That’s just insane that the far right took a hit after polls showing them growing in popularity
It’s insane that a country which suffered so much under a fascist dictatorship would want to return fascists to power.
As soon as people who remember it start dying off, the fascist apologists start coming out.
It’s like how anti-vax can grow because nobody in the young generations met anyone with polio.
Also I think that nostalgia works in a way where we remember more good times than hardships; humans are good adapting to any bullshit situation to the point we can call it comfortable and finally we look kindly to the past because old people remember mostly being young and healthy above all (despite not making this link mentally).
That’s why everyone has this nostalgia for their youth, not because the 60s or 80s where a good time.
“wasn’t the world so much better back before we ruined everything for everyone? Why can’t we go back to those times?”
Sure, like how white conservatives in the USA want life to be like the 1950s
conservatives in the states want to return to 1850
DeSantis is already pushing propaganda in Florida schools about how much better black people had it as slaves. I’d be shocked if they didn’t try to repeal the 13th amendment by the end of the decade.
Imagine if Hitler had won. That’s what happened in Spain. Francisco Franco governed for 40 years, till he was too old and sick to keep doing so. He never faced any consequences and died of old age.
During all those years he indoctrinated the new generations and set a precedent, culturally. So even though more than a hundred thousand people suffered and died under his dictatorship, he still has a lot of supporters that are very vocal about it and his influence still permeates spanish society nowadays. You could look up “franquismo cultural” if you’re interested.
Don’t forget the right wing media and almost all politicians of the PP are members of the OPUS, as say, spokesmen of the catholic church.
Making short-sighted decisions to obtain results quickly is just human nature.
Fascists, populists and demagogues exploit this flaw in human nature to rise up. They promise big things using big words to masses of people who are uneducated, jaded, or both.
Some people in Spain, like in many other countries right now (USA, Greece, Italy…) are turning to fascism because they feel squeezed dry and let down (unemployment, Covid economic hangover, inflation, etc.) by their current governments, so they run to the people sat in the opposite (or most extreme) end of the political spectrum hoping they can turn things around.
With such a simplistic, binary mindset, coupled with a younger generation of voters who have not experienced what it’s like to live in a fascist country, it’s no wonder fascism and belligerent nationalism are gaining traction in the West. I just hope we can turn things around before more European countries follow on Hungary’s steps.
Which is ironic, because the rights those people have, like unemployment, WILL go away if the far-right wins, and they’ll be worse off.
You are mixing far-right with liberals (less regulation). In Spain there aren’t liberal partys. You can check the group they belong in the EU parlament.
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It’s not primarily the younger voters going fash though. Otherwise I mostly agree with your comment.
I am not familiar with the demographics of other countries, but in Spain, Vox is quite popular amongst the young people. Old people tend to be very loyal to “their” party and keep voting PP, even though they agree with Vox’s main talking points.
The younger voters are indeed pushing fascism, at least in Spain. I had also assumed ultraconservative, nationalist movements would be more popular with the older demographic in Spain but, proving my point that it’s those who didn’t experience Franco’s dictatorship who are buying into the far-right ideals, Vox voters are on average 8 years younger than voters of other parties in the country (apologies for the link to Spanish media).
I don’t know if this is any different in other countries but in Spain the people swallowing the fascist pill are very much your archetypical white, privileged, young male.
If you want to understand why an opposing force gains ground look at what the force in power is doing.
Are there enough centrists who were elected to inevitably collaborate with the fascists to create a majority?
Thankfully, enough parties have pledged not to coalition with the far right that it looks like they’ll be boxed out of power. Most likely outcome seems to be Sanchez’s center-left party allying with further-left parties and regional / secessionist parties to form a minority government.
Things could still fuck up during coalition negotiations, but for now I’m cautiously optimistic. Probably the best possible outcome, given the circumstances.
(Also the far right party lost half its seats in Parliament, lmaoooooooo)
Not so much, these are only had changed to the PP, almost the same crap. 20 less in one side and 20 more on the other. Luckily they have not achieved an absolute majority, this would have catapulted us to the 70s.
Enlightened centrist moment™
Enlightened centrist: What is my purpose?
Rick: You collaborate with the fascists.
Enlightened centrist: Oh my god
Okay, so Italy, Spain, Finnland, UK and what other European countries are electing fascists? It almost seems like there’s a connection here.
Wait for the next election in Germany, our local fascists are currently polling at 20%
Is the other party that has more chance of winning a “moderate” fascist flavour?
You mean the equivalent to Spain’s PP, the CDU? They’re “conservatives” (whatever that’s supposed to mean nowadays), but they’ve just announced, that they will cooperate with the Nazis on a “local level” (for now). History is a broken record.
I meant the German one, but I assume they must be more or less the same.
Thank goodness. But now what? I wonder if we’ll have another election by the end of the year.
Hoping for the undoubtedly difficult negotiations to yield a left government instead.
but franco said we were hunting liberals /s
This is really bad for Spain/EU. There are 2 posibilities. 1) A coallition of 7 parties who lost the election. Some of them are far-left and the others are working to leave Spain. 2) New elections at the end of the year.
No, this is actually pretty good. No fascist government is a win :)
Review your sources because VOX is not fascist in any way. It’s considered far-rigth by some media because they defend the traditional family and inmigration controls, but they are democrats and they want a strong nation. You can’t say the same thing for the independentists.
I’m spanish, I’ve literally seen Vox spewing their shit in the streets. They are fascists.
I’m Spanish too but I don’t vote for any party. If VOX are fascists I hope you call the far-left parties comunists + fascists too. If you don’t see it that way, you’re just whitewashing them and spreading their propaganda.
I don’t think “whitewashing” is the word you were looking for, I don’t see how racism has anything to do with this.
Vox are against basic human rights, misogynists, racists, homophobes, etc. I’ll remind you the recent controversy where they said an “immigrant” committed some murder when it was in fact two Spaniards that did it. They support Franco’s dictatorship, they want to go back to having women with no rights depending on their husbands for literally anything. They want to get rid of all the groups of people they don’t like, although they don’t openly say it like that. They are friends of wealthy people (who give them fundings) and have their best interests in mind, not those of the common people. They want to get rid of public healthcare, of pension funds, and other types of social benefits. They don’t care about the environment or global warming.
Meanwhile, the “communists” are trying to eradicate violence against minorities, giving more rights to people and they’ve economically done a good job. And they have done nothing that is even remotely “communist” (please give me a counterexample).
I don’t want to spend time defending VOX because I don’t like them. Some of the things you said are right but exaggerated. They want stronger laws against crimes and illegal immigration, it’s not against human rights. Franco’s death was 50 years ago, please move on, Spain is a totally different country now. The friends of wealthy people are PP and PSOE (or any with politic power). They are in favor of universal free education and universal free healthcare, but the services must be provided by private companies because it’s more efficient than public employees.
Please do not insult my intelligence saying the people has more rights and economic well being with the “communists”. If you really live in Spain I don’t have to explain you that the economy is worse than ever. You are poorer every day even if you don’t know the data. Spain was the 8th most rich country per capita in 2005, close to France and Italy. Now we are 36 and going down => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
The communist try to solve all the problems with
- laws that limit the individual rights and the personal property. you own nothing, the state will give you the things you need as long as you vote me
- tax to the wealthy and private companies. i could agree, but if you earn 30.000€ / year you are considered rich. That’s 1500€ * 14 months. if you earn that you are not rich by any means but they want to tax you to death. we have few companies and few wealthy people, soon won’t be anything to tax
- public workers and state owned companies. sumar/podemos has in his electoral program state owned banks, state owned houses, state owned utilities, state owned transport, state owned pensions, state owned education, state owned health, state owned news/tv
They want to apply in Spain the policies that have failed in all communist countries. All of them very democratic and Sumar supports them.
I’m German and I can tell you that the state-owned vs private discussion is quite complex. In Germany the train, post service, telephone/internet, and many more things were state-owned not to long ago (about 20-25 years most of them). Nowadays many of them are private. The train is expensive, run down and horribly unreliable. The CEOs have salaries going up to almost a million Euros per year. Our health system is the 2nd most expensive one in the world and it’s quite a shit-show. Mobile internet is expensive, even though there is some competition in that market.
There are simply things that shouldn’t be optimized to make the biggest profit but to profit the people! Education, health and housing are good examples.
I don’t have a dog in the fight and unfortunately I can’t read the Spanish sources above but I appreciate you taking the time to defend your point even when you won’t get any love on this site.
FYI, whitewashing makes perfect sense to use there:
to deliberately attempt to conceal unpleasant or incriminating facts about (someone or something).
It has nothing to do with race in this context.
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I’m Spanish and literally there are neo nazies in VOX
