Additionally, the researchers found that life dissatisfaction indirectly influenced right-wing populist voting through two key attitudes: political distrust and anti-immigration sentiment. Dissatisfied individuals were more likely to distrust political institutions and view immigration negatively, which in turn increased their likelihood of voting for right-wing populist parties. Notably, anti-immigration sentiment emerged as the stronger of the two mediators.
And this is the key point of right-wing propaganda. Destroy trust into organizations, sow sentiments against immigrants, spread fear by overhyping individual crimes, produce anxiety. Basically “make people angry and fearful”.
Yeah, duh: making immigrants and politicians the scapegoat works best when people are unhappy with life.
To me it’s extremely transparent however that neoliberals and conservatives have defunded and weakened our institutions so they can no longer fulfill their responsibilities. This leads to dissatisfaction which the extreme right blames on immigrants and correctly on neoliberal politicians.
That this leads to women voting for patriarchs, Jewish people for descendants of Nazis and second generation immigrants for racists, is so frustrating.
anti-immigration sentiment.
I wonder why indiginous wage slaves would feel this way… Like there is no way to tell why they would feel like this.
CBO estimated that net immigration was 2.67 million immigrants in 2022, and 3.3 million immigrants in 2023, the highest in its data going back to 2000, and about triple the average rate between 2000 and 2021 (1.05 million immigrants per year).
I wonder what happened in 2022 that made daddy bringing all these additional slaves.
Immigrants don’t need to be “brought.” This is right-wing rhetoric, but most ironic of all is that these “wage slaves” are literally better off with more immigration, not less.
Shit’s fucked, yo. So let’s vote for the kind of people that make everything worse. I will never understand this kind of mindset.
Some people need an answer that’s easy and quick. That answer is also always wrong but by then they stopped thinking anyway and are hooked on easy and quick.
“The rich stole all your money” is also an easy answer and much closer to reality. People who fall for right wing bullshit do so because it panders to their hate and resentment.
similarly, conspiracy cranks get all up in arms about some shady group of “elites” that somehow aren’t just… billionaires and top-level politicians…
they have an actual legitimate conspiracy in front of them, presented on a fucking silver platter, and yet they completely ignore that and instead make shit up that makes no fucking sense.
And why are they so concerned about something that is, despite the obvious problems, a net positive for any developed society?
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.
So, less left politics lead to more right politics? Checks out in Germany. 16 years of Merkel and before that 16 years of Kohl have lead to crumbling infrastructure, an erosion of social welfare and tax breaks for the rich. And even our supposedly center left party hasn’t done much to change that when they were in power.
Damn we got a German using critical thinking…
Online they are always frothing at the mouth at negative mention of Merkel and her shiti economic and geopolitical policy
Has the public opinion turned on her within Germany yet or we still calling her auntie?
Online they are always frothing at the mouth at negative mention of Merkel and her shiti economic and geopolitical policy
You sound like you’re doing wild stereotyping. But no, not every single German thinks the same way.
And you may not want to hear it, but while Merkel’s policies often did a disservice to Germany and the EU, she did have strengths. Just compare her to the utter non-presence that is Olaf Scholz, who somehow snagged the chancellor’s seat.
Has the public opinion turned on her within Germany yet or we still calling her auntie?
We called her “Mutti”, i.e. “mommy”. There isn’t even a German word for “auntie” in German afaik. And I should k because growing up, I had a very motherly neighbor. We never had a special term for her.
There isn’t even a German word for “auntie” in German afaik.
Wouldn’t auntie literally be Tantchen? However, I’ve never heard somebody using it except perhaps in translated US TV.
You sound like you’re doing wild stereotyping.
I deff am but I am going off my shitposting experiences dealing with German topics.
she did have strengths
Nobody is all bad but her leadership put Germany in some weird spots especially in light of ukraine invasion. She and scholz like many of our dear leaders is just another neo liberal maxi pad between the elites and the people.
Useless when it comes to policy setting and driving but always around to give big business a handy.
I mean, generally I liked her. But I think she would have been better in the social party. She was an expert at making absolutely everything sound good and deflected any and all criticism. But under her government absolutely nothing got done. And now the new government is slowly trying to fix stuff and it’s getting more and more apparent what is broken so they get the blame.
In general I think the left hate her because she’s too right and the (far) right hate her because she’s too left. “Danke Merkel” has become a meme similar to “thanks Obama”.
“I’m unhappy, let’s put people in camps and start a secret police force!! That’ll make me SO happy!”
