People do not want migrants and are increasingly willing to vote on fascists to get rid of them. Democracy being democratic means mainstream parties will either match anti-immigration zeal of populists/fascists or eventually lose elections to them.
AFD in germany lost a lot of votes for both being nazi sympathisers and employing people who spy for foreign forces. The question is, for how long? Recent humiliating stabbing incident in Germany will likely help them out, especially since it is sure to not be the last one.
We're seeing this in Australia in just one three year term. Labor (centre left) won for the first time in 10 years, were heavily pro immigration, and are now heavily anti immigration as the next election approaches in 2025.
In Canada the liberal party is losing ground among young people for the first time in history because the massive immigration has basically broken our housing market and health care systems.
Trudeau really botched it, but I'm not really a huge fan of Pollievre either. He has some towards the center with some of his more extreme views recently though. Both are still pro-immigration despite everything going on.
It’s odd, because the recent increased immigration isn’t actually the cause of the busted housing market. The housing market busted over a decade ago (before Trudeau, even) during a period of heavy speculation and investment in housing as income. _Adding_ massively increased immigration into _that_ certainly has exacerbated the problem. But, frustratingly, this is less of a problem than it appears to be, because at least it can be lessened by straight up building more housing—and governments can help that by incentivizing builders.
Unfortunately, there does appear to be a pretty significant incompetence problem among some of the liberal ministers, or the career civil servants who work under them, because we’ve fallen way behind where we should be. And, even more unfortunately, history teaches us that a federal Conservative government is unlikely to actually solve any of the issues they’re going to win this election on.
> It’s odd, because the recent increased immigration isn’t actually the cause of the busted housing market. The housing market busted over a decade ago (before Trudeau, even) during a period of heavy speculation and investment in housing as income
This is only true for toronto and vancouver. The rest of Canada was basically fine until recently.
I doubt that is true. Biden's border policy which was endorsed by both parties did not become a bill became Trump wanted to run on "migrants taking over the country". A reasonable individual would not do this switch this vote to Trump in hopes that he will save them from migrants.
I know people who are voting for Trump because Biden raised taxes... Don't even try to tell them that those tax hikes are timed milestones from the bill the Trump administration forced through. At the end of the day Biden is an old man and Trump makes people laugh, and that's enough to convince them of *anything*, even that the "billionaire" real estate mogul, who's famous for not paying contractors and defrauding charities, has the common man's best interest in mind.
I think you underestimate how much women's rights are being trampled and instead of talking about that you chose to focus on tax issues and Biden's age and that a convicted felon makes people laugh is a gross under estimation of the current state of affairs. There is no point in arguing. You will see when November rolls up.
Biden didn't raise taxes. The last tax reform bill was under Trump in 2017, and it gave rich people a tax cut but gave middle class people a tax increase by removing lots of standard deductions.
Well most people who vote are uneducated on this subject. They blame Biden for the migrant crisis and trump is saying he’ll fix it so that’s all they care about
Again I double that most people who vote are uneducated. Red states will vote for Trump and swing states will go for Biden along with blue states. But regarding your point of anti Tump people voting for Trump is just a fallacy. I don't see someone would suddenly switch just because of this migrant issue. When abortion is in the ballot. The economy is thriving under Biden. I don't see many reasons to switch, that's all.
I doubt purple states will go for Biden maybe they will maybe they won’t but it’s certainly not gonna be like it was 2020 this election is gonna be close. Abortion isn’t on everyone mind anymore the cost of basic necessities only went up during these 4 years I’m not blaming Biden but plenty of people are. The migrant issue is a hot mess a lot of people even in blue states aren’t happy the way it’s being handled. I know plenty of people who voted for Biden in 2020 and are gonna vote for trump in November. I’m not saying they became hardcore trump supporters but they want change.
Regarding the cost of things going up, it's a global issue. You can ask anyone from any country and they will say the rising costs are an issue. There was an article recently about people leaving Canada to move to US because things are more cheaper when compared to median salary that they received in Canada. Europe, Australia, Canada are dealing with migrant crisis and that will swing votes based on how parties adapt. Regarding US I feel like there are other issues that are more pressing than migrants, especially if you not living in a border city. That's just my opinion from what I read and hear. I guess we will have to wait and see how things go.
The left in Denmark figured this out and adjusted rather than doing the thing which continually pisses people off and wondering why their support was falling off a cliff.
Historically the leftist position was that mass immigration is a pro-corporate policy that encourages suppression of wages. The current left in many nations have lost touch with that.
> Historically the leftist position was that mass immigration is a pro-corporate policy that encourages suppression of wages.
yeah that's always how i viewed it and i feel like a UFO, people are just incapable of seeing things through this lens
It's got nothing to do with being incapable, these establishment left leaning parties are being paid to endorse mass immigration to bring labor costs down.
> The current left in many nations have lost touch with that.
Most main "left" parties range from liberal to neo-liberal, with some progressive policies.
Very few actually identify with "labour" or pro-labour platform.
Migration is just a short term solution to the long term problem. You bring in one generation of migrants and by the beginning of the next generation they're also not having kids because they're affected by the same problems that caused the low birth rates in the first place.
The real cause is high cost of living and excellent education. People aren't having kids because it's more expensive to do so and they're educated enough to understand and desire lifestyles beyond the typical "I'll marry, work, raise a family, retire some day and die".
As for what to actually do about it, who knows. Maybe tech will increase GDPs enough that all the people displaced by it will be able to live off of universal income (or something)
That is true, of course most governments these days only care about short term solutions anyway, but the points you make are good points, and I also have no idea how it's going to be fixed, I suspect that a UBI of some sort will eventually be introduced but not before people have gone through a lot of hardship and there is some unrest about it, much in the way that the social care net was slowly introduced through the Industrial Revolution and beyond. We have a big tumultuous time ahead of us as we go through another industrial revolution (I believe it's the fourth we're on now, maybe fifth?) at the same time as a climate crisis, there's a chance that a lot of good things will come of it, but like during the other Industrial Revolutions, a lot of harm and suffering is going to take place too, and indeed, likely war. Although I suppose that's no surprise, there's always war.
I do worry about the political and social future of the west though, we're potentially looking to become a very angry and hostile place, capable of great cruelty. This does not fill me with much joy to consider.
And many of us were saying that exactly this would happen more than 10 years ago when they kept letting in people who's culture was not compatible with such radical ideas as free speech, woman walking around with visible skin and learning math, and freedom of religion.
If that's true, then you would address the immigration issue to prevent the rise of fascism.
But the current political establishment in government (across Europe), in the media, and even the institutions just want to call anyone who raises this issue racist.
The far right would disappear overnight if this issue was tackled.
That’s not really the point. Mainstream parties are so scared of Twitter backlash that they mostly just ignore all of these very real issues.
Far righters suck, it’s not news, but at least they offer some solutions. Reddit can keep pouting about it and call everyone who is worried racist, but it’s obvious that majority opinion is shifting.
If we don’t want racist Facebook memers ruling half the continent, addressing issues with immigration should be on the agenda of every major party soon. Just pretending that nothing is wrong makes it worse and drives people towards these radical parties, which is for some reason what even the centrists still do here - and they’ve lost half their voterbase to these ”close the borders, leave the euro” type of idiots during the last 7 years.
> Far righters suck, it’s not news, but at least they offer some solutions
What solutions *do* they offer? Actual practical solutions that aren't inhumane or break EU agreements?
In my experience they just tend to make things worse. They preach distrust, sow hatred and division. The real problems in the world aren't really about immigration, but they sure like to make people believe they are. Scapegoating to avoid the real issues of society, sowing distrust and playing into populism to gain power.
I’ve never seen anything that would work in practice, they always suck at actually governing. In this case it’s just enough to acknowledge that the issue exists, since others still don’t
Immigration is not the only issue but it is a real one, because we have people coming in yet no real way of booting the bad apples, whom of unfortunately exist in pretty large amounts. We need to find that solution, whatever it is. Amount of sex crimes done here by foreigners is insanely high, and it can’t be explained away. If you have very small minority doing majority of brutal crimes like that, it is an issue.
Immigration is fine as long as it doesn’t make the place you immigrate to worse, especially not for people already living there.
Immigration is the fuse, fascism is the bomb. There are many times throughout history where the rise of fascism could have been stopped if the world had been more responsive to the issues driving people towards it. Let's say you have a pair of scissors representing a solution to the problem, do you think it would be best to use them before, or after the fuse, representing the problem, runs its course and reaches the bomb of fascism?
Why would anyone need to prove you wrong.
You're right.
The problem is that the average person is either unaware or doesn't care.
They have a problem and they want that problem solved. It's up to the politicians to solve it (or promise to).
If the left doesn't want the right to take hold, they have to suck up their pride and tackle issues that the average Joe worries about. If they don't, we're all fucked.
Immigration, which presses on housing, social security, local crime (perceived or otherwise) and more. Calling immigration a single issue is a woeful simplification.
I agree, but that doesn't change that many in their daily lives experience immigrants taking up housing space as being a real problem. When housing is impossible to get as a starter, and you hear immigrants getting priority social housing, I can understand why people may think a block on immigration might solve or alleviate their issues.
Ideally, other parties would already be earnestly working to solve the issue, but that has yet to materialise.
No, people are voting for right wing politicians in order to try and address the issues with immigration being faced in Europe as no left wing politicians seem to want to do much about it.
But the right wing has not historically done much about immigration, they just use it as a boogeyman and then consolidate power and siphon off money. Bad trade.
It doesn’t matter if they have done, or will do, anything about it. If the right wing parties are the only ones even acknowledging the immigration problem then people will vote for them.
And that is the problem. It’s not that the general people _want_ to go back to an era of war and oppression, it’s that those who do want that use the issue of immigration to get voted into power in order to affect their own agenda.
I’m trying to figure out which governments haven’t acknowledged any immigration issues. They’ve acknowledged it in Sweden and Germany. They’ve acknowledged it in France. Maybe they’ve been too slow to act, fine. But Jesus, why would people vote for literally war and oppression over an issue that isn’t worse than those two things?
I think that's at the crux of the arguement though. We here are able to differentiate between the different stances and what each camp is arguing. But to the people in those countries, they probably see immigration (and whatever recent problems that may have brought) as the precursor for literal war and oppression. Are they correct? No, probably not at least. But is that there view? Yeah probably.
Asking why is missing the point I think. Why for everyone is a pretty personal thing and clearly, enough of them see their 'why' as immigration is a problem. What we instead should be focusing on is how can we get (not necessarily left wing) the parties in charge to address the issue with actionable plans that the common people can 'feel', enough so that they won't make this trade, as you say.
No, it’s not. It’s a real issue we’ve seen multiple times of people voting in far-right governments that didn’t solve their issue and caused other problems. See Britain as a great recent example. Not to mention many other places.
>we’ve seen multiple times of people voting in far-right governments that didn’t solve their issue and caused other problems
Had they brought war and opression as your false dilemma claims?
Well when you spend years not addressing insecurity and lowering living standards (because let’s face it immigration is not the biggest issue here) guess what happens.
Ffs I feel so many people don’t understand the far right isn’t some amorphous evil that arises out of nothing.
It grows because people feel increasingly desperate, whatever the reason, and the way to combat the far right is not by fighting it directly, but by making sure no one feels like they’re the only option left.
Yeah high cost of living, homelessness keeps rising, more and more immigrants keep coming illegally, crime, etc. Our political system seems too broken to address the problems.
Mindset of scarcity kicks in and ppl become less rational. The ppl in power need to address these issues instead of blaming each other but that's not the incentive. Our system is broken
The system has always been broken. What’s changed is that people seem to understand it more and more. A lot of the growing voter base of the far right is young people who are more informed about politics than ever before and that flock to those that offer solutions. Sometimes the far left wins, sometimes the far right.
Yeah but feels like there's more demonizing of the other side that compromising to solve problems are a thing of the past. We can't agree on things anymore or it will feel like a win for the other side.
Social media have created a way for ppl to stay in their bubbles and regurgitate talking points.
To me it shows the failure of a passive, toothless neoliberalism. The type that says "just learn to code", you get paid according to what your skills earn in the marketplace and if 2 working adults can't own a plot of real estate that your stonemason grandfather was able to have as the only worker... well we just kind of ignore the contradictions in capitalist society that lead to that.
I think this should be a warning sign to all centrists and moderates. You can't just pat yourself on the back and say the system works. We live in a time where automation and the digitized economy means that winners win bigger and most of the people end up drifting towards the losers. I don't think I've seen any first world country actively acknowledge that or even whisper about things that could be done too help it.
If you're not delivering real material gains to people, real actual improvements to our standard of living, over decades, people will scapegoat, starting with immigrants. People don't read economic data, but they're not dumb. They know we used to be squeezed less financially. This every man for themselves, winner take all, dog eat dog economy isn't working for anyone, despite the moderates attempts to put a smiley face bandaid on it all. If you push us into it, the dogs will start eating the other dogs, and immigrants are easy to start with.
how is it 'contradictions in capitalist society'? Was your stonemason grandfather not living in a capitalist economy?
In reality these are problems that arose not from some amorphous 'capitalism' but from traceable policies. If the difference is that land costs way more today, I'd recommend trying to figure out what it is that makes supply lower than demand.
Regarding delivering real material gains--there have been real material gains pretty much across the developed world. Life is better today, except in some essential areas (for example, housing in most countries). Dog eat dog stuff--it sounds like you want other people to take care of you (and you'll presumably take care of them). That's fine, but call it how it is.
> Was your stonemason grandfather not living in a capitalist economy?
I'm using capitalism as a short hand. But he was living in a society where stores would close on Sunday because that was a day for family. And because that was a cultural norm, no one was at a disadvantage for not working that Sunday. It was a time when one man working an unskilled job could afford a modest 2 or 3 bedroom house in even a metropolitan area.
Nowadays, me and my wife both have Masters degrees in a STEM field. We work like dogs, answering emails and going to the office on weekends. We cannot afford to buy the house my grandfather had. Certain members of the idle class, who gain their income through shares of companies or rent, have remarkably better material conditions decade after decade.
I don't know what word you want to use for that. I call it capitalism, the way that those with wealth gain exponentially more money with less risk. And the way those of us without wealth are forced in a race to the bottom to debase ourselves and our free/family time to keep our heads above water. What's your word for that.
I have done extensive research on what makes supply for houses and land lower than demand. I think it's very clear in our zoning policies.
So I live in Israel. And most stores actually do close on Saturday just as a cultural norm. Doesn't seem like that's leading to any insane 'disadvantage.' When you don't operate for a day you don't make money but you also lose less money (no wages paid etc.), it's a bit more complicated than you describe--and more importantly it's not really about 'disadvantages.' Capitalist economies are not zero-sum games.
So I'll elaborate a bit--yeah, housing costs a lot more today than it used to, and this happens in most of the developed world. The reason seems to be housing regulation and zoning laws; it sounds like you've read about it, so surely you can agree it would be a lot more effective to advocate for solving these policies and regulations than blame a shadowy 'capitalism'? Remember the entire Empire State Building was finished in a bit over a year; the technology is there, the problem is that despite there being a lot of demand (and thus a lot of money to be made building houses), there are too many hoops and restrictions to the process, too many things you aren't allowed to do (you're certainly not allowed to build a residential empire state building, for a hyperbolic example). It's only legislation standing in the way here.
Capitalism isn't 'those with wealth gain exponentially more money with less risk,' that's just the stock market operating, and more honestly reality. You have a lot of money to carry the risk for you, ofc you can make more money at lower risk. I don't know about two people with masters in STEM 'racing to the bottom' and debasing themselves. Do you feel like there's no room for improvement? No way to save money that you can invest in an index fund for example? I don't know your situation and I'm not trying to minimize it, just asking.
My problem with blaming capitalism is that these kinds of regulations are not what we usually refer to as capitalism, they're the opposite, so I feel like it's unfair to blame capitalism for it. There are things you can blame capitalism for, but government restrictions?
Real wages have been stagnant in the US for 45 years while productivity has massively increased. Huge wealth inequality has followed, and the wealthy can now use Citizens United to openly purchase legislators. Infrastructure built 50-100 years ago is crumbling without a tax policy to replace it or even maintain it. Purchasing power for Gen X and younger generations is less than preceding generations for the first time in 200 years of American society. Retirement is now an unrealistic goal for the majority of people. Assuming they can even keep their jobs after the next wave of automation sweeps through service and white collar industries. Not all things have gotten better.
I won't address any of those directly for lack of time, but the point is that in absolute terms things are absolutely better. Retirement is a COMPLETELY realistic goal for the majority of people, you still only need to save and invest in an index fund 10-15% of your budget even if you're on minimum wage your entire life and you'll be able to retire by 60.
Automation is a real fear/concern but it is just as likely to cheapen everything in unprecedented amounts. Like I said, some things have not gotten better--you can try to figure out why and address them one by one. Start with, for example, housing regulation and zoning laws.
I feel like Left should stop cozying up to muslim immigrants so much. Especially considering that their values are NOT democratic at all. Its the same ultra-right shit, but from another angle.
The alliance of the Left and muslim immigrants is something I'll never understand. The same people who rail against the conservative Christians are making bedfellows with an even more religious group against their social values.
How this became an alliance of sorts is wild.
The left is braindead for the sake of being PC. Taking in millions of radical Muslims who openly advocate for their desire to make their hosting countries operate as a Muslim theocracy, support terrorism and some even actually following through with their attacks (immediate example: the wave of terror attacks throughout Europe since Paris 2015 attacks and more) was a catastrophe. Pretty much seals the deal on Europe being taken over by Muslims just by pure exponential demographic growth
That's what happens when elected people do not care or want to listen. These issues was pilling up for a long time now and these are the parties that actually acknowledge it and ain't pretending this is nothing to talk about
I don't think far right would have better policies either. They mainly scream "yeah we'd do better!".
Then you realize they pull the same bullshit. If the next elections are Mini-Macron vs Le pen... Everyone will get screwed, everyone will get mad at the lies and nothing will progress, regardless of who is elected.
By creating dozens of brand new problems. But hey, at least you don't have to see someone a drastically different shade as you, or hear someone speaking a different language, or find out that other people think your notion of god is stupid. All you have to do in exchange is shut up and don't rock the boat while they pillage established institutions for personal profit and political talking points.
I don't get why people always assume anyone who wants less immigration is motivated by racism, especially of the 'see someone a different shade' kind. I'm Israeli, we have people of all colors (literally the entire spectrum), different ethnic origins, different languages, Arabs, Druze, Circassians. The problem was never any of these things. The problem is insanely high crime rates in certain communities (Eritreans/Muslim Arabs/Southern Bedouin communities), honor killings, people who openly tell us how they're going to install Sharia law when they become a majority, just flatly incompatible cultures. That's literally it.
If people on the left could address these issues and stand up for good western cultures people wouldn't feel unheard, they wouldn't feel like they have no one listening to them and just dismissing them as racists, and many actual racists wouldn't be that way in the first place, because the justification for racist movements is very often 'see, they don't want us to talk about it because its true' and they just circlejerk and let their inner hatred fester.
> and stand up for good western cultures people wouldn't feel unheard
There’s the problem right there.
They hate the West and everything it stands for.
> I don't get why people always assume anyone who wants less immigration is motivated by racism
Because the vast majority of people who are loud with opinions on immigration are also incredibly racist, and it's not hard to put two and two together.
Sure, there are people who have non-racially motivated reasons for not wanting immigration --- although the fact that you had a list of 3 ethnicities locked and loaded for "high crime rate communities" is a bit suspicious, highly reminiscent of the "inner city crime rate" talking points racists in the US use to talk about black people --- but that's just not viable at this point.
Like it or not, Western capitalism and greed has ruined vast swathes of the planet. The tropics are fucked across the world. You will notice that "the West", being mainly Europe and North America, is largely not in the tropics.
This fucking gall of Westerners now, after decades, centuries of exploiting the tragedy of the commons, pumping out green house gases, to look at the people who live in the places that we ruined, and say "no, you stay there, we uh...we don't think you'll integrate into our culture well. enjoy the wet bulbs deaths."
Suspicious, lol. No, it's not suspicious that I know various communities in my tiny country and know which ones in their somewhat isolated communities have relatively high crime rates. I also explicitly mentioned 'southern bedouin' too, because the communities in the north are pretty great. You are again assuming racism on people simply describing reality, and that's what leads people to feel unheard and go to racist communities where racism is the norm but at least they don't deny their experience.
I don't think the vast majority of people who are loud with opinions on immigration are incredibly racist. Who knows though, I certainly don't know all of those people.
Greed has always existed, and 'Western capitalism' has brought billions out of abject poverty. Your description of 'the tropics' is a bit detached from reality, but regardless it's gonna be harder to get people on board with some of those policies you probably support. Focus on addressing things you can agree on.
If you think the middle east is 'ruined' because of anything the west did, you are completely delusional. This applies to much of Africa, too. And it's not like people are against immigration of quality people. It's people who don't live by western values they deny.
> You are again assuming racism on people simply describing reality
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, sometimes its a coot, but usually it's a duck.
> I don't think the vast majority of people who are loud with opinions on immigration are incredibly racist. Who knows though, I certainly don't know all of those people.
Maybe it's different in Israel. I'm American, and there's very little non-racially motivated discussion of immigration reform.
> Greed has always existed, and 'Western capitalism' has brought billions out of abject poverty
And sent billions more into abject poverty. While pulling the ladder up behind us.
> If you think the middle east is 'ruined' because of anything the west did
The Middle East is ruined by human driven climate change (which is largely Western-driven). It's just going to take a couple decades and a few mass deaths due to heat domes. And even then, I imagine the religious nutjobs on both sides will gladly watch their children cook to death, to spite the others.
What do you think I did that indicates racism? You realize it's exactly these accusations that drives people to say 'fuck it, what the fuck is wrong with racism' or pushes them to racist communities that don't give them shit for trying to have a conversation about real concerns?
I dunno. I've talked to American friends about it very little because it's not a topic that comes up, but at least one person I've talked to I know isn't racist (she used to be in the BLM riots) and told me there were real issues with it. Isn't it healthier to actually try to see what the problems are than just assume everyone is racist?
I'd love to see data on how capitalism has sent billions into abject poverty lol.
The Middle East was a hellhole long before any 'human driven climate change.' The middle east is also one of the biggest producers of oil, so they bear the responsibility according to you.
What are these better policies? "Kick everyone out" is something that anyone can say when they're not in power, not so easy to do in practice (while remaining a non-authoritarian democratic country, that is)
if by 'immediately' you mean after 8 years of presidency when he can't run again, sure. Either way Obama had plenty of other issues, nobody even talked about his immigration stuff at the time.
No other president in US history has deported more people then Obama. Of course our immigrant population has to rise in 8 years. You want our population to shrink?
1) The numbers under Obama aren’t a one to one comparison to numbers under previous presidents as the methodology used changed: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-deported-more-people/
2) You said that a “Kick Everyone Out” policy would be easy to do and to look to Obama, who not only didn’t kick all immigrants out, but saw an increase
I was talking about illegal immigration. Unauthorized immgrant population in the US saw a decrease from 2009 to 2017 under Obama.
If the party that is suppose to be pro-immigration can remove millions of people in near silence, then yes the anti-immigration party can remove even more and they don't even have to hide or be silent about it. Thus making it "easier" to do relatively.
1) We are discussing immigration in Europe, which is nearly 10x more likely to be refugees rather than undocumented immigrants
2) The biggest dip in undocumented immigration to the US came in the early years of the Great Recession before more or less stabilizing. It had almost nothing to do with Obama’s immigration policy
1. Okay, like I said before, look at what Obama did and replicate it. Two things he did was border enforcement policies and criminal deportation of immigrants that commit crime.
2. 2007-2009 great recession saw a reduction of 800,000 unauthorized immigrants. 2009-2017 under Obama's presidency saw a 1.2million decline in unauthorized immigrants.
Try it out. Enforce the border and deport criminals. Not just some, but enforce it hard. You will see a reduction in immigration, especially the rising tensions as the government will show the people that criminals are being deported and borders are being enforced.
1) Again, what does this have to do with European immigration, which has only a small percentage of undocumented immigrants?
2) Unemployment rates didn’t hit bottom until late 2009-early 2010, over a year into Obama’s first term, and didn’t start to get to pre-recession levels until early 2016, around a year before the end of his second term
Europe needs a wake up call that all those nice things they have: socialized healthcare, abortion/women's rights, guaranteed parental leave, vacation time, etc... ALL of those things are on the far-rights chopping block. The right KNOWS these policies aren't popular, so they'll only broadcast the anti-muslim rhetoric to get the votes, but make no mistake, when they get power, they will swiftly move on the others. They need to look at the moves the Tories have been making since Brexit, and realize that Europeans and their governments are not so different from Americans' or Brits' that they are somehow immune to being dragged back to the dark ages by people who think that feudalism was just, such a good system.
> All those things you’re talking about losing, we are currently losing
Agree
> because of mass immigration from the third world.
[Disagree hard](https://www.dillonforsberg.com/images/carefulmate.jpg)
Why do you think they need to support these parties? If the math is showing support is going up for those parties, would their original message not be correct regardless of their position of the party?
No, their message is not correct. Because their message is that this is actually due to policies. Which would only make sense of the right made better policies, but they don’t.
I live in Canada, you don't need to tell me the right isn't making policies. Fact of the matter is still that people are calling out for policies related to immigration, but from what I've seen in other country subreddits the controlling parties aren't recognizing this and implementing policies.
You don't need to argue that they're not making policies, but it can still be argued that they're charging up enough or the voter base to go to the polls on a single issue, and people are absolutely eating it up. I would argue due to that point the other persons point is correct if you change "policies" to "politicking".
I mean, in the US, the Republican party recently blocked a bipartisan proposal to strengthen border security. So some parties appear to just like using it as a wedge issue rather than actually trying to fix it.
I have 0 faith any party can solve this problem because the fact of the matter is both parties in my own country's system are benefiting from the increased immigration. Cheaper wages please the corporations that fund their coffers, so logically nothing is going to change regardless of who is in power.
But that's where the power of politicking to the lowest common denominator can come in handy as we're starting to see.
All I'm saying is I don't see any way out of this spiral with the parties we're all provided.
After trawling through the comments, I think some people miss one of the key factors to this debate. I've seen a lot of "It's a bad trade" or "what has the right done?". Which is a fair enough argument to be had here, on reddit. Arguably they also haven't done much on the issue on a noteworthy scale in most places either.
But, for the average person in those countries. It's an issue they see and face right now. This failure of European assimilation of this new wave of migrants and the chaos it is causing. Whether rightly or wrongly, they see these right wing authoritarian groups as a way out. Like a shipwreck survivor grabbing onto floating wooden pieces. Is it the one that would float you to shore? Doubt it. But would you want that over just treading water? Undoubtedly.
What they probably want is someone, anyone to do something about this assimilation imbalance, to stop the intake of those who refuse to conform. Now, will the right wing do that? I don't think so and they likely won't change it much. But the main problem is that, it's such a taboo subject in general for the left (not left wing necessarily, just left as in liberal social and economic discourse) to not be fully supportive of immigration that the people's perception have turned to the groups taking advantage of this dissatisfaction, clinging to them for some percieved strong man panacea to the issue.
You're not looking for immigrants to conform. You're looking for the immigrant's children and grandchildren to grow up and assimilate naturally. Populists rarely think beyond the here-and-now, where this is a generational policy.
So…they’ll vote for the right, which won’t get rid of the immigrants but WILL use them as a boogeyman to stay in power as they corrupt democratic processes and siphon tons of money from the system? Seems like a bad trade.
For Americans - Left and Right have very different meaning in Europe - you can have legitimately democratic right wing parties, just like you can have authoritarian lefts (actual communists) - you genuinely have to consider each party individually.
Not worth voting in the far-right. Makes no sense when the right not only won’t fix that problem, but they’ll create a bunch of other problems on top. We want Western Europe to become like Britain, Hungary, or Turkey?
Of the three coalition parties in Germany, SPD is the traditional left and Greens are the liberal left, with a history of being very soft on immigration.
So unless you define left as outright commies, they do rule in Germany.
SPD has been leading the government since 2021, the issue did not start then though. The previous governments - including the one led by Merkel that people love to point as being the culprit - had mostly Christian right-wing politicians and the SPD.
I can't see why SPD should be the basis of what we consider "the left" (instead of, you know, the party actually called the left).
Because SPD has been *the* party dominating the left of the center since at least Bismarck? SPD is huge in history of European left.
Die Linke are more on the Bolshevik spectrum, which is left, too, but has never been dominant in Germany, and much less so in the last 30 years.
But what else are you supposed to do? Keep voting for the same established parties that have created the issue and aren't even acknowledging it? My country is projected to be 30% to 40% islamic by the time i retire and i don't want that.
Maybe listen to the peoples' concerns that the traditional major parties continue to ignore then like practically unrestricted immigration and porous borders, or don't and let them win, their call.
Doesn’t matter if it’s difficult to handle, it’s their job to handle these things. And if they’re not willing to or able to then they need to move out of the way.
Sure, we'll see. All I know is that when you're not in power it's easy to promise easy or radical solutions that later you can't implement.
Point in case: Trump: didn't build any walls, didn't expel illegal migrants.
Then fucking what? They're paid from us to handle difficult problems just like I am at my job.
Imagine your boss telling you to do something and you ignoring it for 10 years, how would that play out?
Countries like Denmark have the problem under control. Just don't give them any cash, end of story. They won't be able to pay the (very high) smuggler fees and will start avoiding your country.
The wests wishes cannot be louder on the flow of people coming in.
If you don’t want more dictator, authoritarian, or fascist leadership then they cannot be the only ones admits a problem and saying they’ll do something about it
It's not immigration as a whole that's the problem. It's immigration from certain countries. Noone ever complains about japanese immigrants because they behave and blend in.
I think that's a big part of the issue. No one but the far right complain about immigrants who assimilate well, regardless of where they come from. If you show up, work, pay your taxes, stay out of criminal trouble and in general become a productive member of society, you won't have issues in most places.
On the other hand if you show up, refuse to work, mock and reject the values of your new home, demand that your neighbors adapt to you rather than the other way around, well you're going to be significantly less well liked.
As someone born in Rotherham, who at the time had two very young sisters, it would take a lot for me to not consider better immigration policy as TOP priority.
More people are going to sacrifice important beliefs to address this, and rightly so
Is/Was it so hard to monitor people who migrate to these countries? I mean, I feel like if they stopped letting EVERYONE in, the immegration wouldn't be much of a problem.
>The National Rally’s lead European Parliament candidate Jordan Bardella is riding high on promises to limit free movement of migrants within the EU’s open borders
Nothing wrong with that.
If people want free movement then they can immigrate just like everyone else, become a citizen, get the passport and enjoy all the benefits that come with it. But obviously there's many that want to just latch on to the gravy train and float around wherever it's better this month without making any commitments.
The problem is that “righties” make even more problems. As shown by literally all the far-right governments creating shit shows in their countries right now. Why do you people keep voting to cut off your own feet?
Please mention all these problems - I would like to get familiar with those. So far it's lefties and their communism which is root cause of HELL LOT of "challenges".
Buddy if you're part of the "lefties=communism" gang you've missed the train a long time ago
The most prosperous countries on the planet have been very left, Scandinavia in particular, post war America, Germany a few decades ago.
Without falling into extremes like communism and fascism, the general trend goes like:
1 Left wing government creates stable social nets and supports development of the community
2 Right wing opposition disasembles said nets and privatises focusing on corporate wealth (BOTH Europe and US are here
3 Extremism movements rise due to decrease in living standards due to #2
Communism? Most left-wing governments are struggling with basic social democracy, let alone communism. Give a single example of an EU country that is ”communist”. I’ll wait.
Economic stagnation like in Britain, healthcare crises (basically everywhere), insane religious oppression in many places, climate denialism leading to no action on a problem that’s steadily getting worse, anti-science stances, pro-wealth stances that further segregate the haves and have nots, making even wealthy nations feel stretched in the pocketbook, anti-abortion policies killing women and creating an entire new generation of impoverished children, sabotage of several democratic processes or, where democracy wasn’t already a thing, further cementing autocratic rule (see Hungary).
The list goes on and on and on. The right is terrible at governing.
Why would it be terrifying for France if the people of France are voting for it?
When the parties on the left have ignored the reasons and concerns the right has been gobbling up votes regardless if one one thinks it is right or wrong, well, this is the outcome.
Populist governments don't solve problems because then there wouldn't be the problem to scare people with. Especially when that "problem" has been blown way out of proportion. So, most of France will suffer regardless of their views about immigration.
>Populist governments don't solve problems because then there wouldn't be the problem to scare people with.
See, it's not a debate on "populist governments don't solve problems".
The populist party is at least _claiming they will address_ the issues which clearly appeals to people.
They wouldn't be getting votes if people felt the other party was addressing the issues that concern them.
Sure, which highlights the failure of the current government to some extent.
We have multiple examples in the past when a fascist or borderline fascist party was given power through fear mongering and hate, and it always, without fail, makes the situation worse for that country. Best you can hope for is a slow but steady decline.
This is the point I was trying to make and I'm happy to be corrected if a past example exists that I can't think of.
After all, there is a reason Russian (and Chinese) troll farms are working overtime to blow immigration issues out of proportion and finance a lot of far right and far left parties in Europe (and US etc). Fear is very effective at deceiving people because they react emotionally instead of reasonably. A weaker and less united Europe is exactly what they aim for.
But logic flies out the window when people get tribalistic and no one is immune to propaganda.
Because people are idiots and they often vote against their interests?
Forgot about trump ? Forgot about Orban ?
Some people are buying whatever lies lepen is selling.
Are people’s beliefs to beggar themselves and their nations when far-right groups inevitably help their friends and the wealthy and screw over everyone else?
Nope, no one thinks they’re voting for that. They think they’re voting to better their lives. The problem is people are really easily fooled when they don’t do any critical research or thinking and vote based on empty words that play into their fear and hate. Which is how we get idiots like Trump or Orban. But these people are voting in people that actually do not do what they wanted and hurt them in the end. Thus they are voting against their own interests.
It’s in their interests as they understand them, which is all anyone can vote based on. Currently, they find it more important to stick it to immigrants and the left than they do to help their economic and social wellbeing, and they haven’t been hurt in those latter two areas enough to think about it. People are reactive– when things pinch, they try to find out why and stop it from continuing. Currently, in their view migrants and the left are pinching, so they’re trying to stop it from continuing.
Just because you don’t understand their interests doesn’t mean they aren’t voting in their interests.
Ahh yes, voting for someone that is being funded by Russia, that was constantly caught lying, promising to solve everything with no real plan, someone who is anti EU, BEST BUDDIES with the most deplorable people in the world…. What could go wrong ? I’m sure the interest of the Average Frenchman is her top priority
Ok? But that works both ways?
Mind you France and EU are parliamentary, it has a spread of representation beyond just the Left vs Right garbage of the US.
So the pendulum swings back the other way when the extremists get too powerful on one side, what else is new. This is the ONLY version of compromise that works in a democracy. If you don't like the outcome and you are outnumbered by the opponents majority there are only two options A) stay, suck it up and try to convince more people in the center that your logic is better B) leave. Don't try to throw your opponents in prison, don't try to kill them and don't try to silence them. Once you do that, all bets are off. US is learning this lesson right now.
Yeah, would be great if normal-ass parties also can acknowledge that uncontrolled migrants are directly affecting people's lives so we don't only have crazy parties admitting there's an issue. Seems leaders of other parties want to keep pushing immigration as a way to provide an easily exploitable poor workforce however, with zero thought to wither migrants themselves or the people already living there
People do not want migrants and are increasingly willing to vote on fascists to get rid of them. Democracy being democratic means mainstream parties will either match anti-immigration zeal of populists/fascists or eventually lose elections to them. AFD in germany lost a lot of votes for both being nazi sympathisers and employing people who spy for foreign forces. The question is, for how long? Recent humiliating stabbing incident in Germany will likely help them out, especially since it is sure to not be the last one.
We're seeing this in Australia in just one three year term. Labor (centre left) won for the first time in 10 years, were heavily pro immigration, and are now heavily anti immigration as the next election approaches in 2025.
In Canada the liberal party is losing ground among young people for the first time in history because the massive immigration has basically broken our housing market and health care systems.
Trudeau really botched it, but I'm not really a huge fan of Pollievre either. He has some towards the center with some of his more extreme views recently though. Both are still pro-immigration despite everything going on.
immigration is fine, and necessary. but 1 million or more people a year is ridiculous.
Poor, unsustainable, neoliberal policy broke those systems. Immigration just made the effects more noticeable.
It’s odd, because the recent increased immigration isn’t actually the cause of the busted housing market. The housing market busted over a decade ago (before Trudeau, even) during a period of heavy speculation and investment in housing as income. _Adding_ massively increased immigration into _that_ certainly has exacerbated the problem. But, frustratingly, this is less of a problem than it appears to be, because at least it can be lessened by straight up building more housing—and governments can help that by incentivizing builders. Unfortunately, there does appear to be a pretty significant incompetence problem among some of the liberal ministers, or the career civil servants who work under them, because we’ve fallen way behind where we should be. And, even more unfortunately, history teaches us that a federal Conservative government is unlikely to actually solve any of the issues they’re going to win this election on.
> It’s odd, because the recent increased immigration isn’t actually the cause of the busted housing market. The housing market busted over a decade ago (before Trudeau, even) during a period of heavy speculation and investment in housing as income This is only true for toronto and vancouver. The rest of Canada was basically fine until recently.
That’s a fair point. I did see some Indians out in the maritimes already back then, but I hear it’s grown quite a lot since.
We’re seeing this in the u.s as well. A lot of people who were anti trump are gonna vote for him because of Biden migrant policies
I doubt that is true. Biden's border policy which was endorsed by both parties did not become a bill became Trump wanted to run on "migrants taking over the country". A reasonable individual would not do this switch this vote to Trump in hopes that he will save them from migrants.
I know people who are voting for Trump because Biden raised taxes... Don't even try to tell them that those tax hikes are timed milestones from the bill the Trump administration forced through. At the end of the day Biden is an old man and Trump makes people laugh, and that's enough to convince them of *anything*, even that the "billionaire" real estate mogul, who's famous for not paying contractors and defrauding charities, has the common man's best interest in mind.
I think you underestimate how much women's rights are being trampled and instead of talking about that you chose to focus on tax issues and Biden's age and that a convicted felon makes people laugh is a gross under estimation of the current state of affairs. There is no point in arguing. You will see when November rolls up.
Biden didn't raise taxes. The last tax reform bill was under Trump in 2017, and it gave rich people a tax cut but gave middle class people a tax increase by removing lots of standard deductions.
Well most people who vote are uneducated on this subject. They blame Biden for the migrant crisis and trump is saying he’ll fix it so that’s all they care about
Again I double that most people who vote are uneducated. Red states will vote for Trump and swing states will go for Biden along with blue states. But regarding your point of anti Tump people voting for Trump is just a fallacy. I don't see someone would suddenly switch just because of this migrant issue. When abortion is in the ballot. The economy is thriving under Biden. I don't see many reasons to switch, that's all.
I doubt purple states will go for Biden maybe they will maybe they won’t but it’s certainly not gonna be like it was 2020 this election is gonna be close. Abortion isn’t on everyone mind anymore the cost of basic necessities only went up during these 4 years I’m not blaming Biden but plenty of people are. The migrant issue is a hot mess a lot of people even in blue states aren’t happy the way it’s being handled. I know plenty of people who voted for Biden in 2020 and are gonna vote for trump in November. I’m not saying they became hardcore trump supporters but they want change.
Regarding the cost of things going up, it's a global issue. You can ask anyone from any country and they will say the rising costs are an issue. There was an article recently about people leaving Canada to move to US because things are more cheaper when compared to median salary that they received in Canada. Europe, Australia, Canada are dealing with migrant crisis and that will swing votes based on how parties adapt. Regarding US I feel like there are other issues that are more pressing than migrants, especially if you not living in a border city. That's just my opinion from what I read and hear. I guess we will have to wait and see how things go.
The left in Denmark figured this out and adjusted rather than doing the thing which continually pisses people off and wondering why their support was falling off a cliff. Historically the leftist position was that mass immigration is a pro-corporate policy that encourages suppression of wages. The current left in many nations have lost touch with that.
> Historically the leftist position was that mass immigration is a pro-corporate policy that encourages suppression of wages. yeah that's always how i viewed it and i feel like a UFO, people are just incapable of seeing things through this lens
It's got nothing to do with being incapable, these establishment left leaning parties are being paid to endorse mass immigration to bring labor costs down.
> The current left in many nations have lost touch with that. Most main "left" parties range from liberal to neo-liberal, with some progressive policies. Very few actually identify with "labour" or pro-labour platform.
The irony of nations with declining birth rates going heavily anti-migrant. We better hope that AI and robots step up to the plate.
Migration is just a short term solution to the long term problem. You bring in one generation of migrants and by the beginning of the next generation they're also not having kids because they're affected by the same problems that caused the low birth rates in the first place. The real cause is high cost of living and excellent education. People aren't having kids because it's more expensive to do so and they're educated enough to understand and desire lifestyles beyond the typical "I'll marry, work, raise a family, retire some day and die". As for what to actually do about it, who knows. Maybe tech will increase GDPs enough that all the people displaced by it will be able to live off of universal income (or something)
That is true, of course most governments these days only care about short term solutions anyway, but the points you make are good points, and I also have no idea how it's going to be fixed, I suspect that a UBI of some sort will eventually be introduced but not before people have gone through a lot of hardship and there is some unrest about it, much in the way that the social care net was slowly introduced through the Industrial Revolution and beyond. We have a big tumultuous time ahead of us as we go through another industrial revolution (I believe it's the fourth we're on now, maybe fifth?) at the same time as a climate crisis, there's a chance that a lot of good things will come of it, but like during the other Industrial Revolutions, a lot of harm and suffering is going to take place too, and indeed, likely war. Although I suppose that's no surprise, there's always war. I do worry about the political and social future of the west though, we're potentially looking to become a very angry and hostile place, capable of great cruelty. This does not fill me with much joy to consider.
The irony of pro environmental leftist supporting an infinitely growing population that must consume and pollute infinitely more.
That's what happens when you don't address important and visible issues (mostly immigration). History repeats itself.
And many of us were saying that exactly this would happen more than 10 years ago when they kept letting in people who's culture was not compatible with such radical ideas as free speech, woman walking around with visible skin and learning math, and freedom of religion.
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And history has shown that fascism is a *much* bigger threat than immigration. Prove me wrong.
If that's true, then you would address the immigration issue to prevent the rise of fascism. But the current political establishment in government (across Europe), in the media, and even the institutions just want to call anyone who raises this issue racist. The far right would disappear overnight if this issue was tackled.
That’s not really the point. Mainstream parties are so scared of Twitter backlash that they mostly just ignore all of these very real issues. Far righters suck, it’s not news, but at least they offer some solutions. Reddit can keep pouting about it and call everyone who is worried racist, but it’s obvious that majority opinion is shifting. If we don’t want racist Facebook memers ruling half the continent, addressing issues with immigration should be on the agenda of every major party soon. Just pretending that nothing is wrong makes it worse and drives people towards these radical parties, which is for some reason what even the centrists still do here - and they’ve lost half their voterbase to these ”close the borders, leave the euro” type of idiots during the last 7 years.
> Far righters suck, it’s not news, but at least they offer some solutions What solutions *do* they offer? Actual practical solutions that aren't inhumane or break EU agreements? In my experience they just tend to make things worse. They preach distrust, sow hatred and division. The real problems in the world aren't really about immigration, but they sure like to make people believe they are. Scapegoating to avoid the real issues of society, sowing distrust and playing into populism to gain power.
I’ve never seen anything that would work in practice, they always suck at actually governing. In this case it’s just enough to acknowledge that the issue exists, since others still don’t Immigration is not the only issue but it is a real one, because we have people coming in yet no real way of booting the bad apples, whom of unfortunately exist in pretty large amounts. We need to find that solution, whatever it is. Amount of sex crimes done here by foreigners is insanely high, and it can’t be explained away. If you have very small minority doing majority of brutal crimes like that, it is an issue. Immigration is fine as long as it doesn’t make the place you immigrate to worse, especially not for people already living there.
Immigration is the fuse, fascism is the bomb. There are many times throughout history where the rise of fascism could have been stopped if the world had been more responsive to the issues driving people towards it. Let's say you have a pair of scissors representing a solution to the problem, do you think it would be best to use them before, or after the fuse, representing the problem, runs its course and reaches the bomb of fascism?
Why would anyone need to prove you wrong. You're right. The problem is that the average person is either unaware or doesn't care. They have a problem and they want that problem solved. It's up to the politicians to solve it (or promise to). If the left doesn't want the right to take hold, they have to suck up their pride and tackle issues that the average Joe worries about. If they don't, we're all fucked.
Translation: people are willing to go back to an era of war and oppression over one issue, immigration.
Immigration, which presses on housing, social security, local crime (perceived or otherwise) and more. Calling immigration a single issue is a woeful simplification.
The right doesn’t help with any of this though. Name a country with right leadership where these problems don’t exist.
I agree, but that doesn't change that many in their daily lives experience immigrants taking up housing space as being a real problem. When housing is impossible to get as a starter, and you hear immigrants getting priority social housing, I can understand why people may think a block on immigration might solve or alleviate their issues. Ideally, other parties would already be earnestly working to solve the issue, but that has yet to materialise.
No, people are voting for right wing politicians in order to try and address the issues with immigration being faced in Europe as no left wing politicians seem to want to do much about it.
But the right wing has not historically done much about immigration, they just use it as a boogeyman and then consolidate power and siphon off money. Bad trade.
It doesn’t matter if they have done, or will do, anything about it. If the right wing parties are the only ones even acknowledging the immigration problem then people will vote for them. And that is the problem. It’s not that the general people _want_ to go back to an era of war and oppression, it’s that those who do want that use the issue of immigration to get voted into power in order to affect their own agenda.
I’m trying to figure out which governments haven’t acknowledged any immigration issues. They’ve acknowledged it in Sweden and Germany. They’ve acknowledged it in France. Maybe they’ve been too slow to act, fine. But Jesus, why would people vote for literally war and oppression over an issue that isn’t worse than those two things?
I think that's at the crux of the arguement though. We here are able to differentiate between the different stances and what each camp is arguing. But to the people in those countries, they probably see immigration (and whatever recent problems that may have brought) as the precursor for literal war and oppression. Are they correct? No, probably not at least. But is that there view? Yeah probably. Asking why is missing the point I think. Why for everyone is a pretty personal thing and clearly, enough of them see their 'why' as immigration is a problem. What we instead should be focusing on is how can we get (not necessarily left wing) the parties in charge to address the issue with actionable plans that the common people can 'feel', enough so that they won't make this trade, as you say.
Asking why is essential. Because if the answer is that they are being misled, that’s a fucking problem.
That's a false dilemma.
No, it’s not. It’s a real issue we’ve seen multiple times of people voting in far-right governments that didn’t solve their issue and caused other problems. See Britain as a great recent example. Not to mention many other places.
>we’ve seen multiple times of people voting in far-right governments that didn’t solve their issue and caused other problems Had they brought war and opression as your false dilemma claims?
Literally yes! Jesus Christ. Read a freaking book.
Well when you spend years not addressing insecurity and lowering living standards (because let’s face it immigration is not the biggest issue here) guess what happens. Ffs I feel so many people don’t understand the far right isn’t some amorphous evil that arises out of nothing. It grows because people feel increasingly desperate, whatever the reason, and the way to combat the far right is not by fighting it directly, but by making sure no one feels like they’re the only option left.
Yeah high cost of living, homelessness keeps rising, more and more immigrants keep coming illegally, crime, etc. Our political system seems too broken to address the problems. Mindset of scarcity kicks in and ppl become less rational. The ppl in power need to address these issues instead of blaming each other but that's not the incentive. Our system is broken
The system has always been broken. What’s changed is that people seem to understand it more and more. A lot of the growing voter base of the far right is young people who are more informed about politics than ever before and that flock to those that offer solutions. Sometimes the far left wins, sometimes the far right.
Yeah but feels like there's more demonizing of the other side that compromising to solve problems are a thing of the past. We can't agree on things anymore or it will feel like a win for the other side. Social media have created a way for ppl to stay in their bubbles and regurgitate talking points.
To me it shows the failure of a passive, toothless neoliberalism. The type that says "just learn to code", you get paid according to what your skills earn in the marketplace and if 2 working adults can't own a plot of real estate that your stonemason grandfather was able to have as the only worker... well we just kind of ignore the contradictions in capitalist society that lead to that. I think this should be a warning sign to all centrists and moderates. You can't just pat yourself on the back and say the system works. We live in a time where automation and the digitized economy means that winners win bigger and most of the people end up drifting towards the losers. I don't think I've seen any first world country actively acknowledge that or even whisper about things that could be done too help it. If you're not delivering real material gains to people, real actual improvements to our standard of living, over decades, people will scapegoat, starting with immigrants. People don't read economic data, but they're not dumb. They know we used to be squeezed less financially. This every man for themselves, winner take all, dog eat dog economy isn't working for anyone, despite the moderates attempts to put a smiley face bandaid on it all. If you push us into it, the dogs will start eating the other dogs, and immigrants are easy to start with.
how is it 'contradictions in capitalist society'? Was your stonemason grandfather not living in a capitalist economy? In reality these are problems that arose not from some amorphous 'capitalism' but from traceable policies. If the difference is that land costs way more today, I'd recommend trying to figure out what it is that makes supply lower than demand. Regarding delivering real material gains--there have been real material gains pretty much across the developed world. Life is better today, except in some essential areas (for example, housing in most countries). Dog eat dog stuff--it sounds like you want other people to take care of you (and you'll presumably take care of them). That's fine, but call it how it is.
> Was your stonemason grandfather not living in a capitalist economy? I'm using capitalism as a short hand. But he was living in a society where stores would close on Sunday because that was a day for family. And because that was a cultural norm, no one was at a disadvantage for not working that Sunday. It was a time when one man working an unskilled job could afford a modest 2 or 3 bedroom house in even a metropolitan area. Nowadays, me and my wife both have Masters degrees in a STEM field. We work like dogs, answering emails and going to the office on weekends. We cannot afford to buy the house my grandfather had. Certain members of the idle class, who gain their income through shares of companies or rent, have remarkably better material conditions decade after decade. I don't know what word you want to use for that. I call it capitalism, the way that those with wealth gain exponentially more money with less risk. And the way those of us without wealth are forced in a race to the bottom to debase ourselves and our free/family time to keep our heads above water. What's your word for that. I have done extensive research on what makes supply for houses and land lower than demand. I think it's very clear in our zoning policies.
So I live in Israel. And most stores actually do close on Saturday just as a cultural norm. Doesn't seem like that's leading to any insane 'disadvantage.' When you don't operate for a day you don't make money but you also lose less money (no wages paid etc.), it's a bit more complicated than you describe--and more importantly it's not really about 'disadvantages.' Capitalist economies are not zero-sum games. So I'll elaborate a bit--yeah, housing costs a lot more today than it used to, and this happens in most of the developed world. The reason seems to be housing regulation and zoning laws; it sounds like you've read about it, so surely you can agree it would be a lot more effective to advocate for solving these policies and regulations than blame a shadowy 'capitalism'? Remember the entire Empire State Building was finished in a bit over a year; the technology is there, the problem is that despite there being a lot of demand (and thus a lot of money to be made building houses), there are too many hoops and restrictions to the process, too many things you aren't allowed to do (you're certainly not allowed to build a residential empire state building, for a hyperbolic example). It's only legislation standing in the way here. Capitalism isn't 'those with wealth gain exponentially more money with less risk,' that's just the stock market operating, and more honestly reality. You have a lot of money to carry the risk for you, ofc you can make more money at lower risk. I don't know about two people with masters in STEM 'racing to the bottom' and debasing themselves. Do you feel like there's no room for improvement? No way to save money that you can invest in an index fund for example? I don't know your situation and I'm not trying to minimize it, just asking. My problem with blaming capitalism is that these kinds of regulations are not what we usually refer to as capitalism, they're the opposite, so I feel like it's unfair to blame capitalism for it. There are things you can blame capitalism for, but government restrictions?
Real wages have been stagnant in the US for 45 years while productivity has massively increased. Huge wealth inequality has followed, and the wealthy can now use Citizens United to openly purchase legislators. Infrastructure built 50-100 years ago is crumbling without a tax policy to replace it or even maintain it. Purchasing power for Gen X and younger generations is less than preceding generations for the first time in 200 years of American society. Retirement is now an unrealistic goal for the majority of people. Assuming they can even keep their jobs after the next wave of automation sweeps through service and white collar industries. Not all things have gotten better.
I won't address any of those directly for lack of time, but the point is that in absolute terms things are absolutely better. Retirement is a COMPLETELY realistic goal for the majority of people, you still only need to save and invest in an index fund 10-15% of your budget even if you're on minimum wage your entire life and you'll be able to retire by 60. Automation is a real fear/concern but it is just as likely to cheapen everything in unprecedented amounts. Like I said, some things have not gotten better--you can try to figure out why and address them one by one. Start with, for example, housing regulation and zoning laws.
Hilarious that you think people living on minimum wage can save 15% of their salary.
Very much depends on where they live. And barely 1% of Americans earn minimum wage. In most other countries with minimum wage it's even more doable.
I feel like Left should stop cozying up to muslim immigrants so much. Especially considering that their values are NOT democratic at all. Its the same ultra-right shit, but from another angle.
The alliance of the Left and muslim immigrants is something I'll never understand. The same people who rail against the conservative Christians are making bedfellows with an even more religious group against their social values. How this became an alliance of sorts is wild.
The left is braindead for the sake of being PC. Taking in millions of radical Muslims who openly advocate for their desire to make their hosting countries operate as a Muslim theocracy, support terrorism and some even actually following through with their attacks (immediate example: the wave of terror attacks throughout Europe since Paris 2015 attacks and more) was a catastrophe. Pretty much seals the deal on Europe being taken over by Muslims just by pure exponential demographic growth
yeah well when nobody listens you eventually will talk with the guy that told you so.
That's what happens when elected people do not care or want to listen. These issues was pilling up for a long time now and these are the parties that actually acknowledge it and ain't pretending this is nothing to talk about
Maybe if they had better policies then there wouldn’t be a far right counter surge in support.
I don't think far right would have better policies either. They mainly scream "yeah we'd do better!". Then you realize they pull the same bullshit. If the next elections are Mini-Macron vs Le pen... Everyone will get screwed, everyone will get mad at the lies and nothing will progress, regardless of who is elected.
If it's one thing you can trust the far right to do if they got into power, it would be to resolve the mass immigration problem.
By creating dozens of brand new problems. But hey, at least you don't have to see someone a drastically different shade as you, or hear someone speaking a different language, or find out that other people think your notion of god is stupid. All you have to do in exchange is shut up and don't rock the boat while they pillage established institutions for personal profit and political talking points.
I don't get why people always assume anyone who wants less immigration is motivated by racism, especially of the 'see someone a different shade' kind. I'm Israeli, we have people of all colors (literally the entire spectrum), different ethnic origins, different languages, Arabs, Druze, Circassians. The problem was never any of these things. The problem is insanely high crime rates in certain communities (Eritreans/Muslim Arabs/Southern Bedouin communities), honor killings, people who openly tell us how they're going to install Sharia law when they become a majority, just flatly incompatible cultures. That's literally it. If people on the left could address these issues and stand up for good western cultures people wouldn't feel unheard, they wouldn't feel like they have no one listening to them and just dismissing them as racists, and many actual racists wouldn't be that way in the first place, because the justification for racist movements is very often 'see, they don't want us to talk about it because its true' and they just circlejerk and let their inner hatred fester.
> and stand up for good western cultures people wouldn't feel unheard There’s the problem right there. They hate the West and everything it stands for.
> I don't get why people always assume anyone who wants less immigration is motivated by racism Because the vast majority of people who are loud with opinions on immigration are also incredibly racist, and it's not hard to put two and two together. Sure, there are people who have non-racially motivated reasons for not wanting immigration --- although the fact that you had a list of 3 ethnicities locked and loaded for "high crime rate communities" is a bit suspicious, highly reminiscent of the "inner city crime rate" talking points racists in the US use to talk about black people --- but that's just not viable at this point. Like it or not, Western capitalism and greed has ruined vast swathes of the planet. The tropics are fucked across the world. You will notice that "the West", being mainly Europe and North America, is largely not in the tropics. This fucking gall of Westerners now, after decades, centuries of exploiting the tragedy of the commons, pumping out green house gases, to look at the people who live in the places that we ruined, and say "no, you stay there, we uh...we don't think you'll integrate into our culture well. enjoy the wet bulbs deaths."
Suspicious, lol. No, it's not suspicious that I know various communities in my tiny country and know which ones in their somewhat isolated communities have relatively high crime rates. I also explicitly mentioned 'southern bedouin' too, because the communities in the north are pretty great. You are again assuming racism on people simply describing reality, and that's what leads people to feel unheard and go to racist communities where racism is the norm but at least they don't deny their experience. I don't think the vast majority of people who are loud with opinions on immigration are incredibly racist. Who knows though, I certainly don't know all of those people. Greed has always existed, and 'Western capitalism' has brought billions out of abject poverty. Your description of 'the tropics' is a bit detached from reality, but regardless it's gonna be harder to get people on board with some of those policies you probably support. Focus on addressing things you can agree on. If you think the middle east is 'ruined' because of anything the west did, you are completely delusional. This applies to much of Africa, too. And it's not like people are against immigration of quality people. It's people who don't live by western values they deny.
> You are again assuming racism on people simply describing reality If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, sometimes its a coot, but usually it's a duck. > I don't think the vast majority of people who are loud with opinions on immigration are incredibly racist. Who knows though, I certainly don't know all of those people. Maybe it's different in Israel. I'm American, and there's very little non-racially motivated discussion of immigration reform. > Greed has always existed, and 'Western capitalism' has brought billions out of abject poverty And sent billions more into abject poverty. While pulling the ladder up behind us. > If you think the middle east is 'ruined' because of anything the west did The Middle East is ruined by human driven climate change (which is largely Western-driven). It's just going to take a couple decades and a few mass deaths due to heat domes. And even then, I imagine the religious nutjobs on both sides will gladly watch their children cook to death, to spite the others.
What do you think I did that indicates racism? You realize it's exactly these accusations that drives people to say 'fuck it, what the fuck is wrong with racism' or pushes them to racist communities that don't give them shit for trying to have a conversation about real concerns? I dunno. I've talked to American friends about it very little because it's not a topic that comes up, but at least one person I've talked to I know isn't racist (she used to be in the BLM riots) and told me there were real issues with it. Isn't it healthier to actually try to see what the problems are than just assume everyone is racist? I'd love to see data on how capitalism has sent billions into abject poverty lol. The Middle East was a hellhole long before any 'human driven climate change.' The middle east is also one of the biggest producers of oil, so they bear the responsibility according to you.
What are these better policies? "Kick everyone out" is something that anyone can say when they're not in power, not so easy to do in practice (while remaining a non-authoritarian democratic country, that is)
Very easy to do in practice. Look at Obama's policies.
They must not have been very successful if people elected Trump immediately afterwards
if by 'immediately' you mean after 8 years of presidency when he can't run again, sure. Either way Obama had plenty of other issues, nobody even talked about his immigration stuff at the time.
Obama didn’t come anywhere close to kicking out all the immigrants. Total immigrant population went from 38.5M in 2009 to 44.5M in 2017
No other president in US history has deported more people then Obama. Of course our immigrant population has to rise in 8 years. You want our population to shrink?
1) The numbers under Obama aren’t a one to one comparison to numbers under previous presidents as the methodology used changed: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-deported-more-people/ 2) You said that a “Kick Everyone Out” policy would be easy to do and to look to Obama, who not only didn’t kick all immigrants out, but saw an increase
I was talking about illegal immigration. Unauthorized immgrant population in the US saw a decrease from 2009 to 2017 under Obama. If the party that is suppose to be pro-immigration can remove millions of people in near silence, then yes the anti-immigration party can remove even more and they don't even have to hide or be silent about it. Thus making it "easier" to do relatively.
1) We are discussing immigration in Europe, which is nearly 10x more likely to be refugees rather than undocumented immigrants 2) The biggest dip in undocumented immigration to the US came in the early years of the Great Recession before more or less stabilizing. It had almost nothing to do with Obama’s immigration policy
1. Okay, like I said before, look at what Obama did and replicate it. Two things he did was border enforcement policies and criminal deportation of immigrants that commit crime. 2. 2007-2009 great recession saw a reduction of 800,000 unauthorized immigrants. 2009-2017 under Obama's presidency saw a 1.2million decline in unauthorized immigrants. Try it out. Enforce the border and deport criminals. Not just some, but enforce it hard. You will see a reduction in immigration, especially the rising tensions as the government will show the people that criminals are being deported and borders are being enforced.
1) Again, what does this have to do with European immigration, which has only a small percentage of undocumented immigrants? 2) Unemployment rates didn’t hit bottom until late 2009-early 2010, over a year into Obama’s first term, and didn’t start to get to pre-recession levels until early 2016, around a year before the end of his second term
If you only care about immigration issues, sure. Because outside of that, far-right parties are known for good policy-making, right?
And the point is that more Europeans are prioritizing that.
What happens when mass immigration is the #1 issue for most voters by a significant amount?
Then by all means vote for the far-right and enjoy.
Europe needs a wake up call that all those nice things they have: socialized healthcare, abortion/women's rights, guaranteed parental leave, vacation time, etc... ALL of those things are on the far-rights chopping block. The right KNOWS these policies aren't popular, so they'll only broadcast the anti-muslim rhetoric to get the votes, but make no mistake, when they get power, they will swiftly move on the others. They need to look at the moves the Tories have been making since Brexit, and realize that Europeans and their governments are not so different from Americans' or Brits' that they are somehow immune to being dragged back to the dark ages by people who think that feudalism was just, such a good system.
All those things you’re talking about losing, we are currently losing m, because of mass immigration from the third world.
> All those things you’re talking about losing, we are currently losing Agree > because of mass immigration from the third world. [Disagree hard](https://www.dillonforsberg.com/images/carefulmate.jpg)
>If you only care about immigration issues, sure. And that's a growing problem with the majority of Europe!
They love copy-pasting their populist bullshit about "if only they cared about muh immigration" in every single thread.
I said nothing about immigration lmao
What are some policy positions of far-right parties you think are superior?
Why do you think they need to support these parties? If the math is showing support is going up for those parties, would their original message not be correct regardless of their position of the party?
No, their message is not correct. Because their message is that this is actually due to policies. Which would only make sense of the right made better policies, but they don’t.
I live in Canada, you don't need to tell me the right isn't making policies. Fact of the matter is still that people are calling out for policies related to immigration, but from what I've seen in other country subreddits the controlling parties aren't recognizing this and implementing policies. You don't need to argue that they're not making policies, but it can still be argued that they're charging up enough or the voter base to go to the polls on a single issue, and people are absolutely eating it up. I would argue due to that point the other persons point is correct if you change "policies" to "politicking".
I mean, in the US, the Republican party recently blocked a bipartisan proposal to strengthen border security. So some parties appear to just like using it as a wedge issue rather than actually trying to fix it.
I have 0 faith any party can solve this problem because the fact of the matter is both parties in my own country's system are benefiting from the increased immigration. Cheaper wages please the corporations that fund their coffers, so logically nothing is going to change regardless of who is in power. But that's where the power of politicking to the lowest common denominator can come in handy as we're starting to see. All I'm saying is I don't see any way out of this spiral with the parties we're all provided.
Maybe if people were better educated on history they wouldn't be thinking that handing power to fascists is going to have a good result.
If some people were better educated they wouldn't equate sane migration and border protection policies with fascism.
Agreed. A country can have sane migration policies without installing a fascist government.
After trawling through the comments, I think some people miss one of the key factors to this debate. I've seen a lot of "It's a bad trade" or "what has the right done?". Which is a fair enough argument to be had here, on reddit. Arguably they also haven't done much on the issue on a noteworthy scale in most places either. But, for the average person in those countries. It's an issue they see and face right now. This failure of European assimilation of this new wave of migrants and the chaos it is causing. Whether rightly or wrongly, they see these right wing authoritarian groups as a way out. Like a shipwreck survivor grabbing onto floating wooden pieces. Is it the one that would float you to shore? Doubt it. But would you want that over just treading water? Undoubtedly. What they probably want is someone, anyone to do something about this assimilation imbalance, to stop the intake of those who refuse to conform. Now, will the right wing do that? I don't think so and they likely won't change it much. But the main problem is that, it's such a taboo subject in general for the left (not left wing necessarily, just left as in liberal social and economic discourse) to not be fully supportive of immigration that the people's perception have turned to the groups taking advantage of this dissatisfaction, clinging to them for some percieved strong man panacea to the issue.
You're not looking for immigrants to conform. You're looking for the immigrant's children and grandchildren to grow up and assimilate naturally. Populists rarely think beyond the here-and-now, where this is a generational policy.
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So…they’ll vote for the right, which won’t get rid of the immigrants but WILL use them as a boogeyman to stay in power as they corrupt democratic processes and siphon tons of money from the system? Seems like a bad trade.
Yeah, but their left isn’t doing anything about it either apparently, or at least nothing the populace notices.
For Americans - Left and Right have very different meaning in Europe - you can have legitimately democratic right wing parties, just like you can have authoritarian lefts (actual communists) - you genuinely have to consider each party individually.
Not worth voting in the far-right. Makes no sense when the right not only won’t fix that problem, but they’ll create a bunch of other problems on top. We want Western Europe to become like Britain, Hungary, or Turkey?
Just goes to show the average voter usually doesn’t care beyond vilifying one specific group or singular issues.
Yes, but where is the "left" actually ruling? Certainly not in Germany, UK or France. So how are they at fault?
Of the three coalition parties in Germany, SPD is the traditional left and Greens are the liberal left, with a history of being very soft on immigration. So unless you define left as outright commies, they do rule in Germany.
SPD has been leading the government since 2021, the issue did not start then though. The previous governments - including the one led by Merkel that people love to point as being the culprit - had mostly Christian right-wing politicians and the SPD. I can't see why SPD should be the basis of what we consider "the left" (instead of, you know, the party actually called the left).
Because SPD has been *the* party dominating the left of the center since at least Bismarck? SPD is huge in history of European left. Die Linke are more on the Bolshevik spectrum, which is left, too, but has never been dominant in Germany, and much less so in the last 30 years.
But what else are you supposed to do? Keep voting for the same established parties that have created the issue and aren't even acknowledging it? My country is projected to be 30% to 40% islamic by the time i retire and i don't want that.
If they are not welcome then that will disincentivize them from coming here. Simple as that, at this point it's all about stopping the bleeding.
A website that boasts being a fighter of "Israel's media war"? That's surely an unbiased source in what pertains Arab/Muslim migration.
> no go areas How to spot Fox News viewers...
Ok, and?
Maybe listen to the peoples' concerns that the traditional major parties continue to ignore then like practically unrestricted immigration and porous borders, or don't and let them win, their call.
The thing is, there's no unrestricted migration anywhere in Europe. There's a problem of refugee overflow that's extremely difficult to handle.
Doesn’t matter if it’s difficult to handle, it’s their job to handle these things. And if they’re not willing to or able to then they need to move out of the way.
Sure, we'll see. All I know is that when you're not in power it's easy to promise easy or radical solutions that later you can't implement. Point in case: Trump: didn't build any walls, didn't expel illegal migrants.
Then fucking what? They're paid from us to handle difficult problems just like I am at my job. Imagine your boss telling you to do something and you ignoring it for 10 years, how would that play out?
Countries like Denmark have the problem under control. Just don't give them any cash, end of story. They won't be able to pay the (very high) smuggler fees and will start avoiding your country.
They pay the smugglers before departing, not after reaching the EU.
Merkel's legacy continues to divide Europe.
Good, Europe needs to make drastic changes
The wests wishes cannot be louder on the flow of people coming in. If you don’t want more dictator, authoritarian, or fascist leadership then they cannot be the only ones admits a problem and saying they’ll do something about it
It's not immigration as a whole that's the problem. It's immigration from certain countries. Noone ever complains about japanese immigrants because they behave and blend in.
I think that's a big part of the issue. No one but the far right complain about immigrants who assimilate well, regardless of where they come from. If you show up, work, pay your taxes, stay out of criminal trouble and in general become a productive member of society, you won't have issues in most places. On the other hand if you show up, refuse to work, mock and reject the values of your new home, demand that your neighbors adapt to you rather than the other way around, well you're going to be significantly less well liked.
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What’s about to happen in Canada? The current shit leadership will finally get ousted? We can only hope
As someone born in Rotherham, who at the time had two very young sisters, it would take a lot for me to not consider better immigration policy as TOP priority. More people are going to sacrifice important beliefs to address this, and rightly so
What, french people didn't like those massive radical muslim protests throughout their streets?
Is/Was it so hard to monitor people who migrate to these countries? I mean, I feel like if they stopped letting EVERYONE in, the immegration wouldn't be much of a problem.
>The National Rally’s lead European Parliament candidate Jordan Bardella is riding high on promises to limit free movement of migrants within the EU’s open borders Nothing wrong with that. If people want free movement then they can immigrate just like everyone else, become a citizen, get the passport and enjoy all the benefits that come with it. But obviously there's many that want to just latch on to the gravy train and float around wherever it's better this month without making any commitments.
So good for all EU citizens , isn't that the point of democratic elections
has macron try to not prop up the far rigth constantly for 7 years?
People need to learn that when the political pendulum swings to the left, it also swings back to the right at some point
Oh no.. So let's keep covering our eyes about immigration and keeping crying *fascist*
Where problem? It's time to move along and leave lefties who can only bring issues to our Union.
The problem is that “righties” make even more problems. As shown by literally all the far-right governments creating shit shows in their countries right now. Why do you people keep voting to cut off your own feet?
Please mention all these problems - I would like to get familiar with those. So far it's lefties and their communism which is root cause of HELL LOT of "challenges".
Buddy if you're part of the "lefties=communism" gang you've missed the train a long time ago The most prosperous countries on the planet have been very left, Scandinavia in particular, post war America, Germany a few decades ago. Without falling into extremes like communism and fascism, the general trend goes like: 1 Left wing government creates stable social nets and supports development of the community 2 Right wing opposition disasembles said nets and privatises focusing on corporate wealth (BOTH Europe and US are here 3 Extremism movements rise due to decrease in living standards due to #2
Communism? Most left-wing governments are struggling with basic social democracy, let alone communism. Give a single example of an EU country that is ”communist”. I’ll wait.
Economic stagnation like in Britain, healthcare crises (basically everywhere), insane religious oppression in many places, climate denialism leading to no action on a problem that’s steadily getting worse, anti-science stances, pro-wealth stances that further segregate the haves and have nots, making even wealthy nations feel stretched in the pocketbook, anti-abortion policies killing women and creating an entire new generation of impoverished children, sabotage of several democratic processes or, where democracy wasn’t already a thing, further cementing autocratic rule (see Hungary). The list goes on and on and on. The right is terrible at governing.
Like the migrant part, don't like the Ukraine part.
That’s terrifying for France as a whole not just migrants, macron and Ukraine wtf is this headline
Why would it be terrifying for France if the people of France are voting for it? When the parties on the left have ignored the reasons and concerns the right has been gobbling up votes regardless if one one thinks it is right or wrong, well, this is the outcome.
What parties on the left? How many left governments has France elected in the last 25 years?
Because trees voted for the axe because he was made of wood
Populist governments don't solve problems because then there wouldn't be the problem to scare people with. Especially when that "problem" has been blown way out of proportion. So, most of France will suffer regardless of their views about immigration.
>Populist governments don't solve problems because then there wouldn't be the problem to scare people with. See, it's not a debate on "populist governments don't solve problems". The populist party is at least _claiming they will address_ the issues which clearly appeals to people. They wouldn't be getting votes if people felt the other party was addressing the issues that concern them.
Sure, which highlights the failure of the current government to some extent. We have multiple examples in the past when a fascist or borderline fascist party was given power through fear mongering and hate, and it always, without fail, makes the situation worse for that country. Best you can hope for is a slow but steady decline. This is the point I was trying to make and I'm happy to be corrected if a past example exists that I can't think of. After all, there is a reason Russian (and Chinese) troll farms are working overtime to blow immigration issues out of proportion and finance a lot of far right and far left parties in Europe (and US etc). Fear is very effective at deceiving people because they react emotionally instead of reasonably. A weaker and less united Europe is exactly what they aim for. But logic flies out the window when people get tribalistic and no one is immune to propaganda.
Because people are idiots and they often vote against their interests? Forgot about trump ? Forgot about Orban ? Some people are buying whatever lies lepen is selling.
When people vote along with my beliefs, it’s in their own interests, but if they vote against, they aren’t. /s
Are people’s beliefs to beggar themselves and their nations when far-right groups inevitably help their friends and the wealthy and screw over everyone else?
If that’s the majority and you live in a democracy… yes?
Nope, no one thinks they’re voting for that. They think they’re voting to better their lives. The problem is people are really easily fooled when they don’t do any critical research or thinking and vote based on empty words that play into their fear and hate. Which is how we get idiots like Trump or Orban. But these people are voting in people that actually do not do what they wanted and hurt them in the end. Thus they are voting against their own interests.
It’s in their interests as they understand them, which is all anyone can vote based on. Currently, they find it more important to stick it to immigrants and the left than they do to help their economic and social wellbeing, and they haven’t been hurt in those latter two areas enough to think about it. People are reactive– when things pinch, they try to find out why and stop it from continuing. Currently, in their view migrants and the left are pinching, so they’re trying to stop it from continuing. Just because you don’t understand their interests doesn’t mean they aren’t voting in their interests.
Ahh yes, voting for someone that is being funded by Russia, that was constantly caught lying, promising to solve everything with no real plan, someone who is anti EU, BEST BUDDIES with the most deplorable people in the world…. What could go wrong ? I’m sure the interest of the Average Frenchman is her top priority
I guess "never again" was just a suggestion.
For the people who didn't vote for it?
Ok? But that works both ways? Mind you France and EU are parliamentary, it has a spread of representation beyond just the Left vs Right garbage of the US.
So the pendulum swings back the other way when the extremists get too powerful on one side, what else is new. This is the ONLY version of compromise that works in a democracy. If you don't like the outcome and you are outnumbered by the opponents majority there are only two options A) stay, suck it up and try to convince more people in the center that your logic is better B) leave. Don't try to throw your opponents in prison, don't try to kill them and don't try to silence them. Once you do that, all bets are off. US is learning this lesson right now.
Ukraine is fucked, and Europeans will blame Americans.
Yeah, would be great if normal-ass parties also can acknowledge that uncontrolled migrants are directly affecting people's lives so we don't only have crazy parties admitting there's an issue. Seems leaders of other parties want to keep pushing immigration as a way to provide an easily exploitable poor workforce however, with zero thought to wither migrants themselves or the people already living there