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I'm a member of the German left-wing party and I promise we're fighting tooth and nail against this.
USA:

Germany, France, Britian:

A lot of people view it as a pathway to burn down the system, aka "accelerationists" or some variant of their ideology.
It's all rooted in the general feeling of utter disgust with the current state of the world. Rather than attack one of the core problems-- unbridled greed/capitalism--their anger/frustration has been redirected by malicious algorithms towards their communities/neighbors.
Until Prime Minister Farage is selling Land Rovers out in front of Number 10, they're really just a bunch of posers.
This is no bleep. Far right authoritarianism is soon to become the new normal.
Technocratic centrism is entirely ineffective to address this. "Solving problems" while "preserving normalcy" and the "stability of the markets" is not enough. It just simply cannot beat fascism at the ballot box after a couple of cycles.
The reason is that the "normalcy" is unsustainable, untenable. Both reality and the electorates need transformation politics. The Right transformative narratives have stepped into the fray.
Only an actual Left counter, with an actual Left program for transforming society can stop this.
Hm, my take would be that rich people bought up all the free press, radio and TV stations since the 90s and streamlined them into parroting the owners and sponsors agenda. now they decide what problems we talk about and who can "solve" them.
Only an actual Left counter, with an actual Left program for transforming society can stop this.
Unfortunately they can't, because that would financially hurt the millionaires and billionaires that own the media, so they'll do everything they can to discriminate any left party with actual chances to get some influence and make sure everyone thinks they are bad.
I don't have a solution. I'm just here to ask if anyone's up for a barbecue? I can think of a few nice places for a fire.
(Joke aside, pure vandalism wouldn't fix the underlying issue that is the perceived legitimacy of the robber barons. So long as people accept their claim to ownership, they will continue to own. It's that claim to property that needs to be challenged.)
The reason is simple: Neither the center left nor the center right are delivering for the broad human populace. They both protect the ultra rich by not taxing them, which in turn creates a redistribution of wealth from the poor, the middle class AND the state to the ultra rich.
On a basal level, everyone understands that the economic status quo can not continue. Living standards continue to fall regardless of who is in power, and so it is inevitable that people will demand some sort of drastic change.
The loudest voice promising change is the alt right.
The second loudest voice is us, taxing the rich. It must be done, and we need to do all we can to become the loudest voice. We have several more years until the elections in eg. UK and Germany. Let’s do it. Let’s tax the rich.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pUKaB4P5Qns&pp=0gcJCa0JAYcqIYzv
I personally support 'taxing the rich', but I also think presenting this as a solution is hopelessly oversimplified. We need to rebuild the complex social contract, and this goes well beyond taxes imo.
It’s oversimplified on purpose. The message needs to be crystal clear, and it needs to be repeated so often that no politician can go into a Talkshow without having to explain themselves why they are not taxing the rich.
This is the only way to make progress here as a society. You need broad support here.
Having said that, I actually, earnestly believe that taxing the rich is a prerequisite to
- solving climate change
- having a working government
- reestablishing the social fabric of our society
- etc.
If you are curious to learn more how this is backed up by data, you can eg. read „toxisch reich“ by Sebastian Klein (unfortunately only available in German I think)
It’s oversimplified on purpose. The message needs to be crystal clear, and it needs to be repeated so often that no politician can go into a Talkshow without having to explain themselves why they are not taxing the rich.
Is this the solution or part of the problem? Don't get me wrong I don't question your good intentions, but I am not sure whether this is the right way to get there. Our information pipelines - and the talkshows - are crammed full of simple would-be solutions that doesn't bring us any further imo.
What we needed is a broad public discussion across the whole society asking questions like, "What should the state and our democratic communities be responsible for?", "How much money should the government spend, and for what?" (These are, btw, the same questions any university lecture on Public Finance starts with.)
Are talkshows (or big tech's social media such as Tiktok, Facebook, and the like) the right tools to discuss these? I don't think so. I used to believe that decentralized platforms like Lemmy may offer an opportunity to initiate such a debate, but after a few days here I am not so sure anymore. There is as much partisanship and totalitarian gibberish as anywhere else.
Maybe this comment is a bit off-topic, so just ignore it (and feel free to delete it), these are just my 2 cents.
I think most people calling for a tax on the rich understand this only works in a broader system of a well managed government. We can't tax the rich 99% and be done with it. But it's good to mention the things we need to thrive as a community:
- Affordable healthcare
- meaningful and relevant education
- smart infrastructure (preferably focussing on public transport over private transport)
- trustworthy organasitions managing things for the public good including all bodies of government
- and fair rules for everyone and fair enforcement (not only speed limits, but also taxes and benefits).
It is the lynchpin though.
Not just for generating revenue to fund public programs. In fact, arguably, that's not even the main point.
The real problem is inequality. We need "punitive" (a better word might be "rebalancing" or "excisional") wealth taxes on the rich, to rebalance society and restore the social contract. Basically, short of a proper socialist revolution, we need to make the rich much less rich, make billionaires millionnaires again.
I see there is a broader reason: without colonial empires and without a technological or demographic advantage, we are in decline. The only thing going for Europe is the progressiveness and open societies, which allowed us to patch up demography with migrants, but even that is being attacked and lost.
Europe is going back to being irrelevant in global terms, which means economic decline and economic decline always leads to political instability and crazy people taking over with stupid solutions, but they always fail, because there isn't enough growth to make people happy.
Best that can be done is slow the decline and spread the sacrifices with left policies, but inevitably incumbents will get punished and we get back to megalomaniac miracle cures that set us back again.
Social media platforms are now mostly for reproducing fascism, along with large chunks of mass media.
Fascism, is, however, a scam.
What the fuck is happening.
Poor education, social media and targeted Russian misinformation campaigns. The perfect mix
Despite what the headline sounds like, this is not a new problem and it's happening across Europe, not just these three countries.
I blame neoliberalism, lobbyism aka legal corruption, and the Austerity narrative.
I would say it mainly boils down that basic needs aren’t fulfilled anymore. Increasing costs of groceries, rent, public transport, healthcare and taxes to name a few meet decreasing investments (monetary and political will in general) in infrastructure, social housing, healthcare, pensions etc. @
besides generally whats happening, its also putin/russian funds these groups(both right wing supremecists, far-right government and politicians, TRUMP being the most blatant example) at certain times of ever few years, usually around election time. why you see sudden rise of right wingers in all countries at once. AFD (both MUSK, and putin as of recently).
Do Russia and China's investments in Europe's far-right pay back?
A study on extreme political parties in the European Parliament (from April 2024) by the Association for International Affairs (AMO) the European far-right downplays the significance of China’s human rights violations (opens pdf). Far-right parties also mostly echo Beijing’s rhetoric on sovereignty, supporting China’s territorial claims in regions like Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and Tibet.
For example, both Germany’s far-right AfD and France’s Rassemblement National argue that decoupling from China or imposing economic sanctions harms European economies, advocating instead for stronger economic cooperation with Beijing, and they often oppose EU sanctions on Russia, trying to undermine European support for Ukraine.
The European far-right's view of China and Russia as some sort of "counterbalance to U.S. alignment" and criticizing Europe for its historically close relationship with the U.S. is something we also read here on Lemmy very often (although it is clear that the U.S.' recent abandonment of democratic principles doesn't make China and Russia better partners).
I haven't seen a political party, which has an actual scope and vision to have a feasable plan and approach to tackle the problems we're actually facing. The old ideals have died a while ago, and the stuff that used to bind us and keep us together aa groups, has disappeared.
This new world we live in has new unique problems and complexity, which actually can only maybe be solved in an worldy international stage. But, the priorities, cultures, educations , etc, are too divergent region wise.
In a sense a world government and a world carved up in regions or parts of regions might provide a system, to translate citizens preferences and their specific problems into a resemblance of a workable political representation.
Imo, as politicians have no clue what's even happening, they comeup with very simple symbolic politics, simply to garner a position, and appease voters. In the end their results might be questionable at best, but we do sense something like a better or a worse choice, if you will.
Since the world has become interconnected no one ciuntry or people, can sustain a model based on self reliance. With our im& export markets we export our own problems, and naturally import other countries problems.
I think the changes of late, are too many and too quick for any sane person to comprehend. We are all spilling all the ideas, good and bad, over to each other and we just sort of choose a middle path somewhere in this chaos, while simultaneously desperately clinging to what ia perceived as a ritualism of our idea of a sane political, economical and material world.
But everyone knows it's fake. Especially the Billionaires of these times, and Politicians they know it's all bullshit. And we know it too, but we need a sense a normalcy, so we grab anything we can to justifify our discontent , give it a name, find a solution. Imo, humans don't want to face their biggest fear: themselves. I mean wtf are we and who do we want to be?!
My rambling morning thoughts, but that's what I saw after reading some good comments on the rise of the right , and hopefully the left.
Add.And, if we do want to find out who we are and what do we want to be,as tribe, region, country, freedom is 100% essential.
People are going to keep voting further and further right until someone listens to their demands on legal and illegal immigration. In most European countries it is the largest single issue polled. What frustrates me immensely is that so many centrist and left wing parties all over Europe have the opportunity to rein in record high immigration in a sensible and pragmatic way right now - but refuse to do so. They would rather lose the next election and hand over all control of this issue to the right, who will not use care and consideration. They will leave the ECHR and re-write their humanitarian laws to reject all asylum claimants and deport every single person in the country illegally. Refusing to listen to voters and compromise on such a major issue isn't a principled stance. It just guarantees an even worse outcome.
I think my country of Denmark has a decent balance. I hope other European countries can find balance and compromise. This problem won't go away on its own. It will get worse until leaders listen to voters. That's how democracy works - especially if they disagree with the voters.

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