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This did not happen fast though, but over decades. On one side, the right preparing by slowly taking over positions, on the other side people ignoring the prob
by nosianu 11mo ago
This did not happen fast though, but over decades.
On one side, the right preparing by slowly taking over positions, on the other side people ignoring the problems of many.
Here in Germany I fear the AfD too may get into power, because instead of fixing the problems that people complained about for decades (costs, bureaucracy, rents, no vision apart from "consume and work") people are fixated on that right wing party itself.
When I did some skydiving in my youth I was fascinated by watching sooo many skydivers barely avoiding the lone single tree near the landing zone. Turns out, if you concentrate on something ("I must avoid that tree I must avoid that tree...") you end up steering towards it. The winning move is to instead concentrate on where you do want to go. There are precious little positive ideas in our politics, it's mostly about what we don't want, or distractions on things that while it sounds nice and it's definitely okay when it gets done should never be the main focus.
- inglor_cz 11mo agoWell, roots of everything are long. We are a long-lived species and our political attention spans decades or longer. People still think of the Roman Empire and write in Latin alphabet, after all. But the actual short-term jumps in policy are absolutely wild now. That wasn't the case in the 1990s.
- throwawayqqq11 11mo agoImagine left leaning orgs being as organized and funded as the right. GP made the same mistake by putting the AfD on the right and anything else on "the other side that ignores problems". This other side is not the left, its the center or the non-left, which gets good funding too. The decades of political development were always meant to bolster the current power structures, and i am not talking about pol. parties or the interests of the many and their problems. From that angle, the current political swing is not suprising. Musk and Co are winning their war on the left mind virus, which is much older then them.
- inglor_cz 11mo agoThe left has a nasty problem with autophagy. If you are left (I am not, but I have observed it) and you agree with 90 per cent of the ideas of some group, but disagree on the remaining 10 per cent, they will turn on you in fury, denounce you as a traitor, hate you more than an actual opponent. Deviation from orthodoxy is a capital sin. (This is not new, see how Trotskyists were extirpated by their Stalinist comrades 100 years ago. Heresy is simply not tolerated.) The right wingers of today are a lot more capable of building a bigger tent, at least right now. Personally, I am somewhat rightwing, but very secular, as usual in Czechia. I still get invited to Christian events even though they know that I am not a believer, and they won't grill me to convert.
- throwawayqqq11 11mo agoThe same can be said about the right, but you are correct, infighting is stronger on the left. But... Orthodoxy (or better: tribalism) is actually stronger on the right, the key difference is, the right has less political complexity to argue over. "Our pure native culture will fix our problems and the other left outgroups must be suppressed" is pure identity politics, which is imo the core of the right. The left has, tribalism aside, at least identity independent topics like wealth distribution. Which, unfortunately, threatens the existing power structures. I can confirm the left ostracizing their own. It happened to me too, but i still consider myself left, because my political ideals are based on more than a group membership.
- inglor_cz 11mo agoI think you underestimate the complexity of the right. It is not just secular nationalists all the way down. First, there are still religious people there, and this very wing is splintered among several groups at least. Famously, many Catholics including JDVance were in a value conflict with their own late Pope Francis. The actual religiously educated people tend to be very good at writing, because the schools that they graduated from are good at teaching persuasion. Second, there are libertarians, not very numerous but somewhat influential, especially in tech circles. Then, there still are some trigger-happy neocons, nowadays marginalized, but they may yet come to the fore in case of a bigger war that directly involves the US. Then, there are reactionary types like Curtis Yarvin, who dismiss any nationalist ideas as blind alley of "demotism". Even the practical question of "how many people from which country should get a visa yearly and under what conditions" will hit enormous ideological differences in the right-wing tent.
- mikkupikku 11mo ago> the problems that people complained about for decades (costs, bureaucracy, rents, no vision apart from "consume and work") Insofar as people are actually going over to AfD (and it's not just exaggerated hysterics, the sky is always falling these days...), it's probably got something to do with the issues which are conspicuously absent from your list, which AfD ostensibly addresses, at least more convincingly than the other parties. Namely, immigration. You may not want to admit that as a real problem at all, but that refusal to engage with the issue is the primary reason people line up for the politicians who at least pretend to care about it.
- em-bee 11mo agoimmigration is a scapegoat. it's not the problem. reducing immigration would not improve anything.
- inglor_cz 11mo agoPeople are tribal, and the clash of values between Islam and postmodern secular Europeans is very real.
- em-bee 11mo agoagain, that clash is not the cause for the problems we are facing.
- inglor_cz 11mo agoCartoonists at Charlie Hebdo weren't killed by capitalism or global climate change. Personally, I consider the chilling effect of such events on freedom of speech and art quite a huge problem. This freedom was crucial to European prosperity.
- phatskat 11mo agoBut that attack wasn’t representative of any large population, it was the result of terrorists doing terrorist things.
- expedition32 11mo agoThe reality is that Northern Europe is the safest, most free and wealthiest part of this godforsaken planet. People don't know how good they have it. It is understandable that Germans voted for the Nazis in 1933. In 2025 they have no excuse. When Germans get grand ideas inside their heads everything always goes bad.
- inglor_cz 11mo agoThe economic difference between rural former GDR and, say, Denmark, is pretty huge, and AfD mostly dominates in the former GDR regions, where local industries collapsed almost overnight and all talents got picked off by West German employers. I traveled around most of Europe with a backpack. Former GDR is a dying country, and no amount of subsidies into fixing roads will help it. You cross the border to Poland, nominally you entered a poorer country, but everything is so much more lively there. Poles are so much more optimistic about their future than Germans in general, and East Germans extra. This psychological difference cannot be appreciated if you only look at GDP per capita tables.
- machomaster 11mo agoPeople don't compare themselves with countries on other continents, but with their neighboring countries or with the memories of their own country (how it was in the past). Swedes look at the statistics of bombing and shooting incidents in this century, while Finns look at economic growth, GDP and salary growth in the last twenty years, especially compared to other Nordic countries.