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I posted the original article - I am European, so for me the most interesting parts are not directly related to Trump's election, but to something that to me lo

by Pamar 10y ago

I posted the original article - I am European, so for me the most interesting parts are not directly related to Trump's election, but to something that to me looks very strange, and it's happening a lot around me. Nominally: people who leaned towards Progressive/Democratic positions are being more and more attracted by populist movements, and have started rooting for Le Pen or UKIP. Something that no more than 10 years ago would have been absolutely unthinkable. This article is interesting (IMHO) because it mentions, at least, how the neoliberism managed to co-opt political figures like Blair, Bill Clinton (and a bunch of my own in Italy, too) - and how these started pushing for less and less State in their plans.

teekert 10y ago
I see it here in the Netherlands as well, one cause is that we had some referenda in which the majority vote (no against a European constitution (we got the Geneva convention), no against associating with Ukraine) was ignored. This is of course food for anti Europe sentiment. That and then the never ending stories of bureaucratic non sense like the monthly move of parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg. [0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/10565686/The-farce-of-the-EU-travelling-circus.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/10565686/Th...
- Pamar 10y ago
  My current take on the Populist gains in the last few years (based on this and other articles from the same author): I believe that State (capital S) main function is to take care of the "average citizen". And we are all "average" in a way or the other... i.e. I could be a good coder, painter, car salesman, whatever - but this does not guarantee I have perfect health, or above-average business savvy, or I am a good parent, or ready to use a foreign language and move abroad to look for work. The neo-liberist idea is to cater only for "superheroes" (and the rest will adapt or perish)... so now more and more people try to back parties that claim (or pretend) to have the "average" interests as their main goal... populist, nationalistic, "social-right" movements. And this is because the Left in general started aligning itself with the neo-liberist ideals and pushed "freedom" above everything else (this has surely complex causes, including the failure of Communism: European left parties had to shift their goals to something that was as far as possible from the decline of the Socialist/Communist ideals).

by Pamar 10y ago

teekert 10y ago

I see it here in the Netherlands as well, one cause is that we had some referenda in which the majority vote (no against a European constitution (we got the Geneva convention), no against associating with Ukraine) was ignored. This is of course food for anti Europe sentiment. That and then the never ending stories of bureaucratic non sense like the monthly move of parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg. [0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/10565686/The-farce-of-the-EU-travelling-circus.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/10565686/Th...

Pamar 10y ago
My current take on the Populist gains in the last few years (based on this and other articles from the same author): I believe that State (capital S) main function is to take care of the "average citizen". And we are all "average" in a way or the other... i.e. I could be a good coder, painter, car salesman, whatever - but this does not guarantee I have perfect health, or above-average business savvy, or I am a good parent, or ready to use a foreign language and move abroad to look for work. The neo-liberist idea is to cater only for "superheroes" (and the rest will adapt or perish)... so now more and more people try to back parties that claim (or pretend) to have the "average" interests as their main goal... populist, nationalistic, "social-right" movements. And this is because the Left in general started aligning itself with the neo-liberist ideals and pushed "freedom" above everything else (this has surely complex causes, including the failure of Communism: European left parties had to shift their goals to something that was as far as possible from the decline of the Socialist/Communist ideals).