Polarised Spain eyes the hard-right ahead of election
Polarised Spain eyes the hard-right ahead of election
Spain goes to the polls to decide its next government on Sunday, and a hard-right coalition is looking likely.
The most likely government to emerge - most analysts predict - will be a coalition including a hard-right nationalist party for the first time in Spain since the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
More left-leaning Spaniards are frantically texting contacts, urging them to make sure to vote - despite the heat and it being holiday time for many - to "stop the fascists" in their tracks.The rhetoric this election season has been toxic, with voters becoming increasingly polarised.
It's a fight over values, traditions and about what being Spanish should mean in 2023.
This kind of heated identity debate isn't peculiar to Spain. Think of Italy, France, Brazil or the post-Trumpian debate in the US.
At EU HQ in Brussels, there are huge concerns about a resurgence of hard-right nationalist parties across Europe.
I am getting tired of liberals (in the European sense, not the American sense) clutching their pearls at the resurgence of the fascist right when they did everything they could to kill off the socialist left everywhere in Europe. If you shift the Overton window so that your corporate neoliberal asses are the left side of it, what the fuck do you expect to be at its right side?
Haha yeah, us Americans did that nearly a century ago!
sad late-stage capitalism noises
Pretty much what's happening here in France. The majority sides with the hard right on a lot of decisions. It's also happening in the EU parliament. We're heading right towards very very hard times.
It’s like everyone in the rural areas wants to be a downtrodden peasant again. Not very French of them, if I’m being honest.
they could to kill off the socialist left everywhere in Europe?
Yeah, if you put it that way, seems logical. You mean during Franco, Mussolini & Hitler?
But, after the WW 2 it was mainly Stalin that purged the Socio-democrats in (Eastern) Europe. In US there was a purge though.
And in the 60/70's there was a major resurgence of socialist political parties in Europe, afaik. I think that the old political dynamics ideals and politics have changed quite a lot. To me, you have power mongering people, oligarchs or influencers on both side of the political spectrum. I therefore don't take their political ideologies as a grand determination for their character, unless they are extremist ofc. Many polticians also often switch sides depending on the outcome, opportunistic .
I prefer to focus on if and how the power is (ab)used in real life. If the poltician is working for the will & good for the people, or for his own wallet and corruption.
The far right vow to "Make Spain Great Again".
...where have i heard this super nifty phrase before???
Oh yeah, lets march back to where they would pick you up in the middle of the night, handcuff, blindfold then chuck you off a cliff.
Great times.
As if our little town just didn't lay to rest the remains of some such people less than a year ago.
where have i heard this super nifty phrase before???
Exactly, this. It's very worrying
The idiots of Vox literally copy their ideology from the US far right. They are so extremely uncapable of thinking by themselves that they're trying to capitalize on transphobia in a country that is heavily supportive of trans rights:
As if that wasn't enough, the mainstream right-wing party is trying to appeal to them even though their average voter isn't that deranged out of some weird fear that they actually are.
Transphobia isn't their main point lmao
Ik you only hear about it from second-hand sources, but their main points are usually criticizing the current government and the equality ministry, which despite its name could be qualified as little more than a glorified poster printer (printing posters with a huge budget is probably the only effective thing it does, as there has been no genuine advance in equality done by them)
However, it's true that they also criticize the "trans law", which allows people to almost instantly change their legal gender, with some disgusting comments
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Was the white terror really a period of greatness or of great national shame?
This crap is hitting the whole world and it sucks. A bunch of old farts holding back progress because they think we should be acting like people who’ve been 6” under for decades. So dumb, regardless of country or culture.
People normally think fascism seizes power undemocratically. And it does. But first there are years of voters saying they want tyrants who will only hurt the bad people, never thinking that it could happen to them.
to be fair, quite often the fascists size power through democratic means, just refuse to give it up afterward
When the middle class struggles, they eventually embrace anybody who promises a break from the status quo.
Moderate parties need to ask themselves what have they done so poorly that these extremists are now becoming popular. We've seen these sort of authoritarian far-right movements across the globe and I'm not seeing moderates offer a great answer.
Personally, I would rather see a shift towards a sustainable future where the necessities of life, such as food, housing, education, health care and public transit were enshrined.
moderates are the reason why the extremist right groups exist per martin luther king's explanation: https://letterfromjail.com/
tldr: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I understand Martin Luther King's quote in its context, but I fail to see the parallel to the situation at hand. Can you elaborate?
How are "white moderates" who tolerated racial injustice similar to moderate parties who suffer electoral losses to far right populist parties? I'm honestly not seeing how the situation is analogous.
Middle class suffers slightly: "let's start blaming minorities, immigrants, gay people, and start removing human rights for them."
Slighly? People can't afford housing, public healthcare is in decline, and the burden of taxes to fix government overexpending (frequently in less important things) mostly applies to the middle class. The middle class today wants what their parents had and most has realized that it will be impossible.
So middle class almost disappearing is "suffering slightly"?
well ce trist dont think
I don't fully agree with absolving the blame on the people for this because the middle class struggles. It takes a real idiot to fall for the same traps that people fell for back in the two world wars, how fucking hard is it to connect the dots?
If the world comes to shit again, I'll feel no sympathy for them, because despite their obviously poor education, they are bad at being humans as well. The one thing that the far-right loves more than anything is dividing people and creating "bad guys" in order to redirect the hatred and pain of the people, but when all the other "bad guys" are killed off / locked up/ slaved, then only they will remain to take up the role.
I am not absolving people. I am describing a behavioral pattern that has remained for decades, if not longer. If anything, it's a cautionary tale.
There will always be people who fall for these traps. Of course they are individually to blame for being duped however just blaming them doesn't solve anything. The solution is to try to reduce how many do by providing great education (formally and culturally), minimising the ability for fascists to find platforms to spread their messaging and offering real solutions to the problems that those people have so they don't feel they need to latch onto anyone offering to do so for them.
As such, anyone who should be expected to understand this and who is in a position to achieve those goals. Is to blame for the inevitable consequences of not doing so (ie, neo-liberal political entities.)
The Murdoch Infection Continues Apace
There really needs to be a worldwide epidemiological study on how Murdoch's empire has shifted global politics to the right.
study on how Murdoch's empire has shifted global politics
Good point.
There have been many media influence studies, and their results are alarming. Though not necessarily about Murdoch's influence, afaik. But Murdoch though very powerfull, is one of the many, don't forget Axel Springer, Berlusconi, Orban etc.
Attention Spanish bigots, choosing fascism isn't going to stop climate change or make your lives better.
People choose the rigth-center party, but the left-center + far-left + separatists are going to rule another 4 years.
When you see presidents like Macron in France pushing an extremely unpopular retirement law through, bypassing congress, you are going to see more shit like this in more countries. Neoliberals have to understand their corporate romance is killing their platform when people are starving and working full-time. Fascism is only going to make things way worse.
I'm Spanish and this is inaccurate on many levels
Would you elaborate?
First, it was a tie, not a win
Second, vox lost representation in parliament
Third, it was expectable that the center-right party got the most votes after the current president did a terrible job and had to recur to fearmongering to gather votes
Ribbit
Unfortunately, this is a huge reality happening in almost all EU countries, at least those that accepted a ton of immigrants. I live in Spain, and I can tell you that right and hard-right winning is a no surprise at all. There’s a minor but loud immigrant that simply doesn’t care about anything but themselves: for example, go search the thefts crimes committed in Barcelona these few years: they increased by an alarming rate. In fact, the 60% of prisoners in Spain are foreigners. The overall crime rates have increased since accepting so much immigration. And this is a shame, because obviously not all immigrants are the same, but for the fault of those minor cases, they reputation is decreasing hardly.
And, before anyone crosses me out as a “nazi” or anti-immigration let me tell you: when I was born, my parents didn’t have the Spanish citizenship, so yep, my family and I were illegal immigrants. Also, my parents suffered from discrimination (for example, their university degrees were never validated, people were extra mean to them, insults (“return to your home”, “we don’t speak that language here”… you name it) but even with this discrimination level, they never, but never steal from anyone, they never raped anyone, they worked very hard and finally, after 20 years, we can say that we’re living a normal live.
Tomorrow is the election, and obviously voting those parties in my perspective is stupid, but I can understand why is happening.
The titles not being validated is not discrimination, there is a process for that. There is an standarization with education in Europe and just accepting any title would be troubleshome.
Based on the title I thought this was going to be about sunglasses
It doesn't take to be a political sociologist to understand that left wing parties failed to manage the situation in the latest years (inflation, pandemics, etc.) and that people are now looking for alternatives. Had they managed to really defend the interests and welfare of the working class, they would have won hands down. The future won't be hard for most of the people in the beginning, except if you happen to be in one of the minorities they are targeting. That stinks, I know, but there are no alternatives...
That stinks, I know, but there are no alternatives...
There's always an alternative to fascism, and it's always better.
When society takes collectively a direction, it's like trying to swim upstream. You can only if you are strong enough.
If you means liberalism that is becoming fascism too, I don't think it's a alternative...
that left wing parties failed to manage the situation in the latest years (inflation, pandemics, etc.)
I can't say much about Spanish politics. But tbh, I'm not sure how to compare. But the pandemic and the inflation are world phenomena. Not saying they couldn't have been better managed in Spain ( or elsewhere), but here they say the same about our Gvement and they were right- centre.
The measures the government took during COVID were just inefficient, delayed and too strict at the same time, he formed a coalition government with separatists and former terrorists after explicitly stating he wouldn't and he has tried to increase control over the judicial power, weakening even more the separation of powers (which is very weak in my country).
There are also controversial laws passed by coalition members like the "only yes is yes" law, which ended up severely reducing charges to rapists and pedophiles, and it took a lot of time to get it fixed due to sheer stubborness of politicians, instead accusing the judges for "being sexists and fascists", when law must always act in favour of the guilty (Right to the non-retroactivity of the law)
It's expectable to think a sizeable amount of people would vote the opposition
I don't know the specifics of Spain politics much, just that there are specifics like Catalonia and Gibraltar on top of the rest.
Meanwhile everywhere in the world the left parties are failling at the same time media are taken by hard right activist. Propaganda works at full force, and liberals (in south Europe that's center right) are siding hard with the fascists to decrease the influence of the left.
Left is not without its own failings. Ironically the fights for societal freedom and ecology are quite liberal in their execution and not very inclusive. Many people are left behind with climate change and the fight for women and sexual rights is frontal and basically tell people to agree or gtfo. Well, they do gtfo then to the other side that talk to poor people: fascists.
Except if you happen to be in one of the minorities they are targeting.
Here is a quote that will probably go over your head, but I'll post it regardless in the hopes that you're better than the rest of the far-right voters:
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me
Vox can be considered far-LEFT in half of the countries. They are socialists compared to the Republicn party in the US. Even if they get a good result Spain will still be one of the leftiests countries in the world.
Literally every source I've looked at says it's a far right party. GTFO with your bullshit.
It's far-right in the Spanix context. Compared with Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Netanyahu, Erdogan... VOX are very soft. They will be socialists on that countries.
It's inaccurate af. First of all, both Democrats and Republicans in the US are basically the same party with two colors that get voted by extremists of each spectrum. Second, Vox is definitely right-wing, but the "far-right fascist bigot" part can surely be questioned