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That's not what politics in Europe look at all at the moment. The extreme right and the extreme left are growing a lot. And the center-right and center-left are

by Imerso 12y ago

That's not what politics in Europe look at all at the moment. The extreme right and the extreme left are growing a lot. And the center-right and center-left are pretty much merging in many countries, they are either governing in coalition, or they will have to govern in coalition in the near future if they want to remain in power. Syriza in Greece won the European elections and may govern in the future. FN is rising in France. UKIP in UK. And in Spain Podemos is not fizzling out at all, the last polls put it as the 3rd party and getting very close to be the 2nd one, and even if they disappear what the polls seem very sure about is that neither center-right nor center-left could govern by themselves, and if they need to create a coalition that would mean political suicide for any future elections, at least with the current political atmosphere, maybe they are able to sell that coalition somehow. But there's probably too much corruption at the moment to sell it as anything else than as the last "let's keep stealing money" card.

spindritf 12y ago
That's the problem with trends, they can turn. I'm sticking with it though, I've seen protest and single-issue parties make it all the way to the government before sliding back into single digits or complete irrelevance. There's a reason mainstream parties are mainstream. Usually, they adjust to push out new contenders. Although the immigration issue (a driver for FN and UKIP) is interesting because some are far too invested to turn around now.
- mercurial 12y ago
  This Podemos thing is reminiscent of the Five-Star movement in Italy, which apparently did well at the EU elections earlier this year.
raldi 12y ago
What is your extreme right like? I'm curious where their views would fall on the American spectrum.
- spindritf 12y ago
  On the continent, less free-market and much more nationalistic. UKIP is pretty close to American right with vouchers, cutting spending... they even picked up private gun ownership lately.
blueskin_ 12y ago
UKIP are centre-left, not 'extreme right'. On economic issues, they're to the left of the big 'left' party in the UK (Labour, who are really a more centrist party) and only really go to the right on immigration rather than social issues in general. You're confusing them with the BNP.
- ZeroGravitas 12y ago
  I wouldn't call them centre-left, they're a bit of grab-bag of policies e.g. some member have been a bit libertarian (which can be socially "left" but economically "right" depending on particular issues). But Xenophobia is the biggest theme, see for yourself: http://www.ukip.org/issues http://www.ukip.org/issues
  - disputin 12y ago
    Is wanting to leave the EU xenophobic? The EU is currently failing. Or wanting immigrants to be have sufficient points and be able to support themselves? This is standard for many countries.
    - blueskin_ 12y ago
      I have to agree - in many people's eyes it's 'xenophobic' due to not having been the case in the past, even where it by all rights should have been.
  - mercurial 12y ago
    They're scoring pretty well on the class right-wing themes of "more police", "putting bad people in prison for a long time prevents crime", "down with environmental policies", "make sure these brown people pay taxes but don't get benefits". I'm liberally translating the program, in the spirit of their "No to Political Correctness - it stifles free speech" bullet point. Of course "Teach children positive messages and pride in their country" (which immediately brought to mind a law passed by the right-wing in France aiming at emphasizing "the positive role of colonization").
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
slapresta 12y ago
Actually, the polls seem to imply that neither center-right nor center-left could govern by themselves or even if they formed a coalition with each other, which is an amazing change for Spanish politics.
- Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
  That's not true at the moment. It is true that some polls give the sum of the two major parties less than 50% of the votes, but the electoral law is far from being purely proportional, so they would still get more than 50% of the seats.
mercurial 12y ago
> FN is rising in France. What is particularly worrying is that through a mix of bad economic results and an economic policy borrowed from the right-wing, the current government is incredibly unpopular. At the same time, the right wing has lost most of its credibility due to both numerous corruption scandals (and more coming to the surface on a regular basis) and infighting. With a completely withered left, this leaves the road wide open to the extreme right wing.
- Ntrails 12y ago
  I thought France had a hardline socialist president?
  - Totoradio 12y ago
    He's barely considered as a "left" guy by most of left-leaning voters. His economic policies are center-right but is social policies are more or less left (for example gay marriage was legalized). The party is called "socialist party" but they have not had a socialist platform in a very long time.
  - mercurial 12y ago
    You'll be hard-pressed to find anybody putting "hardline" and "Hollande" in the same sentence. The main, genuinely left-wing measure his government took was gay marriage (and, it should be said, was adopted in spite of large demonstrations from the catholic right) but the Justice minister has also attempted to reduce the ever-increasing overcrowding of French prisons, things like this. However, his reform of the finance system turned into a farce, and he is pretty much considered to cater to the will of Big Business (large tax cuts for companies which have so far shown to be completely ineffective in terms of reducing unemployment). With the net effect of costing him his electorate, while failing to endear him to the right wing.
    - blueskin_ 12y ago
      Don't forget the tax hikes that effectively drove the rich out of France (to Switzerland mostly). Are those not left wing now?
sebkomianos 12y ago
Slightly offtopic probably, but to provide more context: Syriza is heavily criticised for making a very conservative turn to the center.
netcan 12y ago
I wonder what is driving this all, I don't really think it is the EU, or even immigration. Those sound more like just the issues of the day, not political paradigm movers. The reality is that Europe has been in a state of ideological vacuum for a while. The hard right (including most dramatically fascism) really failed between 60-40 years ago as a movement. The hard left failed 25-35 years ago as a viable movement. The old left-right paradigm continued. In many places it's been centrist policies combined with left wing rhetoric. How long can that be the paradigm? All that's left is the reality that governing bodies, parties and paradigms have been under fire for 5 years now. Political populism and dissidence sells. All that's left is to find a rhetoric that appeals to young, radical or reactionary pockets of political capital. To me, one of the important takeaways from marxism/socialism is that forces of political stability and instability dictate history to a large degree. I'm very far from Marx on his determinism, but I agree with the broad brush idea. If the current paradigm is both unsustainable and unchangeable, pressure will mount. Technology is a force that Marx never truly reckoned with, but it contributes to the process. If people don't benefit from the system or suspect they could benefit more from some other system, they'll try to kill the old system. UKIP make almost as much effort to recruit from the hard left as they do from the hard right.
- nhaehnle 12y ago
  > The reality is that Europe has been in a state of ideological vacuum for a while. Correct. It appears that the established parties do not dare touch big visions any more. In itself, I expect most people would actually be happy with this, as long as it works. The problem is that in most of Europe it doesn't: the recovery from the financial crisis in the Eurozone is now actually lagging the recovery from the Great Depression. And yet, my experience in Germany is that there is complete silence about the failure of politics. When polls show low approval for policies, even journalists tend to excuse this by saying that the policies just haven't been explained properly to the population. The possibility that the mainstream consensus regarding Eurozone policies might be wrong is not seriously considered. There is no serious intelligent debate about political choices. This is also a failure of journalism. I had some hope when Frank Schirrmacher, one of the editors of the FAZ, a very influential serious newspaper, made steps towards raising the possibility that the mainstream consensus is wrong. Unfortunately, he died recently. Ultimately, people feel misrepresented by the mainstream parties. The result is a mixture of apathy in the form of dropping participation in elections, and remaining voters going to the non-mainstream parties, which tend to be more extreme.

by Imerso 12y ago

spindritf 12y ago

That's the problem with trends, they can turn. I'm sticking with it though, I've seen protest and single-issue parties make it all the way to the government before sliding back into single digits or complete irrelevance. There's a reason mainstream parties are mainstream. Usually, they adjust to push out new contenders. Although the immigration issue (a driver for FN and UKIP) is interesting because some are far too invested to turn around now.

mercurial 12y ago
This Podemos thing is reminiscent of the Five-Star movement in Italy, which apparently did well at the EU elections earlier this year.

raldi 12y ago

What is your extreme right like? I'm curious where their views would fall on the American spectrum.

spindritf 12y ago
On the continent, less free-market and much more nationalistic. UKIP is pretty close to American right with vouchers, cutting spending... they even picked up private gun ownership lately.

blueskin_ 12y ago

UKIP are centre-left, not 'extreme right'. On economic issues, they're to the left of the big 'left' party in the UK (Labour, who are really a more centrist party) and only really go to the right on immigration rather than social issues in general. You're confusing them with the BNP.

ZeroGravitas 12y ago
I wouldn't call them centre-left, they're a bit of grab-bag of policies e.g. some member have been a bit libertarian (which can be socially "left" but economically "right" depending on particular issues). But Xenophobia is the biggest theme, see for yourself: http://www.ukip.org/issues http://www.ukip.org/issues
- disputin 12y ago
  Is wanting to leave the EU xenophobic? The EU is currently failing. Or wanting immigrants to be have sufficient points and be able to support themselves? This is standard for many countries.
  - blueskin_ 12y ago
    I have to agree - in many people's eyes it's 'xenophobic' due to not having been the case in the past, even where it by all rights should have been.
- mercurial 12y ago
  They're scoring pretty well on the class right-wing themes of "more police", "putting bad people in prison for a long time prevents crime", "down with environmental policies", "make sure these brown people pay taxes but don't get benefits". I'm liberally translating the program, in the spirit of their "No to Political Correctness - it stifles free speech" bullet point. Of course "Teach children positive messages and pride in their country" (which immediately brought to mind a law passed by the right-wing in France aiming at emphasizing "the positive role of colonization").
- crdoconnor 12y ago

slapresta 12y ago

Actually, the polls seem to imply that neither center-right nor center-left could govern by themselves or even if they formed a coalition with each other, which is an amazing change for Spanish politics.

Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
That's not true at the moment. It is true that some polls give the sum of the two major parties less than 50% of the votes, but the electoral law is far from being purely proportional, so they would still get more than 50% of the seats.

mercurial 12y ago

> FN is rising in France. What is particularly worrying is that through a mix of bad economic results and an economic policy borrowed from the right-wing, the current government is incredibly unpopular. At the same time, the right wing has lost most of its credibility due to both numerous corruption scandals (and more coming to the surface on a regular basis) and infighting. With a completely withered left, this leaves the road wide open to the extreme right wing.

Ntrails 12y ago
I thought France had a hardline socialist president?
- Totoradio 12y ago
  He's barely considered as a "left" guy by most of left-leaning voters. His economic policies are center-right but is social policies are more or less left (for example gay marriage was legalized). The party is called "socialist party" but they have not had a socialist platform in a very long time.
- mercurial 12y ago
  You'll be hard-pressed to find anybody putting "hardline" and "Hollande" in the same sentence. The main, genuinely left-wing measure his government took was gay marriage (and, it should be said, was adopted in spite of large demonstrations from the catholic right) but the Justice minister has also attempted to reduce the ever-increasing overcrowding of French prisons, things like this. However, his reform of the finance system turned into a farce, and he is pretty much considered to cater to the will of Big Business (large tax cuts for companies which have so far shown to be completely ineffective in terms of reducing unemployment). With the net effect of costing him his electorate, while failing to endear him to the right wing.
  - blueskin_ 12y ago
    Don't forget the tax hikes that effectively drove the rich out of France (to Switzerland mostly). Are those not left wing now?

sebkomianos 12y ago

Slightly offtopic probably, but to provide more context: Syriza is heavily criticised for making a very conservative turn to the center.

netcan 12y ago

I wonder what is driving this all, I don't really think it is the EU, or even immigration. Those sound more like just the issues of the day, not political paradigm movers. The reality is that Europe has been in a state of ideological vacuum for a while. The hard right (including most dramatically fascism) really failed between 60-40 years ago as a movement. The hard left failed 25-35 years ago as a viable movement. The old left-right paradigm continued. In many places it's been centrist policies combined with left wing rhetoric. How long can that be the paradigm? All that's left is the reality that governing bodies, parties and paradigms have been under fire for 5 years now. Political populism and dissidence sells. All that's left is to find a rhetoric that appeals to young, radical or reactionary pockets of political capital. To me, one of the important takeaways from marxism/socialism is that forces of political stability and instability dictate history to a large degree. I'm very far from Marx on his determinism, but I agree with the broad brush idea. If the current paradigm is both unsustainable and unchangeable, pressure will mount. Technology is a force that Marx never truly reckoned with, but it contributes to the process. If people don't benefit from the system or suspect they could benefit more from some other system, they'll try to kill the old system. UKIP make almost as much effort to recruit from the hard left as they do from the hard right.

nhaehnle 12y ago
> The reality is that Europe has been in a state of ideological vacuum for a while. Correct. It appears that the established parties do not dare touch big visions any more. In itself, I expect most people would actually be happy with this, as long as it works. The problem is that in most of Europe it doesn't: the recovery from the financial crisis in the Eurozone is now actually lagging the recovery from the Great Depression. And yet, my experience in Germany is that there is complete silence about the failure of politics. When polls show low approval for policies, even journalists tend to excuse this by saying that the policies just haven't been explained properly to the population. The possibility that the mainstream consensus regarding Eurozone policies might be wrong is not seriously considered. There is no serious intelligent debate about political choices. This is also a failure of journalism. I had some hope when Frank Schirrmacher, one of the editors of the FAZ, a very influential serious newspaper, made steps towards raising the possibility that the mainstream consensus is wrong. Unfortunately, he died recently. Ultimately, people feel misrepresented by the mainstream parties. The result is a mixture of apathy in the form of dropping participation in elections, and remaining voters going to the non-mainstream parties, which tend to be more extreme.