It’s been reported that in the German elections, a far right party has made ‘significant gains’.
In the UK (at least before the scandals) Reform UK seems to have had a significant boost and has even surpassed the right-wing Conservative Party in some polls/predictions.
Even France, one or two years ago, was threatened with a far-right government due to the French far right party gaining a lot of support.
Now I’m not political, but it feels like in the last few years, the far-right has exceeded itself and had a surge in popularity. Is this the case? And if so, wtf is fuelling it?
Changes in the media landscape. Up to the 1990s, mainstream media in Western democracies were dominated by intellectuals, who are typically against racism and fascism. This gradually changed as media became more commercialized and sensationalist, a change that rapidly accelerated with the advent of social media, which is completely flooded by hate speech.
Economic reasons are often proposed, but this explanation falls flat considering the lack of a significant economic downturn since the 1990s, and the fact that we have seen fascists massively gaining popularity even in societies that are among the most prosperous in human history. This is especially obvious in Germany, where in East Germany (where the fascist strongholds are) the economic situation has in fact dramatically improved since the 90s.
There was one particular morning in 2014 when Google dropped articles from The Daily Stormer directly into the personalized news feed widget on my phone. I grew up in the South, so I know the ins and outs of racism there. This was completely different. It was wildly genocidal anti-Semitism; straight up Nazi shit. Right there on my phone and presented as news.
That’s when I knew that something was seriously wrong.
wut
I don’t mean there haven’t been recessions, just that on the whole the economic situation is not significantly worse (and in fact probably somewhat better) than in the 1990s.
The “on the whole” economic situation is not what you want to be looking at.
If you look at the real wage growth compared to expenses, life has been being getting grimmer and grimmer for the vast majority of individuals since the 1970s, even if GDP continues to climb.
Did you, in fact, look at real wage growth?
Here is data for the US specifically, which shows modest growth of median real wages over the past decades.
You’re literally linking to a graph that ONLY measures the wages of fully employed people in the US. It doesn’t measure the under employed, part time employees, or contract/gig workers - at a time when all those categories all became more prevalent…
…and it certainly doesn’t measure changes in wealth share globally. So way to cherry pick.
In fact, the rate of underemployment (gig workers who’d like to work more hours, etc.) is at historically low levels in the US.
Edit: I’d also see the shift in the media landscape as a very conscious effort made by oligarchs to control the media landscape, including Reagan removing the Fairness Doctrine, and Fox News being explicitly created to allow Republican presidents to engage in criminal activity.
Not sure what you’re seeing. Everything I see things pointing to life getting worse and harder economically.
Rise in consumer debt: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCLACBW027SBOG
Decline in housing affordability: https://worththen.com/tools/housing-affordability
Increase in student loand debt: https://thecollegeinvestor.com/32031/average-student-loan-debt-by-year/
Medical bankruptcy is another thing to look into.
Culture is another window, maybe less valid. The idea behind the Simpsons was a family of 3 was barely scraping by, yet they owned two cars, a house, and Homer had a union job and no college degree, and usually Marge didn´t need to work. In the 1980’s Anthony’s Song complained about, “Who needs a house out in Hackensack? Is that all you get for your money?” would be a flop today because a house out in Hackensack isn’t conformity, it’s just unattainable.
Well, even if we accept (which I don’t) that things like increasing student debt would be a major factor, how do you explain fascism being on the rise in many other (pretty much all of them) Western democracies? You can’t really use US-specific things like medical bankruptcy and student debt as explanations for a trend in societies where these aspects just are not relevant at all. Most Western democracies have universal access to health care and education.
The Fairness Doctrine, however, has clear parallels in other societies. Not because they have legislation similar to it (though some did or still do, like France) - but because even in those places where no such formal legislation exists, social media have almost completely negated the role journalists used to play in moderating public debate from a (relatively) neutral and, more importantly, non-fascist viewpoint.
You’re too smart to convince of anything.
Have a great rest of your day.
…
How are people upvoting this? Wtf?
This is stupid. Media had plenty of rightwing trash before “the 1990s”… And economics isn’t a matter of “significant downturns” - which in a cyclical economy happen REGULARLY the problem is ACTUAL WEALTH DISPARITY has been on an increasing trajectory since the 1970s. We’re talking about a long term trend of racheting up, not just a brief stint of “social media is bad now”.
Wages vs productivity:
https://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/800px-US_productivity_and_real_wages.jpg
You can do something similar for median wages vs GDP:
https://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/us-wage-gdp-compared-800x604.jpg
And income inequality globally:
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/MB7z1WodhP7LDJeH0YX67-1OtxdaT6BH8Qbb4wPHYjU.png
Same trend, relating to changes to the banking system in the 1970s and beyond:
Alterations to monetary standards (petro dollar accounting).
Increase to two working parents as a mortgage requirement rather than banks only requiring a single income.
Deregulation of the banking system (Glass-stegal in America).
Combined with repeatedly reducing income taxes on the wealthy (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NbAzw1SjuCk/TpO1gyZIJ9I/AAAAAAAAACU/q9Qhy04L1H8/s1600/Federal+Tax+Rates.jpg, https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/percentilegroup.png).
These are continuing and long term shifts that have made it easier for the wealthy to accelerate wealth, and be less morally culpable, whilst poorer people have consistently hit greater barriers, requirements, and burdens.
The idea it’s “just the media is particularly bad right now” is stupid. Right wing media has always been prevalent and dogshit. Could not downvote your over simplification of the world more.
WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A CONSISTENT INCREASE IN SPECIFIC DISPARITIES… Which then become economic pressures and grievances, which are then misdirected by the media. But the media IS NOT the cause. That’s like pretending the symptom is the cause. It’s just not the case.
I think what you’re missing is that if inequality were a major driver of the popularity of fascism, then how can it be the case that in many Western democracies other than the U.S. the popularity of fascist parties has also boomed? Some of these societies, while far from utopian, are among the most egalitarian in human history. Some have wealth taxes, almost all have far higher top income tax rates than the U.S., all all have dramatically lower levels of inequality.
Yeah, but unlike today, it wasn’t the dominant way public political debate was held.
yep, wealth inequality is a big problem. more people should read piketty
Well, you’re not wrong there.
Thats interesting, good explanation.
No it’s not, it’s a terrible explanation
It’s really not, each new age/epoch of media has had its share of rightwing grifters.
You don’t have to be right wing to spout hate speech. Modern Social media does have a lot of hate speech in any case (right wing grifters too, and yes there is some overlap, but there also isn’t too).
Hate speach relates to hate crimes, which are a category of crime punching down on minorities specifically.
So do you want to show me the examples of left wing people spouting hate speech?
Show me what makes them not rightwing, in the same era as they were spouting the hate speech against minorities. Give some examples if you want me to see your point as true and correct.
I’m not disagreeing with your point from a legal definition, I’m just saying the far left can also spout venomous speech which, though it might not be considered ‘hate speech’ from a legal standpoint, can be as bad as in terms of its content.
I agree with the horseshoe theory — or, as Parker put it, people on the far left and far right are pretty much the same.
Then again, I guess it is, to some extent, a moot point, since anyone can spout venom if they are pushed hard enough regardless of left, right, above or beyond.
I don’t think that’s the case, I think over the past several years a series of media figures have promoted right wing explanations of the world, almost all of which have relied on finding the most extreme examples of the worst people on the left, taking them out of context, and distributing them en mass in an organized fashion.
This process started with the “Russian troll farm” influence story in 2014, and was a huge part of the popularising of the alt-right. People like Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk also started running influence campaigns.
So we have these vestigial bad ideas and examples the vitriol of the left, like “big red”, or this artist, or the screeching leftist, or this person.
These are then (as with that last example) combined with rightwing messages, or explanations about the left, citing the worst of them, to make memes and political propaganda.
Along with this comes things like horse shoe theory, the fourth turning theory (weak men create bad times ect), and things like “Post-modern Cultural Marxism caused all the problems”.
This sort of popularization of bad ideas and misdirected grievances doesn’t have to go on very long before society is left with a bunch of bad ideas, like feminism is hate speech against men (not saying this is your particular claim), or that poverty is caused by recent immigration rather than long term regulatory choices.
Long story short, due to the left having more reasonable explanations and models, in context and statistically there’s far worse going on in the extreme “horse shoe” ends of the right, than in the left.
I guarantee you can find kidnap plans and migrant bashings by right wingers far more quickly and abundantly than you could anything like that on the left. It’s drastically one sided.
Left wing rage is probably stronger, but it also tends to be better placed and more accurate.
True, very true, it’s a trade-off, I guess.
I do think the far left can be just as unreasonable though (or could be, if given the means/opportunity). Possibly they don’t express/execute it as the far right does, which explains your point of view, which is completely valid also.
But I get your point: the far right has misconstrued the far left to some extent regardless. with media manipulation, etc.
“CAN be just as unreasonable” still only requires potential one off cases though.
“ARE, and are with more regularity and in greater numbers, with more popularity, and with more risk of manifesting bad outcomes”… Are some more serious measures of comparison.
I mean you can kill people, but I think there are probably a lot of already existing active murder cases and violent abusers that are more concerning because they ARE ongoing threats.
So dealing with what is, and what is more likely, are the more realistic ways to process “both sides” style arguments.
You know, you don’t want to sound like you’re operating from petty one off bad interactions you’ve had with either side. There are bad people everywhere, it’s numbers and concentration that counts.
The media was always racist, they just hid it better… Sometimes.