4 ms·

Countries of the EU falling to far right populism is the result of some unpopular policies being imposed by the EU themselves—Your comment reeks of "beatings wi

by bzb3 6y ago

Countries of the EU falling to far right populism is the result of some unpopular policies being imposed by the EU themselves—Your comment reeks of "beatings will continue until morality improves".

rsynnott 6y ago
Far right populism in Europe far precedes the existence of the EU; it seems fairly perverse to just blanket blame the EU for it.
- luckylion 6y ago
  It's resurgence does not though.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    It's had multiple resurgences since WW2, and the current one may have already peaked in some places. Duda didn't exactly improve his numbers, say, and in most Western European countries the far right isn't actually looking all that healthy in polls.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      I've had the flu a lot, but that doesn't mean that I'm chronically infected with it. Every time I got sick, I caught it from a different person. Europe caught it from this intermediate condition where the core of the EU can consistently take advantage of the peripheral states, generating large trade surpluses, but have to be begged to help through begrudging one-off fixes (rather than federal institutions that work to and have the means to constantly rebalance things) whenever they crash one of them by loaning them too much money to buy things from the core. If federalism is just exploitation, the obvious last resort is nationalism.
andrepd 6y ago
Hah, that is indeed the narrative but is it really true? Poland is one of the major recipients of EU aid, it also benefits immensely from the single market. Yet politicians always use it as a scapegoat blaming it for its problems!
- bzb3 6y ago
  So you have to take the bad with the good? Can't you say "money is good, but being forced to be leeched on by refugees of NATO wars is unsavoury and doesn't help anybody"
  - ric2b 6y ago
    > be leeched on by refugees Had to re-read that one. Really, people desperately fleeing from wars, who've had their lives destroyed, are leeches? It's fine if you don't think it's your responsibility to help them, but at least try to be respectful of their difficulties.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  The Polish political/media approach seems very, very similar to the British; anything good, Poland did, anything bad is the EU's fault. I think most member states do this to an extent, but a few really lean into it, causing a lot of public confusion.
sydd 6y ago
Nope, I witnessed the rise of populism in Hungary, its a very interesting story. Mostly because its a small country, so its easier to see behind the curtains and because its in the border of the west-east influence zone. Hungary had far right activist since it was freed from the soviet union (MIEP [1] and early Jobbik [2] ), but these were very different from the ones today. They hated the Soviet union and Russia with a passion, since they occupied Hungary for 40 years. Another prominent feature of them was hating on jews. Also they never had any significant popularity, most ppl saw them just as wackos. Then around 2010 something happened. The far right (mostly Jobbik at this time) reversed its stance on Russia and started hating the EU and US within like half a year (also they stopped their anti-jew rhetoric). Also small, dubious news sites and started popping up which praised Putin so much I thought it was a joke. Same thing happened in conspiracy sites - a few years earlier they content was about UFOs, lizard men, angels etc. and suddenly political articles praising Putin started appearing in them e.g. [3]. After these changes moving away from straight nazi stuff Jobbik started to become more and more popular, so much that Fidesz felt threatened. (around 2010 Fidesz was center-right). So they started saying the same things as Jobbik (and discrediting them, e.g. spreading fake news that the party's head was muslim), just louder, and with more $$$ backing them up wich leads to today. So IMO it was a carefully planned operation from Russia (support extremist voices to start infighting in the EU) that turned out very well. They are of course not 100% responsible (the other part is the PC culture taken too far), just gave a kick in the right direction. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Justice_and_Life_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Justice_and_Life_Par... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik 3: https://www.facebook.com/Hihetetlen.Magazin/posts/944174948977240/ https://www.facebook.com/Hihetetlen.Magazin/posts/9441749489... Here they say that Putin is fighing against the Satan which is US and the EU.
- ss2003 6y ago
  The question is how does one thwart and reverse such an attack?
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Make a better argument.

by bzb3 6y ago

Countries of the EU falling to far right populism is the result of some unpopular policies being imposed by the EU themselves—Your comment reeks of "beatings will continue until morality improves".

rsynnott 6y ago

Far right populism in Europe far precedes the existence of the EU; it seems fairly perverse to just blanket blame the EU for it.

luckylion 6y ago
It's resurgence does not though.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  It's had multiple resurgences since WW2, and the current one may have already peaked in some places. Duda didn't exactly improve his numbers, say, and in most Western European countries the far right isn't actually looking all that healthy in polls.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    I've had the flu a lot, but that doesn't mean that I'm chronically infected with it. Every time I got sick, I caught it from a different person. Europe caught it from this intermediate condition where the core of the EU can consistently take advantage of the peripheral states, generating large trade surpluses, but have to be begged to help through begrudging one-off fixes (rather than federal institutions that work to and have the means to constantly rebalance things) whenever they crash one of them by loaning them too much money to buy things from the core. If federalism is just exploitation, the obvious last resort is nationalism.

andrepd 6y ago

Hah, that is indeed the narrative but is it really true? Poland is one of the major recipients of EU aid, it also benefits immensely from the single market. Yet politicians always use it as a scapegoat blaming it for its problems!

bzb3 6y ago
So you have to take the bad with the good? Can't you say "money is good, but being forced to be leeched on by refugees of NATO wars is unsavoury and doesn't help anybody"
- ric2b 6y ago
  > be leeched on by refugees Had to re-read that one. Really, people desperately fleeing from wars, who've had their lives destroyed, are leeches? It's fine if you don't think it's your responsibility to help them, but at least try to be respectful of their difficulties.
rsynnott 6y ago
The Polish political/media approach seems very, very similar to the British; anything good, Poland did, anything bad is the EU's fault. I think most member states do this to an extent, but a few really lean into it, causing a lot of public confusion.

sydd 6y ago

Nope, I witnessed the rise of populism in Hungary, its a very interesting story. Mostly because its a small country, so its easier to see behind the curtains and because its in the border of the west-east influence zone. Hungary had far right activist since it was freed from the soviet union (MIEP [1] and early Jobbik [2] ), but these were very different from the ones today. They hated the Soviet union and Russia with a passion, since they occupied Hungary for 40 years. Another prominent feature of them was hating on jews. Also they never had any significant popularity, most ppl saw them just as wackos. Then around 2010 something happened. The far right (mostly Jobbik at this time) reversed its stance on Russia and started hating the EU and US within like half a year (also they stopped their anti-jew rhetoric). Also small, dubious news sites and started popping up which praised Putin so much I thought it was a joke. Same thing happened in conspiracy sites - a few years earlier they content was about UFOs, lizard men, angels etc. and suddenly political articles praising Putin started appearing in them e.g. [3]. After these changes moving away from straight nazi stuff Jobbik started to become more and more popular, so much that Fidesz felt threatened. (around 2010 Fidesz was center-right). So they started saying the same things as Jobbik (and discrediting them, e.g. spreading fake news that the party's head was muslim), just louder, and with more $$$ backing them up wich leads to today. So IMO it was a carefully planned operation from Russia (support extremist voices to start infighting in the EU) that turned out very well. They are of course not 100% responsible (the other part is the PC culture taken too far), just gave a kick in the right direction. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Justice_and_Life_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Justice_and_Life_Par... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik 3: https://www.facebook.com/Hihetetlen.Magazin/posts/944174948977240/ https://www.facebook.com/Hihetetlen.Magazin/posts/9441749489... Here they say that Putin is fighing against the Satan which is US and the EU.

ss2003 6y ago
The question is how does one thwart and reverse such an attack?
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Make a better argument.