5h ago

Far-right populists top polls in Germany, France and Britain for the first time

www.nbcnews.com

Alternative for Germany has joined France's National Rally and Reform U.K. in becoming the most popular party in its country, according to polls.

A poll Tuesday showed Alternative for Germany — which is under surveillance by the country’s intelligence services over suspected extremism — is now the most favored by voters. The survey by broadcaster RTL put the AfD at 26%, ahead of the ruling Christian Democrats at 24%.

This is a high watermark for the European far right, a once fringe movement whose virulently anti-immigration, anti-Islam and culture-war politics were shunned by the mainstream just a decade ago.

Today, these parties have developed deep ties with President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, who openly cite nationalists such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as inspirations on policy and tactics.

27 comments

Who the fuck looks at the US right now and thinks "I want that?"
- Fascists
- Angry people
  
  More like idiots
POC around the world just took a deep breath.
Maybe if the left wing party that got in for the first time in 15 years actually behaved remotely like they should, this would not be happening in the UK
All Kier Starmer has managed to accomplish is vindicating the idiots that say "both sides are the same" and fuelling Reform's populism.
His government's current policy focus areas make Tony fucking Blair look like a socialist by comparison—and he earned the fucking red-tie Tory assessment of his policies.
- vindicating the idiots that say "both sides are the same"
  When a “left wing” party is still far right, the people who complain have a point. Yes, there is a difference between extreme right and far right, but in the absence of any meaningful leftist options, people will gravitate toward those they hope will implement actual change, even if the change is worse than every other alternative. This most often tends to be those who want to pull the world even further to the right.
- Yeah. I naively thought that finally there might be some change now the fucking Tories have imploded, but no.
  What a monumental turdpile.
Are people not paying attention to how destructive these parties are to democracy?
- Nope and by design from the media to keep them distracted from it. Get people riled up about trans people in toilets and asylum seekers in small boats rather than the rich destroying the planet and causing horrendous inequality in basic living.
- People want change, they promise change, no matter how bad of a change. That, coupled with a massive propaganda network made up of a few billionaires, and there you have it.
  
  No, they promise the world and then shit in your mouth. These people are being duped.
- That's the whole point. Look to the now infamous Jubilee video of the man proudly claiming that he is indeed a fascist and he wants an authoritarian ethnostate.
It seems that democracy is beyond saving in the age of social media and all the misinformation that circulates there. I mean, you can't be that incredibly stupid if you live even halfway in reality.
You only have to look at the US to see very clearly how corrupt the goddamn neo-Nazis are and that the promises they make to their ignorant voters are nothing but lies. It's more than obvious that the US fascists are pursuing policies that are by no means in the interests of the people, but rather the work of a criminal syndicate, which is what they truly are. There is no difference between these barbarians and those in Europe – they are all agents of the power hungry billionaires and do nothing but pursue their interests, which is of course at the expense of the citizens.
Anyone who still doesn't understand this is living entirely in the imaginary parallel world that the Nazis have built together with their financial backers.
Since this obviously affects so many people and these people cannot be convinced with rational arguments, it is probably hopeless.
- Democracy has always been the beard for Fascism since the creation of the US. It was a good lie to sell the people while the wealthy did whatever the fuck they want. Once you come to realize this everything makes sense and falls into place.
  
  That may be true for the US, but we're talking about Europe here, where many countries have a welfare state, workers' rights exist, and education is handled very differently. That's precisely why I find it even more incomprehensible how people can be so incredibly stupid and vote for Nazis who are not only inhuman racists, but also want to create US-style conditions in Europe.
Cause the far right did so well for the UK (Thatcher, Brexit, Boris, Liz Truss) - they want more????
- It's about getting rich not making their nations better
- Its pretty easy to score points when the government is doing everything it can to become unpopular.
So glad the liberals, both in government and voters, that always lead us to fascism are so invested in shit like "respectability politics", politics "being boring" and being on their supposed intellectual high horse because "emotions are bad, you should never raise your voice when people are starving and being genocided, you're just the same as the far right." But then while saying this just doing mostly what the far right want, pretending it's somehow their idea. It's really working so well to stop them.
But then the liberals would happily throw us into fascism if it meant there was an "I told you so" they could somehow twist out of it to say to the left
- I will give you that.
  Although I hope you give me that taking this level of dissatisfaction and managing to get negligible gains while the populist far right turns it into an outright lead in the polls is a massive failure of the left.
  I am pretty staggered at the absolute incapability to make a dent on this trend by anybody at this point. It takes some hardcore commitment to 20th, if not 19th century politics to suck this badly at this.
  
  Human nature seems to be a huge part of it. Blaming someone else for all your troubles is such a winning concept, it's really hard to fight against it. Plus actually having to acknowledge real issues and trying to fix them often comes with people having to change or sacrifice and that's a hard sell compared to someone just pretending to have perfect solutions and that everything will be fine.
  Sadly emotions win debates against facts almost every time.
So it appears that ~30% of people in any given population are evil. That tracks.

27 comments