The only ppl they cannot benefit is those too associated with The Establishment in people's minds - which is why even a centrist like Macron made his campaign about change, going outside the established main parties, etc.

xpost

Matt DC otm