European Parliament Elections Going Far Right

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Results in and….The French Right is has all the power of a wet fart. The media loves to amplify their significance by breathlessly covering their every crazed utterance and a Zoomer doing a TikTok of some far Right song (only 300K views, many of which are “hate watchers”).

The French billionaire class loves the far Right, but they just are not gaining traction with the populace. Meanwhile, their older voting base dies off every year.

By the way the media reports it and tries to shove the Far Right down the throats of the public, you’d think they would be getting an outright majority of the country. Not even close.

I am very happy about the result but you don’t understand French politics. This isn’t the overwhelming endorsement of the left that you seem to think it is. It is a coalition win, and therefore weak.

I never said it was an overwhelming endorsement of the Left. That’s words you put in my mouth.

My point was that the media establishment in Western countries are hyping up the far right movements to such an insane degree that is not commensurate with their actual support. The polling also seems to be wildly off in Western countries in such a way that overstated far right popularity at the ballot box.

In the words of a great cultural critic, why the does the media keep “trying to make Fetch happen?” It’s as if he who pays the piper calls the tune.

You misunderstand. The issue is that these parties have moved from the fringe to the mainstream. THAT is the issue. This would be like the Libertarians taking 30% of the vote.

I’m not surprised at all that aging white Western populations outside of cities are susceptible to far right messaging as their faculties decline while their asset balances surge after saving for 40-50 years. Perhaps we should have foreseen this for the Baby Boomer cohort - they would be favorable to far right ideologies that thrive on fear and a nihilistic mentality of “I won’t be around to deal with the consequences.”

For every young Far Right supporter the media loves to showcase on TV, they are outnumbered 15:1 by Boomers who actually cast the ballots for these parties. If you actually Look at the crowd at Trump rallies - it’s vast majority age 55+. They just position the young people and people of color in the sight lines of the cameras. It’s why single Trump staffers in 2016-2020 had to ghettoize themselves at The Wharf in DC and a few neighborhoods in Northern VA - they are fish out of water in major cities among their age cohort.

It's actually the youth. Not the Boomers. And when you look at the political realignment in the US, it's similar.

I'm in Germany now, and a boomer relative explained that he hates Trump, hates AfD, hates the right. And then the conversation shifted a bit and he told me that he absolutely hates gays, and everything gay.

Meanwhile the youth are quite aligned with the right and have very permissive attitudes toward sexual mores, and permissive attitudes toward assimilated non-ethnic Germans. Their issues are about culture, economy, and security.

Re France, this election is interesting but the next few will be more interesting. This election will take the centrist Macron and drag him to the left with the New Popular Front.

80% of Germans under the age of 35 are voting for a party other than AfD.

Media loves to miss the forest for the trees when it comes to the far right on both sides of the Atlantic.

No, what they are looking at is, which groups are changing in their alignment? The ones notably changing in the US are young white men, Latinos, and black males. That's interesting, not because the numbers are impressive, but because it represents a shift in established patterns.

Yes, you can wait for these issues to become totally apparent before dealing with them. And I prefer you do, to be completely honest, because as long as the left ignores the realignment, they can't use it to their advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Results in and….The French Right is has all the power of a wet fart. The media loves to amplify their significance by breathlessly covering their every crazed utterance and a Zoomer doing a TikTok of some far Right song (only 300K views, many of which are “hate watchers”).

The French billionaire class loves the far Right, but they just are not gaining traction with the populace. Meanwhile, their older voting base dies off every year.

By the way the media reports it and tries to shove the Far Right down the throats of the public, you’d think they would be getting an outright majority of the country. Not even close.

I am very happy about the result but you don’t understand French politics. This isn’t the overwhelming endorsement of the left that you seem to think it is. It is a coalition win, and therefore weak.

I never said it was an overwhelming endorsement of the Left. That’s words you put in my mouth.

My point was that the media establishment in Western countries are hyping up the far right movements to such an insane degree that is not commensurate with their actual support. The polling also seems to be wildly off in Western countries in such a way that overstated far right popularity at the ballot box.

In the words of a great cultural critic, why the does the media keep “trying to make Fetch happen?” It’s as if he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Your gross comment re bodily functions certainly implies that you think it’s an overwhelming endorsement of the left. I don’t know how else to read that.

In any event, what election has done is validated Le Pen. Just five years ago, saying you would vote for Le Pen would have gotten you excluded from much of French society. That isn’t the case any more.

The shock here isn’t that Le Pen didn’t win. That was not likely to happen. The shock is that it took a massive (and now weak) coalition to make that defeat happen. And Le Pen is now seen as a real force in French politics, not far-right noise.

I do not understand the celebration from the left over this result, other than of course being glad that Le Pen lost. It isn’t the rout or the victory that people seem to think.

This already happened in 2022 French presidential election. LePen received 41.5% of the vote in the 2nd round. The left coalesced around Macron.

So yeah, 30% isn’t that shocking in this legislative election. The bigger shock is that LePen’s party did so poorly given the inordinate media hype of how they would “sweep” France.

Comment dit-on « astro turf » en anglais?

If you believe the media was saying that they would sweep France, you obviously speak zero French.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Results in and….The French Right is has all the power of a wet fart. The media loves to amplify their significance by breathlessly covering their every crazed utterance and a Zoomer doing a TikTok of some far Right song (only 300K views, many of which are “hate watchers”).

The French billionaire class loves the far Right, but they just are not gaining traction with the populace. Meanwhile, their older voting base dies off every year.

By the way the media reports it and tries to shove the Far Right down the throats of the public, you’d think they would be getting an outright majority of the country. Not even close.

I am very happy about the result but you don’t understand French politics. This isn’t the overwhelming endorsement of the left that you seem to think it is. It is a coalition win, and therefore weak.

How is it that whenever the right squeaks a maybe win it’s the most earth shattering event and it means the right wing is on the ascendancy and they’ll have a strong mandate but when the left wins no one should get too excited because it never means anything. Why is that, do you think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Results in and….The French Right is has all the power of a wet fart. The media loves to amplify their significance by breathlessly covering their every crazed utterance and a Zoomer doing a TikTok of some far Right song (only 300K views, many of which are “hate watchers”).

The French billionaire class loves the far Right, but they just are not gaining traction with the populace. Meanwhile, their older voting base dies off every year.

By the way the media reports it and tries to shove the Far Right down the throats of the public, you’d think they would be getting an outright majority of the country. Not even close.

I am very happy about the result but you don’t understand French politics. This isn’t the overwhelming endorsement of the left that you seem to think it is. It is a coalition win, and therefore weak.

How is it that whenever the right squeaks a maybe win it’s the most earth shattering event and it means the right wing is on the ascendancy and they’ll have a strong mandate but when the left wins no one should get too excited because it never means anything. Why is that, do you think.

Good Lord don’t speak about French politics if you don’t understand how it works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Results in and….The French Right is has all the power of a wet fart. The media loves to amplify their significance by breathlessly covering their every crazed utterance and a Zoomer doing a TikTok of some far Right song (only 300K views, many of which are “hate watchers”).

The French billionaire class loves the far Right, but they just are not gaining traction with the populace. Meanwhile, their older voting base dies off every year.

By the way the media reports it and tries to shove the Far Right down the throats of the public, you’d think they would be getting an outright majority of the country. Not even close.

I am very happy about the result but you don’t understand French politics. This isn’t the overwhelming endorsement of the left that you seem to think it is. It is a coalition win, and therefore weak.

I never said it was an overwhelming endorsement of the Left. That’s words you put in my mouth.

My point was that the media establishment in Western countries are hyping up the far right movements to such an insane degree that is not commensurate with their actual support. The polling also seems to be wildly off in Western countries in such a way that overstated far right popularity at the ballot box.

In the words of a great cultural critic, why the does the media keep “trying to make Fetch happen?” It’s as if he who pays the piper calls the tune.

You misunderstand. The issue is that these parties have moved from the fringe to the mainstream. THAT is the issue. This would be like the Libertarians taking 30% of the vote.

I’m not surprised at all that aging white Western populations outside of cities are susceptible to far right messaging as their faculties decline while their asset balances surge after saving for 40-50 years. Perhaps we should have foreseen this for the Baby Boomer cohort - they would be favorable to far right ideologies that thrive on fear and a nihilistic mentality of “I won’t be around to deal with the consequences.”

For every young Far Right supporter the media loves to showcase on TV, they are outnumbered 15:1 by Boomers who actually cast the ballots for these parties. If you actually Look at the crowd at Trump rallies - it’s vast majority age 55+. They just position the young people and people of color in the sight lines of the cameras. It’s why single Trump staffers in 2016-2020 had to ghettoize themselves at The Wharf in DC and a few neighborhoods in Northern VA - they are fish out of water in major cities among their age cohort.

Your grotesque ageism aside, this also demonstrates a spectacular lack of understanding of the French electorate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in Germany right now and I can see a constant, uneasy standoff between ethnic Germans and the new arrivals from Arab nations. During the Spain/Germany soccer game last night, about a dozen police in riot gear were standing across the street from a döner restaurant, ready for action. And it was clear that action had already occurred, as one man was watching the game with bloody tissue stuffed up his nose and nursing a puffy cheek. There were no police outside of the restaurants with white and East Asian clientele.

Around 1030am this morning, a man walked around the downtown area holding a blue bottle of liquor, pausing occasionally to pick up entire metal trash cans (the public type for pedestrians) and heaving them to and fro. Police showed up-- lots of them-- and arrested him. Watching the scene unfold, a random German mam turned to us and said "if they kicked these people out, we wouldn't have these problems."

It occurred to me that in the US, no police would show up for fights or public disturbances. And no way, ever, would police wait outside a restaurant frequented by an ethnic minority. No matter what was happening there. Germans are orderly people and absolutely will not stand for this kind of hooliganism. We are much more tolerant of crime and tend to support perpetrators over victims. So I get why Europe is taking such a sharp right ward turn. This is completely upsetting their culture of order, safety, and respect.

I’m not sure what to make of your post aside from the fact you have made overarching observations based on just two incidents. You’re in Germany during the euros and there are riot police and tensions? Are you not at all aware of the long history of hooliganism and soccer in Europe? Of course the police are ready for trouble. You clearly didn’t see the pictures of the violent clashes between Serbs and English fans. It’s the biggest deployment of police since 1951!

You also seem unaware that doners are the most popular snack food in Germany. Everyone goes to them, not just ‘ethnics’. Exactly the sort of place hyped up and aggressive soccer fans will get something to eat after a match. Not surprising police might have been nearby. Probably not a lot action at the Chinese takeaway.

You mention tension with new arrivals. Who exactly do you mean? You realise about 5% of the population is Turkish and many are 4th or 5th generation? Many Turks Wenge too Germany as migrant workers in the 1960s. Or you mean the Syrian refugees admitted by Angela Merkel. Can you even tell the difference?

Be careful about extrapolating from a couple of incidents when you don’t actually have a good understanding of a place.

I have quite a long history with Germany. Re-read my post. The police were stationed in front of döner spots, and the clientele during this game was indeed almost entirely Arab. The police WERE NOT outside of the restaurants with ethnically German and/or East Asian clientele. They weren't. I saw this with my own eyes, and you're free to disbelieve that but you can't tell me I didn't see what I saw.

As you point out, the Turks have been in Germany for generations and cannot be considered new arrivals. The Turkish population has assimilated. I am instead referring to the nearly 25% of Germany's population with an immigrant background in the traditional sense (not 3rd or 4th generation guest worker sense). The most common nation of origin for immigrants to Germany is Syria.

I'm not making generalizations based on one experience. I'm making them based on a palpable vibe shift that has occurred over the course of a decade, which I've observed both in person and in discussions with ethnically German relatives and friends.

You can cover your eyes and pretend this isn't happening, like people pretended that Biden has the youth and vigor of a much younger man. It doesn't change it. Europe is, without question, taking a dramatic swing to the right, and they are telling you why. You can believe they are unjustified, but they live in democracies and get to have a say on the issues in their nations.

And also, take a context clue. I said the man said to us "if they kicked these people out, we wouldn't have this problem." In Germany. So he spoke to us in German with the assumption that we were German. This should tell you that I don't need to be lectured about döners.

What you say may well be valid and I also happen to believe that rapid large scale immigration can be problematic, but giving the example of one ‘ethnic’ man tipping over bins, riot police outside a doner place and one ‘native’ complaining about migrants is far from a compelling argument. Whether he complained in English or German is irrelevant. I guarantee I could produce one old guy in just about any country who will complain about migrants. It just seems like you’re cherrypicking a couple of incidents to substantiate your own opinions.

It seems like you're ignoring data. You know the right is ascending in Europe. They are telling us why. And my own observations match the data.

You're in complete denial. Upthread, someone responded to my post by saying that they hope that the Arabs wipe out the ethnic Germans. It's unclear why you think that Europeans will sit idly by while people literally plot and hope for their genocide. Europe is famous for its ability to aggressively expand and dominate; that has been its historical tendency. I'm guessing that the genocide of Europeans will not be as easy as you expect.

Also, let's be completely clear. You, and only you, have referred to the Arabs as "ethnics."

It will be interesting to see results of today’s election in France. Not sure the data supports your argument as much as you think. In the last six months, 2 of the 6 largest countries in Europe have elected pro-EU (Poland) or labour (UK) governments.

The UK is not European. They aren't a part if the continent and their brief foray into political membership in the EU was cut off in a democratic referendum.

Poland is also an edge case. Of course they want to be as close to Europe as possible-- their lives depend on it. What's happening in central Europe is entirely different.

Hate to inject some facts but (a) there’s no such thing as political membership of the EU (you’re either in or out) and (b) the UK was a founding and continuing member for 47 years.

I guess if the UK isn’t European then Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, etc aren’t Asian. Someone should tell them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Results in and….The French Right is has all the power of a wet fart. The media loves to amplify their significance by breathlessly covering their every crazed utterance and a Zoomer doing a TikTok of some far Right song (only 300K views, many of which are “hate watchers”).

The French billionaire class loves the far Right, but they just are not gaining traction with the populace. Meanwhile, their older voting base dies off every year.

By the way the media reports it and tries to shove the Far Right down the throats of the public, you’d think they would be getting an outright majority of the country. Not even close.

I am very happy about the result but you don’t understand French politics. This isn’t the overwhelming endorsement of the left that you seem to think it is. It is a coalition win, and therefore weak.

How is it that whenever the right squeaks a maybe win it’s the most earth shattering event and it means the right wing is on the ascendancy and they’ll have a strong mandate but when the left wins no one should get too excited because it never means anything. Why is that, do you think.

Good Lord don’t speak about French politics if you don’t understand how it works.

Lol. Great answer Mr. French Politics expert.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Results in and….The French Right is has all the power of a wet fart. The media loves to amplify their significance by breathlessly covering their every crazed utterance and a Zoomer doing a TikTok of some far Right song (only 300K views, many of which are “hate watchers”).

The French billionaire class loves the far Right, but they just are not gaining traction with the populace. Meanwhile, their older voting base dies off every year.

By the way the media reports it and tries to shove the Far Right down the throats of the public, you’d think they would be getting an outright majority of the country. Not even close.

I am very happy about the result but you don’t understand French politics. This isn’t the overwhelming endorsement of the left that you seem to think it is. It is a coalition win, and therefore weak.

How is it that whenever the right squeaks a maybe win it’s the most earth shattering event and it means the right wing is on the ascendancy and they’ll have a strong mandate but when the left wins no one should get too excited because it never means anything. Why is that, do you think.

Good Lord don’t speak about French politics if you don’t understand how it works.

Lol. Great answer Mr. French Politics expert.

Well, it is extremely obvious that some of you don’t speak a word of French.

[Anonymous]

I’ll have to bookmark this thread so we can check in on how France is doing in five years.

[Anonymous]

I am french. the parties that were supposed to lose joined forces to win even though they have nothing in common.

Most of people in France want 3 things: more purchasing power, more security, less immigration and taxes.

[Anonymous]

Huh. Weren't we told European elections were going far right?

So far, UK went left, with Labour beating Conservatives, and Keir Starmer replacing Rishi Sunak https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9r3q3zre9zo

And now France went left, with New Popular Front winning the most votes, followed by Macron's party and Le Pen's far right came in third. https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240707-france-s-leftist-new-popular-front-wins-a-shock-victory-%E2%80%93-but-now-the-hard-part-begins

Let's hope this trend continues and Europe continues to reject the far right.

[Anonymous]

France - 3,3 million votes by proxy and hundreds of candidates dropping out to foil the right.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/2/more-than-200-candidates-pull-out-of-french-run-off-to-foil-far-right

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huh. Weren't we told European elections were going far right?

So far, UK went left, with Labour beating Conservatives, and Keir Starmer replacing Rishi Sunak https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9r3q3zre9zo

And now France went left, with New Popular Front winning the most votes, followed by Macron's party and Le Pen's far right came in third. https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240707-france-s-leftist-new-popular-front-wins-a-shock-victory-%E2%80%93-but-now-the-hard-part-begins

Let's hope this trend continues and Europe continues to reject the far right.

As they should! Europe needs to contribute their fair share of supporting migrants. The US is a shining example of the benefits of an open society. We welcome people from all over to a better life in America. I’m proud to see the same from European countries. There is hope for humanity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huh. Weren't we told European elections were going far right?

So far, UK went left, with Labour beating Conservatives, and Keir Starmer replacing Rishi Sunak https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9r3q3zre9zo

And now France went left, with New Popular Front winning the most votes, followed by Macron's party and Le Pen's far right came in third. https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240707-france-s-leftist-new-popular-front-wins-a-shock-victory-%E2%80%93-but-now-the-hard-part-begins

Let's hope this trend continues and Europe continues to reject the far right.

I am enjoying the right-wing media meltdown although I also think the left-wing is vastly overestimating its popularity.

These elections are a repudiation of the far right, which is great, and not an endorsement of the far left, which is also great. Sanity may prevail after all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:France - 3,3 million votes by proxy and hundreds of candidates dropping out to foil the right.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/2/more-than-200-candidates-pull-out-of-french-run-off-to-foil-far-right

Good to know ya, Paris