8 ms·

What is going on in this world? I was reading news today that the parties on the right side of political spectrum are gaining ground all over Europe. US already

by harigov 10y ago

What is going on in this world? I was reading news today that the parties on the right side of political spectrum are gaining ground all over Europe. US already has Republicans in power. Every country is becoming more nationalistic. What is driving this change? AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this.

techsupporter 10y ago
> AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this. Populism and a perception that a more globally-connected world is concentrating the benefits of growth into the assets and control of a handful of individuals instead of "a rising tide lifting all boats." Also, the message that some politicians have been using ("trade agreements are evil!" "immigration is bad!" "the EU is making us abuse you!") has taken hold and people are pushing back against the perceived wrongs. (I intentionally made no judgment call on the accuracy of these perceptions.)
- mistermann 10y ago
  I find most people have no problem acknowledging that the gap between the rich and poor is increasing, unless the topic is populist politics, then minds seem to change on the topic.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Oh, plenty of people that oppose the brand of right-wing politics usually denoted in talk about "populist" politics (which is largely authoritarian nationalism) have no problem acknowledg ING that the charge of current economic policies unfairly and unnecessarily increasing the rich/poor gap are true. It's possible to believe that and think that the program of the "populists" coming to power on the back of it does nothing to alleviate that problem, as well as causing a bunch of other problems.
- quickben 10y ago
  Capital tends to amalgamate. Thus, I find your perceptions to be on the right track.
- rudrigu 10y ago
  > the message that some politicians have been using ("trade agreements are evil!" "immigration is bad!" "the EU is making us abuse you!") has taken hold Or, perhaps, the dissatisfaction was there all along, and the politicians are merely exploiting the pain of a faction of the electorate. Humans are tribal. They don't become tribal overnight because a politician told them to do so.
- gydfi 10y ago
  That's partially true but I think it's partially a recasting of right-wing thought into a left-wing mould. The main driving factor is third-world immigration, and in particular the perception that mass immigration from the third world has had deleterious effects on the West, both economically and culturally. What we're seeing right now is, I think, a preference cascade. For years people have been told that opposition to mass immigration is "racist" and have kept quiet about it, but now it's become more socially acceptable to talk about it.
am_i_down 10y ago
Are you serious? It is largely a reaction to globalization and the refugee crisis.
- harigov 10y ago
  What made you doubt my seriousness? Of course I am serious. I am not aware of how bad refugee crisis. Sure, people are complaining but we are not talking about millions of refugees that change the social fabric altogether. Globalization has been going on for decades now and things do seem to have improved for many. Why now?
  - rfrank 10y ago
    > ...but we are not talking about millions of refugees that change the social fabric altogether. That is exactly what people are talking about. [1-5] > Globalization has been going on for decades now and things do seem to have improved for many. Why now? Things have improved for some, generally in different countries than the places where things have gotten much worse. See the decline of middle America. Add an elite class who's comfortable with and encourages income inequality [6], and you get lots of anger and backlash. Especially if you only call the people with complaints about globalization ignorant and racist for caring about their own self interest. 1. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445237/sweden-crime-rates-statistics-immigration-trump-fox-news http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445237/sweden-crime-ra... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Swe... 3. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2523332/migrants-sexually-assault-14-women-and-1000-strong-gang-throw-fireworks-at-police-as-chaos-hits-nye-events-across-germany-despite-heightened-security/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2523332/migrants-sexually-assa... 4. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/eight-iraqi-migrants-who-gang-9949802 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/eight-iraqi-migrants... 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Zk3TUNRBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Zk3TUNRBs 6. http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html
  - codys 10y ago
    > millions of refugees that change the social fabric altogether Note that there were slightly over 1 million applications for asylum in Europe in 2015 [1]. I can't find numbers for totals in 2016, but [2] has some raw statistics & charts. Note that these numbers don't account for migrants that don't apply for asylum (which could be a very small or a very large percentage, but is likely non-zero). I can't speak for the "changing the social fabric" bit though. [1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911 [2]: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_quarterly_report http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/... [cache of 2]: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ki9SPSvqDKsJ:ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_quarterly_report+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ki9SPSv...
golemotron 10y ago
> What is going on in this world? I was reading news today that the parties on the right side of political spectrum are gaining ground all over Europe. US already has Republicans in power. Every country is becoming more nationalistic. What is driving this change? AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this. This is what it is like to be in a filter bubble.
erispoe 10y ago
It is true that populist parties are on the rise. However, both in France and in Germany, favorites for this year election are on the center-left (Emmanuel Macron and Martin Schultz, respectively) and very firmly in favor of more EU integration. The rise of nationalist parties doesn't necessarily mean that people are becoming more nationalist overall.
- blibble 10y ago
  they're simply EU nationalists instead
  - cplanas 10y ago
    There is no "EU nation", and therefore, no EU nationalists. Moreover, most of European federalists are internationalists.
  - erispoe 10y ago
    Have you looked at their programs? They're not proposing any crackdown on immigration.
Dobbs 10y ago
This is not nationalistic. One of the standard things that happens with Visa costs is reciprocity. If you charge my citizens a fee for a visa, then I'll charge your citizens. What is different here is that the EU is involved, and the EU is many countries which generally act like a bloc. So the US grants Free Visa Access to 23 of the 28 members of the EU countries and likewise those 23 countries grant Free Visa Access to US citizens traveling to the EU. But what about those other five countries? To make it even worse a US citizen can travel to say Germany, not pay for a visa and then travel to one of the five other countries and since a Germany Visa is actually a Schengen Visa and is good for any of the Schengen area you don't need another visa. The EU has tried to work with the US to fix this but the US has so far refused or ignored the request.
- areyousure 10y ago
  Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, and Romania are not in the Schengen Area. It is not clear to me whether by "one of the five other countries" you mean that any of them or whether you mean Poland.
  - kyriakos 10y ago
    You can travel to non schengen countries with a schengen visa. At least to countries which have active applications to become schengen members e.g. Cyprus. It's just that Cyprus can't issue a schengen visa. Partly one of the reasons Cyprus doesn't get as many refugees as Greece even though being geographically much closer to Syria and Turkey.
    - areyousure 10y ago
      This appears to be correct, although note that one must have a double or multiple entry visa.
pklausler 10y ago
For a while, I had thought that the modern world had finally transcended the grip of medieval-minded ignorance. But the medievals didn't go away, and they eventually organized and voted and, in the U.S., got lucky with a system that disproportionately allocates presidential voting power, allowing the GOP to win 3 out of the past 7 elections despite having won the vote only once.
- ginko 10y ago
  Nation states are an invention of the 19th century. Give the Middle Ages more credit.
  - pklausler 10y ago
    Surely the U.S.A. (a 1776 result of the scientific Enlightenment responsible for every single improvement to human life, assuming that you don't want to be a disease-ridden illiterate peasant lucky to make it to your 30's) meets any reasonable categorization of a nation-state. 46% of Americans believe that humans were created in their current form sometime in the last 10,000 years by a Bronze Age deity fond of stoning. Don't even start trying to convince me that the medieval world is behind us.
    - mi100hael 10y ago
      [Citation Needed] I realize there are some folks with their head in the sand, but I've never once met someone who actually believed that and I'm not even coastal.
      - pklausler 10y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism
      - jamiek88 10y ago
        Come to Texas you can meet someone every day if you like.
yogthos 10y ago
What's driving it all it the fact that US completely destabilized the Middle East and started funding ISIS and affiliates. This has resulted in one of the greatest humanitarian crisis in history, and triggered a massive influx of refugees seeking shelter in Europe from the region. This is what's knows at the refugee crisis, and what the right wing European parties have been using to go mainstream.
nas 10y ago
I don't buy this theory 100% but I think Mark is on the right track: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/18/mark_blyth_global_trumpism_and_the_revolt_against_the_creditor_class.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/18/mark_blyth... The top 1% have been extremely successful in funneling wealth to themselves. The middle and lower classes are getting pissed off. They perhaps don't know exactly how to fight back so they are just smashing shit at random.
- vacri 10y ago
  This is pretty much it. In the UK, despite the folks in The City funneling that wealth to themselves, the finance industry provides 35% of the British GDP. By fucking them over (whether or not they deserve it), the poor who rely on a lot of welfare have fucked themselves over in the long run. And over in the US, they've elected a man president who is so boorish that if he ever gives a speech that isn't laden with idle insults and self-aggrandisement, that pundits talk about how presidential and statesmanlike it is.
frabbit 10y ago
Citizens of western countries got lazy and let plutocrats take over. The result has been a re-distribution of wealth and power. More people are starting to find that uncomfortable: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/05/economist-explains http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/05/ec...
- vacri 10y ago
  How many countries, western or otherwise, don't have some sort of oligarchs in control? Switzerland is famously low-level democratic, but who else? And when have the proles ever actually been in control in western countries?
jhpriestley 10y ago
One big factor is that those with personal experience of fascism are dying off.
SubZero 10y ago
As others have stated here, this is largely a reaction to globalization and immigration issues that have been present in the world's view. Globalization has left a large portion of each country behind. Large multinational firms have moved a lot of their low-skill labor to cheaper markets and developing countries, leaving a large swath of former employees in their wake with very little perceived hope of finding another job at the same level. Whether you agree with the feeling of hopelessness or not, you have to admit that there is a large population that feels that way. You can't tell them that their feelings or views are not valid and that this is good for the world; their world just got ruined for the profit of others. Pair this with a large influx of immigrants from other countries, and it scares people even more. The constant threat of terrorism has caused people to live in fear, and governments to react accordingly. All in all, those are some major parts of the puzzle. In another comment section (Reddit, I believe) there was anecdotal evidence that visitors from Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania regularly outstayed their visas and were notorious for violating a tourist visa, hence the additional checks the US wanted to put them through.
- cplanas 10y ago
  > In another comment section (Reddit, I believe) there was anecdotal evidence that visitors from Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania regularly outstayed their visas and were notorious for violating a tourist visa, hence the additional checks the US wanted to put them through. I guess it was anecdotal evidence, because the data shows the contrary: - Bulgaria: 1.74% - Croatia: 1.08% - Cyprus: 1.35% - Poland: 1.49% - Romania: 2.06% There are a few countries on the VWP that have higher overstaying ratios (Hungary, Chile, Slovakia). Croatia in particular has an overstaying ratio lower than Austria's and Netherlands'. Source: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/FY%2015%20DHS%20Entry%20and%20Exit%20Overstay%20Report.pdf https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/FY%2015... The reason they don't get VWP is the visa refusal rate, aka "US embassy in your country does not want to give you visa".
  - pzh 10y ago
    Using the visa refusal rate as an excuse sounds a bit like circular logic: "We're not going to give you online rubber-stamped visas, because we're currently not giving you many visas." I'm not saying that the refusals don't have merit, but since they are discretionary, the refusal rate may never improve. It's just the perception: "Those Eastern-Europeans seem dodgy to me, so we won't allow them because they'll surely overstay." Yet the reality is that they don't overstay so much.
vkou 10y ago
> AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this. Globalization, the rise of the precariat, anemic economic recovery since the recession for the lower and middle classes, justified and unjustified distrust in institutions, better use of technology and propaganda by the right, poor quality of liberal/centerist establishment candidates... But besides that, no, nothing is driving this phenomena.
atmosx 10y ago
> What is driving this change? Financialization of the banking sector and globalisation[1] happened. Socialists in Europe and the US (if you like to call democrats socialists...) failed miserably to address any of the above in a meaningful way, so we're in 1929 all over again. [1] Money can move freely across borders now but not people ;-)
kome 10y ago
> What is driving this change? AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this. Well: unemployment, under employment, insecurity and difficult living ate really striking hard our societies. That's the reason.
darkhorn 10y ago
Would it be OK to ask for visa from Texas but not from Alaska? Huh?
colordrops 10y ago
People are talking about globalism in response to your question, but that answer is beating around the bush. The truth is that neo-liberal elites have been slowly weakening democracies and taking more and more wealth and power. They recognize that the inequality gap is now too large, but in their greed and competitiveness they have been unable to relinquish their grasp despite and a critical mass of unrest is fomenting. An example is how the US Democrats clearly needed to support an anti-establishment progressive to win the election but in their greed for power and wealth they maintained the status quo rather than doing something that would help the common man, giving up the election to a nationalist.
masklinn 10y ago
This specific situation is not that, it's a problem with visa waiver reciprocity: all US citizens get a waiver to the EU, but not all EU countries get waiver in the US. In 2001 the EU adopted a rule that reciprocity is required for an EU visa waiver. The US were notified about the non-reciprocity issue in 2014 alongside Australia, Brunei, Canada and Japan, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 12 April 2014[0]. The situation with Australia and Japan had been resolved by April 2016[1], Brunei resolved it in April 2016[2], and Canada is in the process of resolving it and will be implementing reciprocity through 2017 but there had been no such evidence from the US by December 2016[3]: > Following intensive and coordinated efforts and sustained engagement between the EU and Canada at political and technical level ahead of the 16th EU-Canada Summit on 30 October 2016 in Brussels, Canada provided a clear timeline for achieving full visa waiver reciprocity with Bulgaria and Romania, the two remaining EU countries whose citizens still require visas. On 3 October 2016 Canada announced that it will lift the visa requirement from 1 May 2017 for Bulgarian and Romanian travellers who have held a Canadian temporary resident visa in the past 10 years or who hold a valid U.S. non-immigrant visa. The rest of the travellers will become visa-free as from 1 December 2017. > Despite the stepping up of political and technical contacts, there have not been comparable indications of progress towards the lifting of visas with the U.S. [0] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52014XC0412%2801%29&from=FR http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX... [1] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1345_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1345_en.htm [2] https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-is-new/news/news/2016/20160414_1_en https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-is-new/news/news/2016... [3] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-4484_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-4484_en.htm
StreamBright 10y ago
Nothing much. One interesting fact: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/nationalities-granted-most-european-residency-permits-2015/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/nationalities-granted... There is not 1st world country in the top10 for EU immigration other than USA.
tim333 10y ago
It's complicated but one issue is what you might call depression economics. Before in the 1930s and now there was an economic boom when people ran up a lot of debts followed by a period of anemic demand while the debts got repaid. Both periods had approx 0% interest rates and quite a bit of unemployment and the rise or right wing / fascist politics. Not quite sure why - I guess the left out people don't understand debt deflation and blame immigrants and foreigners for their lack of jobs and money. At least we have a lite version compared to the 30s.
nonglobal 10y ago
Look at this very news article. Tourism from the US is an important industry for many EU member states, particularly the less wealthy. Visa requirements are going to have a horrible impact on the weaker member states. Brussels is more interested in playing political games with the US, increasing their own power, and stomping out nationalist seperatist movements (like trying to imprison Le Pen for posting ISIS videos) than it is with the well being of its member states. Do not be surprised if desire to negotiate visa waivers bilaterally with the US to restore the tourism industry becomes another common refrain for populist, anti-EU candidates in a few years, albeit one a bit lower on the totem pole than other, more pressing dangers.
Bartweiss 10y ago
Pretty much all of the responses here are irrelevant. (Perhaps accurate, but unrelated to this story.) As per the top comment on this article, what's happening is that The Economist hit a slow news day and wrote up a non-story in a misleading way. For years now, the US hasn't honored visa-free travel for five eastern European countries. That technically violates the visa-free reciprocity agreement, so the EP occasionally makes some noise about enforcing those rules. The EC doesn't want to, nor do actual European member states (even the ones not getting reciprocity!) because it would hugely deter tourism, something places like Greece really can't afford. So: the EC is rattling a saber to press the US to hurry up on a narrow bureaucratic issue. The US will probably continue to ignore them, and the EC will probably not do anything about it. A bunch of news orgs looking for clicks slapped dramatic headlines on that and spun it as closely related to current events, making all of us a little more ignorant.

by harigov 10y ago

techsupporter 10y ago

> AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this. Populism and a perception that a more globally-connected world is concentrating the benefits of growth into the assets and control of a handful of individuals instead of "a rising tide lifting all boats." Also, the message that some politicians have been using ("trade agreements are evil!" "immigration is bad!" "the EU is making us abuse you!") has taken hold and people are pushing back against the perceived wrongs. (I intentionally made no judgment call on the accuracy of these perceptions.)

mistermann 10y ago
I find most people have no problem acknowledging that the gap between the rich and poor is increasing, unless the topic is populist politics, then minds seem to change on the topic.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Oh, plenty of people that oppose the brand of right-wing politics usually denoted in talk about "populist" politics (which is largely authoritarian nationalism) have no problem acknowledg ING that the charge of current economic policies unfairly and unnecessarily increasing the rich/poor gap are true. It's possible to believe that and think that the program of the "populists" coming to power on the back of it does nothing to alleviate that problem, as well as causing a bunch of other problems.
quickben 10y ago
Capital tends to amalgamate. Thus, I find your perceptions to be on the right track.
rudrigu 10y ago
> the message that some politicians have been using ("trade agreements are evil!" "immigration is bad!" "the EU is making us abuse you!") has taken hold Or, perhaps, the dissatisfaction was there all along, and the politicians are merely exploiting the pain of a faction of the electorate. Humans are tribal. They don't become tribal overnight because a politician told them to do so.
gydfi 10y ago
That's partially true but I think it's partially a recasting of right-wing thought into a left-wing mould. The main driving factor is third-world immigration, and in particular the perception that mass immigration from the third world has had deleterious effects on the West, both economically and culturally. What we're seeing right now is, I think, a preference cascade. For years people have been told that opposition to mass immigration is "racist" and have kept quiet about it, but now it's become more socially acceptable to talk about it.

am_i_down 10y ago

Are you serious? It is largely a reaction to globalization and the refugee crisis.

harigov 10y ago
What made you doubt my seriousness? Of course I am serious. I am not aware of how bad refugee crisis. Sure, people are complaining but we are not talking about millions of refugees that change the social fabric altogether. Globalization has been going on for decades now and things do seem to have improved for many. Why now?
- rfrank 10y ago
  > ...but we are not talking about millions of refugees that change the social fabric altogether. That is exactly what people are talking about. [1-5] > Globalization has been going on for decades now and things do seem to have improved for many. Why now? Things have improved for some, generally in different countries than the places where things have gotten much worse. See the decline of middle America. Add an elite class who's comfortable with and encourages income inequality [6], and you get lots of anger and backlash. Especially if you only call the people with complaints about globalization ignorant and racist for caring about their own self interest. 1. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445237/sweden-crime-rates-statistics-immigration-trump-fox-news http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445237/sweden-crime-ra... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Swe... 3. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2523332/migrants-sexually-assault-14-women-and-1000-strong-gang-throw-fireworks-at-police-as-chaos-hits-nye-events-across-germany-despite-heightened-security/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2523332/migrants-sexually-assa... 4. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/eight-iraqi-migrants-who-gang-9949802 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/eight-iraqi-migrants... 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Zk3TUNRBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Zk3TUNRBs 6. http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html
- codys 10y ago
  > millions of refugees that change the social fabric altogether Note that there were slightly over 1 million applications for asylum in Europe in 2015 [1]. I can't find numbers for totals in 2016, but [2] has some raw statistics & charts. Note that these numbers don't account for migrants that don't apply for asylum (which could be a very small or a very large percentage, but is likely non-zero). I can't speak for the "changing the social fabric" bit though. [1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911 [2]: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_quarterly_report http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/... [cache of 2]: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ki9SPSvqDKsJ:ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_quarterly_report+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ki9SPSv...

golemotron 10y ago

> What is going on in this world? I was reading news today that the parties on the right side of political spectrum are gaining ground all over Europe. US already has Republicans in power. Every country is becoming more nationalistic. What is driving this change? AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this. This is what it is like to be in a filter bubble.

erispoe 10y ago

It is true that populist parties are on the rise. However, both in France and in Germany, favorites for this year election are on the center-left (Emmanuel Macron and Martin Schultz, respectively) and very firmly in favor of more EU integration. The rise of nationalist parties doesn't necessarily mean that people are becoming more nationalist overall.

blibble 10y ago
they're simply EU nationalists instead
- cplanas 10y ago
  There is no "EU nation", and therefore, no EU nationalists. Moreover, most of European federalists are internationalists.
- erispoe 10y ago
  Have you looked at their programs? They're not proposing any crackdown on immigration.

Dobbs 10y ago

This is not nationalistic. One of the standard things that happens with Visa costs is reciprocity. If you charge my citizens a fee for a visa, then I'll charge your citizens. What is different here is that the EU is involved, and the EU is many countries which generally act like a bloc. So the US grants Free Visa Access to 23 of the 28 members of the EU countries and likewise those 23 countries grant Free Visa Access to US citizens traveling to the EU. But what about those other five countries? To make it even worse a US citizen can travel to say Germany, not pay for a visa and then travel to one of the five other countries and since a Germany Visa is actually a Schengen Visa and is good for any of the Schengen area you don't need another visa. The EU has tried to work with the US to fix this but the US has so far refused or ignored the request.

areyousure 10y ago
Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, and Romania are not in the Schengen Area. It is not clear to me whether by "one of the five other countries" you mean that any of them or whether you mean Poland.
- kyriakos 10y ago
  You can travel to non schengen countries with a schengen visa. At least to countries which have active applications to become schengen members e.g. Cyprus. It's just that Cyprus can't issue a schengen visa. Partly one of the reasons Cyprus doesn't get as many refugees as Greece even though being geographically much closer to Syria and Turkey.
  - areyousure 10y ago
    This appears to be correct, although note that one must have a double or multiple entry visa.

pklausler 10y ago

For a while, I had thought that the modern world had finally transcended the grip of medieval-minded ignorance. But the medievals didn't go away, and they eventually organized and voted and, in the U.S., got lucky with a system that disproportionately allocates presidential voting power, allowing the GOP to win 3 out of the past 7 elections despite having won the vote only once.

ginko 10y ago
Nation states are an invention of the 19th century. Give the Middle Ages more credit.
- pklausler 10y ago
  Surely the U.S.A. (a 1776 result of the scientific Enlightenment responsible for every single improvement to human life, assuming that you don't want to be a disease-ridden illiterate peasant lucky to make it to your 30's) meets any reasonable categorization of a nation-state. 46% of Americans believe that humans were created in their current form sometime in the last 10,000 years by a Bronze Age deity fond of stoning. Don't even start trying to convince me that the medieval world is behind us.
  - mi100hael 10y ago
    [Citation Needed] I realize there are some folks with their head in the sand, but I've never once met someone who actually believed that and I'm not even coastal.
    - pklausler 10y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism
    - jamiek88 10y ago
      Come to Texas you can meet someone every day if you like.

yogthos 10y ago

What's driving it all it the fact that US completely destabilized the Middle East and started funding ISIS and affiliates. This has resulted in one of the greatest humanitarian crisis in history, and triggered a massive influx of refugees seeking shelter in Europe from the region. This is what's knows at the refugee crisis, and what the right wing European parties have been using to go mainstream.

nas 10y ago

I don't buy this theory 100% but I think Mark is on the right track: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/18/mark_blyth_global_trumpism_and_the_revolt_against_the_creditor_class.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/18/mark_blyth... The top 1% have been extremely successful in funneling wealth to themselves. The middle and lower classes are getting pissed off. They perhaps don't know exactly how to fight back so they are just smashing shit at random.

vacri 10y ago
This is pretty much it. In the UK, despite the folks in The City funneling that wealth to themselves, the finance industry provides 35% of the British GDP. By fucking them over (whether or not they deserve it), the poor who rely on a lot of welfare have fucked themselves over in the long run. And over in the US, they've elected a man president who is so boorish that if he ever gives a speech that isn't laden with idle insults and self-aggrandisement, that pundits talk about how presidential and statesmanlike it is.

frabbit 10y ago

Citizens of western countries got lazy and let plutocrats take over. The result has been a re-distribution of wealth and power. More people are starting to find that uncomfortable: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/05/economist-explains http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/05/ec...

vacri 10y ago
How many countries, western or otherwise, don't have some sort of oligarchs in control? Switzerland is famously low-level democratic, but who else? And when have the proles ever actually been in control in western countries?

jhpriestley 10y ago

One big factor is that those with personal experience of fascism are dying off.

SubZero 10y ago

As others have stated here, this is largely a reaction to globalization and immigration issues that have been present in the world's view. Globalization has left a large portion of each country behind. Large multinational firms have moved a lot of their low-skill labor to cheaper markets and developing countries, leaving a large swath of former employees in their wake with very little perceived hope of finding another job at the same level. Whether you agree with the feeling of hopelessness or not, you have to admit that there is a large population that feels that way. You can't tell them that their feelings or views are not valid and that this is good for the world; their world just got ruined for the profit of others. Pair this with a large influx of immigrants from other countries, and it scares people even more. The constant threat of terrorism has caused people to live in fear, and governments to react accordingly. All in all, those are some major parts of the puzzle. In another comment section (Reddit, I believe) there was anecdotal evidence that visitors from Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania regularly outstayed their visas and were notorious for violating a tourist visa, hence the additional checks the US wanted to put them through.

cplanas 10y ago
> In another comment section (Reddit, I believe) there was anecdotal evidence that visitors from Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania regularly outstayed their visas and were notorious for violating a tourist visa, hence the additional checks the US wanted to put them through. I guess it was anecdotal evidence, because the data shows the contrary: - Bulgaria: 1.74% - Croatia: 1.08% - Cyprus: 1.35% - Poland: 1.49% - Romania: 2.06% There are a few countries on the VWP that have higher overstaying ratios (Hungary, Chile, Slovakia). Croatia in particular has an overstaying ratio lower than Austria's and Netherlands'. Source: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/FY%2015%20DHS%20Entry%20and%20Exit%20Overstay%20Report.pdf https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/FY%2015... The reason they don't get VWP is the visa refusal rate, aka "US embassy in your country does not want to give you visa".
- pzh 10y ago
  Using the visa refusal rate as an excuse sounds a bit like circular logic: "We're not going to give you online rubber-stamped visas, because we're currently not giving you many visas." I'm not saying that the refusals don't have merit, but since they are discretionary, the refusal rate may never improve. It's just the perception: "Those Eastern-Europeans seem dodgy to me, so we won't allow them because they'll surely overstay." Yet the reality is that they don't overstay so much.

vkou 10y ago

> AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this. Globalization, the rise of the precariat, anemic economic recovery since the recession for the lower and middle classes, justified and unjustified distrust in institutions, better use of technology and propaganda by the right, poor quality of liberal/centerist establishment candidates... But besides that, no, nothing is driving this phenomena.

atmosx 10y ago

> What is driving this change? Financialization of the banking sector and globalisation[1] happened. Socialists in Europe and the US (if you like to call democrats socialists...) failed miserably to address any of the above in a meaningful way, so we're in 1929 all over again. [1] Money can move freely across borders now but not people ;-)

kome 10y ago

> What is driving this change? AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this. Well: unemployment, under employment, insecurity and difficult living ate really striking hard our societies. That's the reason.

darkhorn 10y ago

Would it be OK to ask for visa from Texas but not from Alaska? Huh?

colordrops 10y ago

People are talking about globalism in response to your question, but that answer is beating around the bush. The truth is that neo-liberal elites have been slowly weakening democracies and taking more and more wealth and power. They recognize that the inequality gap is now too large, but in their greed and competitiveness they have been unable to relinquish their grasp despite and a critical mass of unrest is fomenting. An example is how the US Democrats clearly needed to support an anti-establishment progressive to win the election but in their greed for power and wealth they maintained the status quo rather than doing something that would help the common man, giving up the election to a nationalist.

masklinn 10y ago

This specific situation is not that, it's a problem with visa waiver reciprocity: all US citizens get a waiver to the EU, but not all EU countries get waiver in the US. In 2001 the EU adopted a rule that reciprocity is required for an EU visa waiver. The US were notified about the non-reciprocity issue in 2014 alongside Australia, Brunei, Canada and Japan, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 12 April 2014[0]. The situation with Australia and Japan had been resolved by April 2016[1], Brunei resolved it in April 2016[2], and Canada is in the process of resolving it and will be implementing reciprocity through 2017 but there had been no such evidence from the US by December 2016[3]: > Following intensive and coordinated efforts and sustained engagement between the EU and Canada at political and technical level ahead of the 16th EU-Canada Summit on 30 October 2016 in Brussels, Canada provided a clear timeline for achieving full visa waiver reciprocity with Bulgaria and Romania, the two remaining EU countries whose citizens still require visas. On 3 October 2016 Canada announced that it will lift the visa requirement from 1 May 2017 for Bulgarian and Romanian travellers who have held a Canadian temporary resident visa in the past 10 years or who hold a valid U.S. non-immigrant visa. The rest of the travellers will become visa-free as from 1 December 2017. > Despite the stepping up of political and technical contacts, there have not been comparable indications of progress towards the lifting of visas with the U.S. [0] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52014XC0412%2801%29&from=FR http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX... [1] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1345_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1345_en.htm [2] https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-is-new/news/news/2016/20160414_1_en https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-is-new/news/news/2016... [3] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-4484_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-4484_en.htm

StreamBright 10y ago

Nothing much. One interesting fact: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/nationalities-granted-most-european-residency-permits-2015/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/nationalities-granted... There is not 1st world country in the top10 for EU immigration other than USA.

tim333 10y ago

It's complicated but one issue is what you might call depression economics. Before in the 1930s and now there was an economic boom when people ran up a lot of debts followed by a period of anemic demand while the debts got repaid. Both periods had approx 0% interest rates and quite a bit of unemployment and the rise or right wing / fascist politics. Not quite sure why - I guess the left out people don't understand debt deflation and blame immigrants and foreigners for their lack of jobs and money. At least we have a lite version compared to the 30s.

nonglobal 10y ago

Look at this very news article. Tourism from the US is an important industry for many EU member states, particularly the less wealthy. Visa requirements are going to have a horrible impact on the weaker member states. Brussels is more interested in playing political games with the US, increasing their own power, and stomping out nationalist seperatist movements (like trying to imprison Le Pen for posting ISIS videos) than it is with the well being of its member states. Do not be surprised if desire to negotiate visa waivers bilaterally with the US to restore the tourism industry becomes another common refrain for populist, anti-EU candidates in a few years, albeit one a bit lower on the totem pole than other, more pressing dangers.

Bartweiss 10y ago

Pretty much all of the responses here are irrelevant. (Perhaps accurate, but unrelated to this story.) As per the top comment on this article, what's happening is that The Economist hit a slow news day and wrote up a non-story in a misleading way. For years now, the US hasn't honored visa-free travel for five eastern European countries. That technically violates the visa-free reciprocity agreement, so the EP occasionally makes some noise about enforcing those rules. The EC doesn't want to, nor do actual European member states (even the ones not getting reciprocity!) because it would hugely deter tourism, something places like Greece really can't afford. So: the EC is rattling a saber to press the US to hurry up on a narrow bureaucratic issue. The US will probably continue to ignore them, and the EC will probably not do anything about it. A bunch of news orgs looking for clicks slapped dramatic headlines on that and spun it as closely related to current events, making all of us a little more ignorant.