Why the far right is surging all over the world

[BootinUp]

The Nazis were born out of disgust with post-World War I Weimar democracy, led by men furious about both the new government’s weakness and acceptance of the Jewish minority into German society. After Nazism brought Germany to ruin, preventing a reactionary resurgence became one of the central goals of the country’s subsequent leaders.

So it’s all the more extraordinary that in the past few years, Germany’s far right has been on the rise.


In 2015, at the peak of the global refugee crisis, German chancellor Angela Merkel announced an open-door policy for those fleeing violence in Syria and elsewhere. In response, the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party, a Euroskeptic faction without a single seat in Parliament, morphed into a virulently xenophobic force calling for Germany to slam Merkel’s open door shut.

In 2017’s national elections, AfD won 94 seats in the Bundestag, turning it into Germany’s third-largest political party.

Opposing the country’s approach to the migration policy did not, in and of itself, make AfD a threat to German democracy. But over time the party’s behavior has become more and more troubling.

https://www.vox.com/politics/361136/far-right-authoritarianism-germany-reactionary-spirit

[Lovie777]

1. Well they were defeated in France and the UK........................

and will be defeated here in the USA. No matter how the media spins in favor of the communist party here, there are enough people that will vote against them. They know this, that's why the spins, lies and suppression.

Women have not forgotten about their rights being trample on, nor the POC. SS and health insurance, overall freedoms are on the chopping block.

Project 2025 is no joke.

[DoBW]

2. UK, France told 'em to fck off

let's do it too

[Lonestarblue]

3. I have a theory about the rise of populism (totally unproven of course!).

I think there may be a correlation with the rise of billionaires—it would have been millionaires in the early 1900s—and the greed they represent as good. The mantra has become “I need to be really rich so I can do good.” Instead their greed has fed the greed of the masses.

The Great Depression resulted from several causes, but certainly one was financial speculation with many people thinking it would be easy to become a millionaire if they just invested in the right stocks without realizing that borrowing money you can’t repay is a huge risk.

Our national debt started increasing dramatically with Reagan because the uber rich wanted more and more. Tax policies started changing to benefit the most wealthy. The really rich have used their wealth to dominate government (and influence the Supreme Court) through lobbying and Citizens United for decades.

When the Cold War ended the USSR, Putin and his cronies plundered the assets of Russia to become billionaires who then had the power and greed to do whatever it takes to preserve their wealth and power. Putin especially had the money and power to indulge his fantasies of greatness. Without the vast wealth he basically stole, he would not have the power to start wars and sow disinformation throughout the world.

Most wars today are started to preserve the wealth and power of the billionaire class. And it’s those wars and the policies of the billionaires (like the climate-warming denialism of the fossil fuel industry billionaires) that lead to the displacement of people in all parts of the world that then contributes to nationalism and resentment of people from other countries seeking refuge in Western, mostly white, nations.

We might see less disruption with fewer or no billionaires!

[lark]

4. Yeah and UK and France were definitely going right wing according to the pundits. NOT!

Are these the same pundits who said Biden couldn't win? They were wrong on everything else, they should be wrong on this too!

[lees1975]

5. Yeah, after the Labour victory in the UK, and the far left coalition with the moderates in France won big

and the polls in both countries were in a shambles, I wondered the same thing.

Give credit where credit is due, the largest polling outlet in the UK did project favorable odds for the Labour party and saw this coming. They missed the full scope of the victory outside of their margin of error, but of course, the British have seen this coming since right after the last elections. I did too, I watch CSPAN and see the Prime Minister's questions.

In France, while the deals made to keep LePen out were done late, their polls missed their guess.

One of the things you gotta love about pollsters is their after the fact apologetic that always comes when they miss it. Some of the best ones I've ever read, in some of the most creative, convoluted, technical terminology come from two of our own composites, Real Clear Politics, RCP, and Born to Run the Numbers. Some college grad English major with a thesaurus and a dictionary must write for both of them.