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?
If we need a behavioral science paper to understand such an elementary thing, really we have lost as a society.
Researching why large parts of the population have been marginalized and denied access to improved life conditions (thus avoiding the skyrocketing dissent these alt-right movements are embodying) and/or improve the education system so that people gain “immunity” to plot theories some propaganda is making use of would have been a better way to spend time imho.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
The papier doesn’t go as far as exploring the reasons for personal life dissatisfaction. My theory is that much of it comes from the frustration created by advertising and consumerism. I can’t buy the same nice car/house/vacation as my neighbors/friends/relatives and so I get frustrated. People are constantly exposed to advertisement: in the morning when they check their phone or listen to the radio, during their commute with the radio again, billboards, bus stops, during the day every time they go on the Internet, during their commute back home, TV of course and again their phone at night. The influx of frustrating stimuli is constant throughout our lives, hence the dissatisfaction.
India, Brazil and Argentina all pretty much throw this idea out the window. They’re low GDP/income countries where the average person is trying to scrape by and just afford food. Those countries have all turned to right wing populism as well (Brazil is on my to watch list as I don’t believe we’ve seen the last of Bolsanaro or his political friends). It’s not really an advertising/consumerism thing.
