European Right Wing

[edyzmedieval]

Right, (see what I did there?) I want to initiate a discussion on the European right wing / populist movement that has been spurred onwards in the past two years, especially by events such as Brexit, the Trump presidential victory and future events that will eventually shape up, some in due course immediately (Italian Referendum), some a bit more down the road (French Election).

But clearly not limited to those.

Most European countries have had considerable problems internally due to the refugee crisis, most of it due to internal backlash against the whole "open door" policy of the European Union. While most people speculate this to be the fuel for the rise of the right wing, populist movements, simply putting the focus on the refugee crisis does not explain the full picture, particularly given the fact that some of these movements have been active for a looong time now. Most of them predate the refugee crisis, and some were active even 20 - 30 years ago.

What caused them to rise and take once more centre stage?

We all know Europe had a number of right wing movements which some of them turned rather... disagreeable. I am sarcastic of course here, because some of them were beyond horrific. But given Europe's rather distaste for right wing, populist policies, especially during the years after the war, the return of right wing ideals has rather alarmed many and has caused quite a few questions. Let's be clear however on one thing - modern right wing is different than the xenophobic, racist and extremist ideals of the 1930's. We're a long way from there. But this has alarmed many people, despite the obvious differences.

Why? How come right wing movements gained traction once more?

Let the intellectual debate begin.

[Greyblades]

It's a simple vaccum; when only one party or section of political thought are presenting solutions to widespread problems people turn to them and as the problem's effects increase so does the popularity of those parties who become, or are seen to become the only sane choice.

The left mostly refuses to acknowledge the great problems of the age are actually problems and are thus allowing the reemergence of the right by being willfully blind.

[Strike For The South]

The left has a tendcy to tear down social mores and communities. That's why it's ok to import millions of refugees with no plan. Contential Europe has no identity outside of the superficial.

[Montmorency]

The left has a tendcy to tear down social mores and communities. That's why it's ok to import millions of refugees with no plan. Contential Europe has no identity outside of the superficial.

Compared to the manifestly conservative nature of the American "revolutionaries", who only in 1776 came to accept what British think-pieces had been predicting about the colonies since 1696, and who retroactively assigned their same dawdling selves a coherent republican identity in their post-war histories.

Anyway, I disagree. Leftists simply present too many competing alternatives. For conservatives, so to speak, there is no alternative. That's where the irony comes in.

[Beskar]

The left has a tendcy to tear down social mores and communities. That's why it's ok to import millions of refugees with no plan. Contential Europe has no identity outside of the superficial.

With a narrative like that, you can attribute everything bad to the left It is really easy to flip them too...

Given the 'left' has the tendency of creating communities. See: Trade Unions, Cooperatives, and other organisations which work on the concept of better together. On the otherhand, the right wants to divide and conquer, by empowering the elite and oppressing the masses, saying about how the individual should compete in the race to the top, stepping over their neighbour.

Given that Individualism was a push from the right-wing capitalism and Thatcherite policies. Sell off social housing reserves at a low value, in order to enrich themselves short-term, whilst making the greater population poorer by denying accessible accommodation for the poorer sectors, driving up deprivation.

Given left-wing tendency to establish new social mores based upon unity and equality, tearing down desive 'traditional' policies like black people to the back of the bus and segregated schools. They also removed laws which the right wanted in place like chemical castration of homosexuals and labelled mentally ill, and instead advocating accepting homosexuals as equal partners, and even allowing them to declare their love in marriage.

Syria is going through a bloody civil war, and the country is basically leveled ash-heap. The left dares to suggest we should try to help and support other people who are fleeing for their lives, being accepting of your fellow man, woman, and child. This is instead of having gun boats shooting and sinking them, establishing walls with machine gun posts, to gun down women and children like the right want.

[Kagemusha]

Im calling them populist conservatives, rather then using simplistic expressions like "left" and "right". The reason is that they are not necessarily from right, but can come from leftist circles as well. Of course unless one is not knowledgeable of social democracy, such might sound strange. But i am certain that at least in central and northern Europe the supporters of this group are against liberal economical policies as much as "leftist" idealism.

In any case i think lot of their support spring from traditional values, resistance towards change and wish for things to become like they were. Turning the clock back so does speak.The good questions is were things that great to begin with in the past? I agree that there is some truth in their narrative. In many instances the change has been rather rapid the last decades and also somewhat uncontrollable. This applies most of all to global economy, but it is such a beast that cannot hardly be moderated by policies of any single country, no matter how big.

The xenophobic aspect cant be denied, but in this issue , like so many others as well. I think the answer lies in moderation. If new people can be integrated in our societies, there is nothing bad about it. Though i do not agree to multiculturalism and that emigrants should form closed communities based on their countries of origin culture and have issues with interacting with the mainstream of the countries they have emigrated. In a way such behavior resembles the behavior of these populist conservatives and their wish for things to become like they were and such is futile for both groups in the end.

[rory_20_uk]

Any discussion that starts with the monikers right / left is doomed to end in a quagmire of misunderstandings since both labels are trying to cover a vast range of ideologies and it belies the complexity of this.

Are left wingers all Globalists who view every unit of humanity the same? Probably not.
Are all right wingers all Isolationists who would rather ignore everyone the other side of their palisade? Probably not.

Most countries have a history of integrating people into them. There was an interesting programme investigating what happened to Georgian black people in the UK? Short answer - they integrated and interbred until they are indistinguishable from everyone else. Like pretty much every other wave of immigrants historically.

So yes, multi-racial is fine. And accepting people that want to be UK citizens and a part of UK society is fine. Wanting to come here and form an enclave of the "old land" and form another "community" that exists in parallel with what is here is not.