Except for her monumental mistake of giving up on nuclear and consequently giving enough leverage to Putin to finance his imperialist plans peacefully.
As an European, I’m just happy that the cultural influence of the US has faded so much in the last couple of decades that even with massive amounts of American billionaire money trying to pump-up the Far-Right in Europe, it’s still but a pale shade of what’s going on in the US and, as we see, even that far-right wave seems to already be breaking: notice how already in the European Elections the Left grew in various Scandinavian countries (in my experience Northern European Countries, especially the Nordic ones, tend to be ahead of the rest of Europe in social and political terms).
There is hope on the horizon for Europe.
I am, however sad for Americans with leftwing principles, since even with a Biden victory the US will continue to be an ever more dystopic late-stage ultra-Neoliberal experiment bound for a Fascist takeover sooner or later (if not Trump now, some other Fascist will sooner or later ride the wave of misery - that the Democrates too, as hard Neoliberals, gleefully keep feeding - into the Presidence and ever more authoritarianism)
even with massive amounts of American billionaire money trying to pump-up the Far-Right in Europe, it’s still but a pale shade of what’s going on in the US
The influence of Russia and China are what are inflating the rise of the far-right in both Europe and the US, when you misrepresent this fact you’re helping provide cover for them.
The people who, during a time of great inequality induced by Neoliberal politics, most and most directly stand to gain from stopping the Left from getting power back, and would prefer to see the righteous rage of the average person at the worsenning of their quality of life directed to blaming “outsiders” pushing politics even more to the Right, are the ones with the most money and Assets, and not only is that gain far above and beyond the geostrategical gains for Russia and China from it, but as insiders they have far more capability to make it happen than outsiders.
Also a few years ago Steve Bannon came to Europe with money from rich Americans, very overtly and loudly to “fund Far-Right parties”, so it’s not as if what I say is an unsupported theory.
Blaming foreign governments is just another variant of the “blame foreigners” argumentation that’s a central Far-Right slogan (i.e. blaming immigrants), and furthers exactly the same objective: blame “outsiders” so as not to look hard into the actions of the people in this country who have most of the money, most of the assets and can afford doing the most buying of politicians.
(I bet the same minds who came up with “blame the immigrants” for use by the Far-Right, came up with “blame Russia/China” for use by the Liberals).
Mind you, I absolutelly can see how Russia and China would have a geostrategical interest in influencing polics in the West. It’s just that next to the insiders who captured most of the wealth and would be most negativelly affected by typical leftwing policies (such as progressive taxation), the capability of those nations to influence the political process and the gains they would get from it are way smaller - there are at stake quite literally Trillions of Dollars worth Yearly just in tax avoidance and evasion for the ultra wealthy and the corporations they control if they allow a shift of the politicis in Europe such that tax policies change from Regressive to Progressive.
I wouldn’t be surprised if all those actors are pushing the same cart in the same direction, but lets not deceive ourselfs with the Liberal variant of “blame the foreigners” and put all of the blame on some very specific foreign nations (and, curiously, failing to mention the likes of Israel, which is vastly more overt in its influencing of politics at least in the US, UK and Germany) whilst ignoring those who are logically far more powerful forces (both due to their wealth and from working from the inside) with far more to gain from that specific outcome.
I mean, Russia would gain a country’s worth of land if Europe and America would just fuck off, so I’d say he has as much to gain as any given billionaire in America and Europe. And politically weakening your opponents by sowing division among their electorate seems like a relatively easy way to do it. Hell, there’s even a book about it.
Certainly, those billionaires have been pushing in the same direction, but I think they have help.
There is no way in hell that present day Russia could take over Europe, especially in light of what we see in Ukraine were Russia has advantages only in manpower, conventional airpower and stores of Soviet time vehicles and they’ve still been brought to a stop and are slowly losing most of those advantages.
They have no such advantages versus even just a small coalition of European countries as long as one of the big ones is in it: France alone in a war footing would fuck them up. I even suspect just a coalition of EE countries would fuck them up if Poland was included.
Further, Far-Right parties are nationalists - they’ll hapilly take Russian money to fund their growth but they will never turn their countries into vassals of Russia, if only because their members would quite literally murder any leaders who tried it. It would only ever go as far as Orban took it - fine with taking a pro-Russia position against a different set of foreigners (whilst very likely being paid for it) but not with Hungary actually being subservient to Russia in its internal affairs.
Russia might capture one or two small EE countries if the EU breaks up, and China gains from the West being too disorganised to oppose their rise to being the prime superpower (which is mainly about the US, since Europe is pretty mild about it) and that’s served by political chaos in the West, not necessarilly the Far Right (and again, the Far Right being nationalists means that their rise might actually harden the European stance towards China).
I think we are in agreement that all of them are pushing for it a bit, it’s just that I think that the possible gains for the ultra rich in stopping the rise of the Left of Europe are far larger, more immediate, concrete and guaranteed - trillions in avoided taxes and keeping their wealth untaxed not to mention the money they make from markets that should never have been privatised - than the geostrategical gains for Russia, much less China, even if one has goes with a wildly fantastical idea of what the Russian military can achieve even in Europe.
Unfortunately true, but at least Poilievre is nowhere near as batshit crazy as the republicans are. Still fucking sucks that the cons are most likely going to win though. At best things will continue to get slowly worse like they already are, and at worst, things will degrade faster.
Either way the average Canadian isn’t getting any help from whoever wins the next election.
I just love the people who go crazy when the government passes a law that people are sure will be unconstitutional, and of course the latest time the Liberals did it Poilievre was all over it, then when says he will not only pass unconstitutional laws but will use the Notwithstanding clause to keep them, they are suspiciously silent.
Poilievre isn’t an idiot, for all his other failings. Just because he hasn’t outright said how far he’s willing to take things doesn’t mean he doesn’t have plans to. It has the potential to be very bad.
I mean I wouldn’t go that far. Poilievre is going to implement the same sort of anti-porn passport bullshit that Spain introduced, so that’s not a good sign.
Yup, and all they have to do is change leaders to win. There was that story last week about Biden thinking of stepping down, but Trudeau refuses to step down, if he, guilbaut, and freeland fucked off we could easily get another liberal government. So now we’re going to a Conservative government.
Unless something changed today with Biden’s leadership meeting, his last public remarks on it were in the ABC interview. And he was flabbergasted by the idea that he was polling badly, much less that he would step down.
My vote will be going to the lesser of the two evils but (a) between my state’s Gerrymandering and the composition and voting habits of my district it won’t matter and (b) until the US electoral system is meaningfully reformed (first-past-the-post, two-party system and how it affects voting in many states, Gerrymandering, lack of ranked choice, outright voter suppression, etc.), the US will continue to slide further right anyway
Not American but I agree. Fptp and gerrymandering is the biggest bullshit. But how will it change? Why would the two ruling parties shoot their own foot?
For FPTP, we need to get more local and regional elections to move to something like ranked-choice voting and have it go from there. IIRC, some states are trying to ban it “because it’s confusing” since they realize it opens up more than the traditional two parties. Voters can vote for other candidates in their primaries as well (many people do not seem to vote in primary elections).
More people also need to be voting, even as powers try to make that more difficult. We also need more young people to run for offices, but I fully understand why they wouldn’t want to.
UK: done
France: done
US: please don’t let us down.
When was the last time all 3 had general elections at the same time?
I know we’re not on people’s radar like the three you mentioned, but South Africa also had general elections this year.
The long reigning party lost their majority for the first time since 1994, so the coalition talks were a big deal for a few weeks.
That’s exciting, thanks for bringing it up!
Oh right I remember that! Thanks for reminding!
Don’t forget Mexico!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Sheinbaum
True i read about it some time ago. Mexico got(at least from what I heard) a very good president.
How fucking cool is it to have a woman IPCC scientist as your president?
Germany had Merkel
Turned out great for them (not sarcastic)
Except for her monumental mistake of giving up on nuclear and consequently giving enough leverage to Putin to finance his imperialist plans peacefully.
Mexico is where around 40 candidates have been murdered recently?
Yup…and she still won! I am not from Mexico personally, but that has to irk the cartels just a wee bit.
That or a viral snuff video soon.
It’s looking like both USA and Canada are gonna fuck it up, though.
As an European, I’m just happy that the cultural influence of the US has faded so much in the last couple of decades that even with massive amounts of American billionaire money trying to pump-up the Far-Right in Europe, it’s still but a pale shade of what’s going on in the US and, as we see, even that far-right wave seems to already be breaking: notice how already in the European Elections the Left grew in various Scandinavian countries (in my experience Northern European Countries, especially the Nordic ones, tend to be ahead of the rest of Europe in social and political terms).
There is hope on the horizon for Europe.
I am, however sad for Americans with leftwing principles, since even with a Biden victory the US will continue to be an ever more dystopic late-stage ultra-Neoliberal experiment bound for a Fascist takeover sooner or later (if not Trump now, some other Fascist will sooner or later ride the wave of misery - that the Democrates too, as hard Neoliberals, gleefully keep feeding - into the Presidence and ever more authoritarianism)
The influence of Russia and China are what are inflating the rise of the far-right in both Europe and the US, when you misrepresent this fact you’re helping provide cover for them.
The people who, during a time of great inequality induced by Neoliberal politics, most and most directly stand to gain from stopping the Left from getting power back, and would prefer to see the righteous rage of the average person at the worsenning of their quality of life directed to blaming “outsiders” pushing politics even more to the Right, are the ones with the most money and Assets, and not only is that gain far above and beyond the geostrategical gains for Russia and China from it, but as insiders they have far more capability to make it happen than outsiders.
Also a few years ago Steve Bannon came to Europe with money from rich Americans, very overtly and loudly to “fund Far-Right parties”, so it’s not as if what I say is an unsupported theory.
Blaming foreign governments is just another variant of the “blame foreigners” argumentation that’s a central Far-Right slogan (i.e. blaming immigrants), and furthers exactly the same objective: blame “outsiders” so as not to look hard into the actions of the people in this country who have most of the money, most of the assets and can afford doing the most buying of politicians.
(I bet the same minds who came up with “blame the immigrants” for use by the Far-Right, came up with “blame Russia/China” for use by the Liberals).
Mind you, I absolutelly can see how Russia and China would have a geostrategical interest in influencing polics in the West. It’s just that next to the insiders who captured most of the wealth and would be most negativelly affected by typical leftwing policies (such as progressive taxation), the capability of those nations to influence the political process and the gains they would get from it are way smaller - there are at stake quite literally Trillions of Dollars worth Yearly just in tax avoidance and evasion for the ultra wealthy and the corporations they control if they allow a shift of the politicis in Europe such that tax policies change from Regressive to Progressive.
I wouldn’t be surprised if all those actors are pushing the same cart in the same direction, but lets not deceive ourselfs with the Liberal variant of “blame the foreigners” and put all of the blame on some very specific foreign nations (and, curiously, failing to mention the likes of Israel, which is vastly more overt in its influencing of politics at least in the US, UK and Germany) whilst ignoring those who are logically far more powerful forces (both due to their wealth and from working from the inside) with far more to gain from that specific outcome.
I mean, Russia would gain a country’s worth of land if Europe and America would just fuck off, so I’d say he has as much to gain as any given billionaire in America and Europe. And politically weakening your opponents by sowing division among their electorate seems like a relatively easy way to do it. Hell, there’s even a book about it.
Certainly, those billionaires have been pushing in the same direction, but I think they have help.
There is no way in hell that present day Russia could take over Europe, especially in light of what we see in Ukraine were Russia has advantages only in manpower, conventional airpower and stores of Soviet time vehicles and they’ve still been brought to a stop and are slowly losing most of those advantages.
They have no such advantages versus even just a small coalition of European countries as long as one of the big ones is in it: France alone in a war footing would fuck them up. I even suspect just a coalition of EE countries would fuck them up if Poland was included.
Further, Far-Right parties are nationalists - they’ll hapilly take Russian money to fund their growth but they will never turn their countries into vassals of Russia, if only because their members would quite literally murder any leaders who tried it. It would only ever go as far as Orban took it - fine with taking a pro-Russia position against a different set of foreigners (whilst very likely being paid for it) but not with Hungary actually being subservient to Russia in its internal affairs.
Russia might capture one or two small EE countries if the EU breaks up, and China gains from the West being too disorganised to oppose their rise to being the prime superpower (which is mainly about the US, since Europe is pretty mild about it) and that’s served by political chaos in the West, not necessarilly the Far Right (and again, the Far Right being nationalists means that their rise might actually harden the European stance towards China).
I think we are in agreement that all of them are pushing for it a bit, it’s just that I think that the possible gains for the ultra rich in stopping the rise of the Left of Europe are far larger, more immediate, concrete and guaranteed - trillions in avoided taxes and keeping their wealth untaxed not to mention the money they make from markets that should never have been privatised - than the geostrategical gains for Russia, much less China, even if one has goes with a wildly fantastical idea of what the Russian military can achieve even in Europe.
A whole screen of text and you didn’t even finish the first sentence of my comment, and don’t appear to have read the second to last one…
Oops, “country” not “continent”.
My bad.
I still think that rich insiders have vastly more influence than most foreign nations, but none the less you make a valid point.
Unfortunately true, but at least Poilievre is nowhere near as batshit crazy as the republicans are. Still fucking sucks that the cons are most likely going to win though. At best things will continue to get slowly worse like they already are, and at worst, things will degrade faster.
Either way the average Canadian isn’t getting any help from whoever wins the next election.
I just love the people who go crazy when the government passes a law that people are sure will be unconstitutional, and of course the latest time the Liberals did it Poilievre was all over it, then when says he will not only pass unconstitutional laws but will use the Notwithstanding clause to keep them, they are suspiciously silent.
Poilievre isn’t an idiot, for all his other failings. Just because he hasn’t outright said how far he’s willing to take things doesn’t mean he doesn’t have plans to. It has the potential to be very bad.
I mean I wouldn’t go that far. Poilievre is going to implement the same sort of anti-porn passport bullshit that Spain introduced, so that’s not a good sign.
Yup, and all they have to do is change leaders to win. There was that story last week about Biden thinking of stepping down, but Trudeau refuses to step down, if he, guilbaut, and freeland fucked off we could easily get another liberal government. So now we’re going to a Conservative government.
Unless something changed today with Biden’s leadership meeting, his last public remarks on it were in the ABC interview. And he was flabbergasted by the idea that he was polling badly, much less that he would step down.
My vote will be going to the lesser of the two evils but (a) between my state’s Gerrymandering and the composition and voting habits of my district it won’t matter and (b) until the US electoral system is meaningfully reformed (first-past-the-post, two-party system and how it affects voting in many states, Gerrymandering, lack of ranked choice, outright voter suppression, etc.), the US will continue to slide further right anyway
Not American but I agree. Fptp and gerrymandering is the biggest bullshit. But how will it change? Why would the two ruling parties shoot their own foot?
For FPTP, we need to get more local and regional elections to move to something like ranked-choice voting and have it go from there. IIRC, some states are trying to ban it “because it’s confusing” since they realize it opens up more than the traditional two parties. Voters can vote for other candidates in their primaries as well (many people do not seem to vote in primary elections).
More people also need to be voting, even as powers try to make that more difficult. We also need more young people to run for offices, but I fully understand why they wouldn’t want to.
US is always bashing Cuba for being a one party state while they’re just one party away from having the same electoral system.
Iran too?
Yeah!!
Sorry bud. Biden is in the middle of shitting the bed. If we get can get a different candidate in without much issue then we’ll have a chance again.