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Unhappy lives linked to recent rise of right-wing populism in Europe
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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Unhappiness and fear linked to fascism? Unbelievable! But yeah, I think that's something you more or less directly learn as German if you look back on our democracy, the Weimarer Republik, before rise of national socialism. Many people didn't believed in democracy at the first place, but the bad economic situation made it even worse. If you are unhappy or even fear about your future that's a great attack point for right wing propaganda.
I was thinking about this before scrolling comments. It seems many on the right support/vote for policies that actively make their quality of life seemingly better in the short term, and are surprised and disappointed when the long-term consequences of their decisions begin happening to become noticeable (usually more for me, less for thee?). When they discover the policies affect them, personally, they become angry and belligerent, looking to place blame on external factors. The left (I don't mean neoliberal) seem to go within, asking things like, "how did my voting choices affect this? What have I learned? How can I calibrate my choices for better results, going forward?" then try to make better decisions, even if it hurts them more, personally, in the short term, hoping for better across-the-board results long term?
I've just begun milling this, so I've no idea if this is correct or not. I'd love to see some research on it.
All this learning what has it accomplished? The fascists are on the rise again.
The contemporary witnesses are dying. I wouldn't say it's because of them not being able to tell their stories anymore, but a human life is enough time for a society to forget. And if I say society, I really mean the majority of people forget, nowadays just many have forgotten, too many, but not the majority. There always have been a few people who couldn't forget because they never knew, never wanted to know, we call them neo-nazis. They are on the rise again, all the crises of the last years have helped them and still do so, but I don't think people who haven't forgotten would follow them.
It works for both left and right wing populism. Unfortunately, the former tends to (almost always) manifest the latter. Just look at all left-wing populists who (understandably) hate Joe Biden rolling out the red carpet for Donald Trump.
As a left wing populist, I do hate Joe Biden rolling out the red carpet for Donald Trump
Sure, either interpretation works.
Justifiable hatred of the establishment undermines institutions beyond repair, and since left wing politics are grounded in facts, whereas populism is not a fact-based ideology, left wing populism almost always fails, and populism has become practically synonymous with fascism.
Incidentally, this is also why the left-wing has a tendency for infighting. Again, left-wing politics are broadly driven by facts whereas populism is not. The right wing flourishes under these conditions because none of their beliefs are grounded in empirical or normative reality.