paulfromcamden
Baffled
Unfortunately there seem to be quite a lot of people keen on a second civil war.
The Rise of the Far Right
- Thread starter droodzilla
- Start date
BillT
pfm Member
Unfortunately there seem to be quite a lot of people keen on a second civil war.
Boogaloo movement - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Back off Boogaloo springs to mind.
Seeker_UK
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
F**k off Boogaloo is probably more appropriate.
Yank
Bulbous Also Tapered
I suppose "Mr. Bates vs the Post Office" should have been on that diagram somewhere too...
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
I think that might be adequately covered by Animal Farm.
Seeker_UK
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
There's no Kafka on there.
Dave H.
Revolutionary relativist
les24preludes
pfm Member
The Danes are decent people with open minds. They'll also be underwater if the sea rises.
awkwardbydesign
Officially Awesome
Cheese
Bitter lover
<cough> Denmark - and Sweden - have drastically changed their practice in recent years. The domestic right wing parties are still very strong, and the days of liberal, nearly-perfect Scandinavia seem to be over for some time to come.
On a more general note, I am not sure that in some countries, people are more 'decent' than in others. You always have the morality (and the political system) you can afford. UK people are not worse than Danish people.
Chefren
pfm Member
Finland has, as discussed upthread, had a right-wing government since last spring. The leading party is a typical business-friendly, relatively liberal (in a liberal democrat kind of way) conservative party, the National Coalition. Their largest government coalition parter though is the Finns party, a far right populist party and member of the ECR group in the EU parliament.
The Finns party has been in government once before and that ended up in a party split, with the more centre-leaning part splitting off, but they did not manage to survive as a political party. This group was centered around Timo Soini, who had co-founded the Finns party in the 1990s and there was a certain element of a kind of nonleft worker's party present in the original Finns.
After the split, the remaining Finns veered off further to the right. Talks of a a "Fixit" basically died after everyone saw what a mess Brexit was, but otherwise they have the typical talking points re: immigration, "freedom of speech" (e.g. they are angry that hate speech laws exist), resisting climate policies, talking at fascist events and then feigning ignorance etc. At least the pro-Russian cooks are not in the Finns party anymore at this point.
But now I guess after entusiastically leading the current government's austerity policies (the finance minister is from the Finns party), they lost 1 EU parliament seat since 2019 (from 2 to 1 seat) and are on a continuous slide downwards in popularity at the moment. I guess when they finally have to implement actual policy instead of just doing the populist thing and shouting "No" from the opposition, the illusion shatters.
Meanwhile the Left Alliance party gained basically 100% over their usual support with 3 seats and their party leader Li Andersson (who was the Minister for Education in the Sanna Marin government) broke the record of votes received by any candidate in Finnish EU elections ever, and not by a small margin. Nearly 1 in 7 of every vote cast was for her.
What seems to have happened is that a number of disillusioned previous Finns supporters, probably blue-collar workers, shifted their votes to the left instead. Also Li is really liked and respected as an excellent communicator in Finland, so it's not at all strange that she got a massive vote share.
It remains to be seen how this all affects the Finns party now that they can clearly see their support melting when implementing austerity in government.
The Finns party has been in government once before and that ended up in a party split, with the more centre-leaning part splitting off, but they did not manage to survive as a political party. This group was centered around Timo Soini, who had co-founded the Finns party in the 1990s and there was a certain element of a kind of nonleft worker's party present in the original Finns.
After the split, the remaining Finns veered off further to the right. Talks of a a "Fixit" basically died after everyone saw what a mess Brexit was, but otherwise they have the typical talking points re: immigration, "freedom of speech" (e.g. they are angry that hate speech laws exist), resisting climate policies, talking at fascist events and then feigning ignorance etc. At least the pro-Russian cooks are not in the Finns party anymore at this point.
But now I guess after entusiastically leading the current government's austerity policies (the finance minister is from the Finns party), they lost 1 EU parliament seat since 2019 (from 2 to 1 seat) and are on a continuous slide downwards in popularity at the moment. I guess when they finally have to implement actual policy instead of just doing the populist thing and shouting "No" from the opposition, the illusion shatters.
Meanwhile the Left Alliance party gained basically 100% over their usual support with 3 seats and their party leader Li Andersson (who was the Minister for Education in the Sanna Marin government) broke the record of votes received by any candidate in Finnish EU elections ever, and not by a small margin. Nearly 1 in 7 of every vote cast was for her.
What seems to have happened is that a number of disillusioned previous Finns supporters, probably blue-collar workers, shifted their votes to the left instead. Also Li is really liked and respected as an excellent communicator in Finland, so it's not at all strange that she got a massive vote share.
It remains to be seen how this all affects the Finns party now that they can clearly see their support melting when implementing austerity in government.
Cheese
Bitter lover
Sounds good. How have the Left achieved this ? Quite a few countries could learn from it.
Enfield boy
pfm Member
Long process I guess. Either the 3 or 4 actual left of "hard centre" MPs allowed to stand for KeirChangedLabourTools join with any decent Independents to form a new party, hopefully supported by the Unions to hold a minority Lab govt to account or we'll likely have 5 more years of failure before Farage gets in. The most optimistic vision will entail Leveson 2 at least, the prosecution of embezzling tory ministers 2010-2024 and lots more stuff Murdoch, MI5 and the Save-Coburgs won't like. Pipe Dream stuff sadly.
Can't see any way for it to happen in the US.
Can't see any way for it to happen in the US.
Chefren
pfm Member
First of all, Li Andersson, the Left Coalition's party leader was basically guaranteed to be a vote magnet. She is the kind of liked and respected politician that people will vote for as a person, over party lines. With the voting system in Finland (party-list proportional representation), the party as a whole benefits from her votes, she basically earned them two seats in these elections.
But it's also about being a convincing alternative when the party in power messes up their public image. Here is a by now famous publicity photo of the Finns party about Finance Minister Riikka Purra figuratively cutting the budget with scissors with other Finns party members smiling behind her.
This did not go down well at all with low-income voters who due to broad planned cuts in various benefits really started feeling the impact already. There have already been news about families having to move to cheaper apartments, and then we have a photo basically showing the finance minister making light of the necessity of the cuts (and there is indeed a needs to adapt due to the aging population).
Purra even started talking about cutting pensions, which was shot down by the National Coalition party. Really tone-deaf stuff to even start talking about that, especially since pensions are paid from pension funds and have hardly any impact on the government budget.
At the same time there was the obligatory right-wing government tax cut for the rich and no sign of cutting subsidies for large coorporations.
So I guess overall it's about getting your own message to land when people are looking for options, but in a way that is believably realistic.
The Left Alliance managed to outperform even the SDP, the traditionally big left party in this election.
Just need to add 'Years and Years' to that.
les24preludes
pfm Member
True - Scandinavia has changed a lot in recent years. I lived in Norway from 1978 to 1984, spoke good Norwegian and got to know the country and people quite well. At that time I would say that the Norwegians were "decent" people. The school system and the national character promoted a strong sense of social obligation and social coherence. My girlfriend was a teacher and I did a lot of school tours as a musician up and down the country so I was pretty well in touch with these things, and it was frequently discussed. All sorts of instances of social awareness like not dropping waste in natural habitats and taking it home. These days immigration has changed the people in Scandinavia hugely and there's a big backlash against gangs involved in crimes of various kinds, with no-go areas in Sweden that weren't there before.
It sounds like you believe that money makes people more decent. I can see that as partly true, but Scandinavia though rich had a very special social coherence that wasn't in place in other countries. So I would say it's not just money, it's other factors. Like for instance the USA is full of guns and the crime rate is many times that of Europe. Shooting people isn't very "decent" in my book.
Yank
Bulbous Also Tapered
Perhaps it's telling that we've run out of room to add more dystopian scenarios that are coming true...
Cheese
Bitter lover
Not only money, sometimes you have a combination of factors which make it more or less impossible for a country to progress. Like Afghanistan, where the mostly arid land is crossed by few roads, all of them being nevertheless of strategic importance. Same in Palestine. Or in south Saharan countries like Mali, Chad or Sudan. All those countries have the (non-)governments they happen to have, or not even that. Life is hard, they have their own ways.
I find Australians to be rather cool people too, now that we are about generalisations. But they have it easy.