A terrifying new reality?

[WVdemocrat]

A Terrifying New Reality?
or Is the World Falling Apart?

In the last few years, we have seen far-right populists make gains in Europe, and now in America, which previously seemed insulated from the ever-shifting political sands of the world. Fascism seems to be resurgent, at least in a toned-down form.

The nihilistic ideology of ISIS has attracted many followers in the West. Many of these people are disaffected outcasts of society. The shocking failure of the Arab Spring to produce any meaningful permanent liberalization (and instead an Arab Winter) and the anarchy that has now overrun large parts of the region have soundly rejected the prevailing geopolitical thought of the past half-century. The threat of random, unpredictable terrorist attacks now seems greater than ever with these nihilistic sentiments being echoed in the form of right-wing populists like Marine Le Pen, UKIP, and Donald Trump.

These two terrifying shifts are dangerously intertwined, with the anarchism, brutality, and barbarism of ISIS spurring a growing migrant crisis in Europe which has led to widespread racist and authoritarian sentiments in Europe and now America. This paranoid and tribal backlash has resulted in rising euroscepticism and nationalism. It was just a few years ago that transnational communities such as the EU, built on a shared belief in democracy and peace, seemed like the way of the future, the nation-state a thing of the past. This now seems to have been wishful thinking.

In the United States, fascism is on the march. Donald Trump and his brownshirts regularly threaten political violence, prey on people's fears, and shamelessly provoke racial tensions. He has deliberately undermined faith in our democracy, begun hiring "election observers" to intimidate voters, and his campaign apparently has strong ties to Vladimir Putin and his crony Viktor Yanukovych. He sings the praises of autocrats like Putin who similarly enjoy sowing fear and chaos around the world, and threatens our allies. He threatens our allies by expressing support for abandoning NATO, NAFTA, and the WTO, and refusing to rule out deploying nuclear weapons in Europe. He has asked before, why, if we have nuclear weapons, can we not use them?

Between the ascendant alt-right and the nihilistic ideology of ISIS, is there are growing sentiment in the world (the West and beyond) to just burn it all down (so-to-speak)? The social advancement of the post-WW2 world threatens to be undone by fear, global uncertainty, and resurgent fascism. The West continues down the path of political devolution and the Arab world has collapsed into uncertainty, poverty, and violence. Thoughts?

(This was not meant to be a fearmongering post, but the recent shifts in the geopolitical sands of the world are truly terrifying.)

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

beware those who seek out pan-national trends

[Bismarck]

I don't think it's quite as terrifying as you believe. However, the centrists in Europe and the US could easily undercut support for nationalistic parties/ factions if they would just address the issue of immigration. Just like Bismark undercut Germany's socialists by embracing a few of their less radical ideas, so too could folks like Merkel undercut the new European right by making moderate adjustments to migration and border policy. The problem is instead of admitting there is a problem they just say that anyone who is concerned about large levels of immigration from countries with opposing cultures is a dumb racist bumpkin, which only feeds people into the right wing parties.

[ag]

I don't think it's quite as terrifying as you believe. However, the centrists in Europe and the US could easily undercut support for nationalistic parties/ factions if they would just address the issue of immigration. Just like Bismark undercut Germany's socialists by embracing a few of their less radical ideas, so too could folks like Merkel undercut the new European right by making moderate adjustments to migration and border policy. The problem is instead of admitting there is a problem they just say that anyone who is concerned about large levels of immigration from countries with opposing cultures is a dumb racist bumpkin, which only feeds people into the right wing parties.

That is exactly what Mr. von Pappen used to say.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Yeah, that's what the Danes did; but if the aim was to undercut the DPP it hardly worked (especially with a recent saying a threshold level of people would consider voting for the literal neo-nazis Danskernes Parti.

[Murica!]

The nihilistic ideology of ISIS

Excuse me, but what?

[ingemann]

Yeah, that's what the Danes did; but if the aim was to undercut the DPP it hardly worked (especially with a recent saying a threshold level of people would consider voting for the literal neo-nazis Danskernes Parti.

What the Hell are you talking about, Danskernes Parti have not even enough signatures to run. Nye Borgerlige looks like they may get enough votes, but that's just DPP for people who don't like the "vulgar" and working class DPP.

Also seeing that SD in Sweden look like it will get 28% of the vote, I think that the Danish policy of recognise the problem and undercutting it have worked better, especially because Sweden hve been forced anyway to move toward Danish immigration policies.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Quoting politicus on other atlas. Maybe she is scaremongering, but eh.

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There's also the example of France, where sarkozy lepenising himself has certainly not dampened the appeal of the FN. And Slovakia, where Smer using the rhetoric of the Right hasn't stopped the rise of L'SNS (maybe even facilitated it).

Like I don't really think Sweden is in an enviable position either, but it isn't as easy as "just copy a few token positions and the populists will shrink away".

[ingemann]

Quoting politicus on other atlas. Maybe she is scaremongering, but eh.

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I don't think she's scaremongering, but I think she's panicking, but I looked up the poll (Gallup; august 2016 ), and while it was made by Gallup (the biggest Danish polling company), they themselves warn about the method use in the poll. When you don't mention other parties, more people are likely to answer positive in a poll to vote for a party. The only indication of the popular support for Danskernes Party is the regional election where it got 6000 votes (where they ran in all regions except the smallest one) and the party's inability to get enough signatures to run. Until they get enough signatures to run or they're mentioned with a significant support (above 2%) in the standard polls, it doesn't matter what these polls say.

Also even if this was true, Daniel Carlsen have the charisma of a cold damp pierce of cloth and come across as a little off. Which will become obvious the moment he takes part in a debate.

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The point is not to copy a few token positions, the point is finding the points, where they have legitimate criticism and find solutions, and not necessary the same as the far right suggest on those points. Just adopting a few token position never works, both because iot's not enough, but also because people know when parties don't believe in their suggested policies.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I don't think it's quite as terrifying as you believe. However, the centrists in Europe and the US could easily undercut support for nationalistic parties/ factions if they would just address the issue of immigration. Just like Bismark undercut Germany's socialists by embracing a few of their less radical ideas, so too could folks like Merkel undercut the new European right by making moderate adjustments to migration and border policy. The problem is instead of admitting there is a problem they just say that anyone who is concerned about large levels of immigration from countries with opposing cultures is a dumb racist bumpkin, which only feeds people into the right wing parties.

[PresidentSamTilden]

I don't see how it's as simple as "addressing immigration". Maybe in europe this is the case, I can't say. But you brought up Trump, and in the US, that just doesn't make sense.

Immigration just isn't that big of a problem here. There was a report showing that immigration between to the US from Mexico was a net NEGATIVE for the past decade! (http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/)

My point in saying this is NOT to start a partisan political debate or rant. I'm saying that there have to be other issues because stats don't back that up. Blaming immigration in the US is scapegoating.

I think the real issue is sadly found in the GDP numbers. People's standards of living have stagnated or are falling due to a weak economy. There doesn't seem to be one particular problem or easy solution, either.

Overall, I sadly and distastefully agree with the OP. We've entered a scarier new world in the west.