Fear is the fuel.

Scared people are selfish, and selfishness is the only common denominator in all right wing politics. They don’t have great visions of how to run a society. All they want is to stop someone else from having “their” piece of the imaginary pie.

It takes a lot more positive outlook to have the trust to build a society where people take care of someone they don’t know directly.

It’s mostly [xeno/queer]phobic people who don’t understand politics much blindly supporting the one thing they do “understand”.

The west has been in the imperialist stage of capitalism for a bit more than a century. As was described back then, this is a parasitic, moribund stage of capitalism. It’s parasitic in an obvious way, but what’s most interesting is the moribund factor. Imperialism essentially becomes the dominant factor in a capitalist economy once it fully saturates the national economy, when monopoly bank and industrial capital begin consolidating into finance capital, and when these groups must expand outward, not just can.

The reason this is moribund is because it hollows out industrialization, seeking cheaper labor in the global south. It also seeks more specualtive than real returns, and sharpens the divide between rich and poor. What’s happening now is a sharp rightward turn in response to this system breaking down as the global south develops and gains independence from neocolonialism, giving them agency in how the world is run and tools at their disposal not purely linked to the west.

It’s the protracted death of imperialism that is forcing many people into austerity in the west, which drives reaction. Everyone trying to blame it on foreigners and propaganda are missing the point, the actual material system the west runs on is dying away as has already been predicted before by analyzing the very mechanisms of capitalism.

Lots of stuff but in general bad economic conditions and lots of propaganda to point fingers. It amazes me how badly right wing goverments want immigrants out, yet without them they wouldn’t have a fraction of the success they had. If anything, they will employ policies that make the divisions more stark and immigrants more predisposed to not being able to adapt.

That’s a question for the ages for sure. I’m worried it’s going to get quite a bit worse before it gets better.

As far as I can tell, there are multiple ongoing components to what’s going on.

There is definitely some Russia-driven agitprop going on, with the apparent aim of weakening the West through division. But on its own I think it’s not a sufficient explanation, for two reasons. The same research showed that Russia is also pushing left-aligned agitprop points to increase division. And Russia was not similarly involved in the 1930’s, which nevertheless saw a somewhat similar trajectory.

But it’s still a factor either way of course.

The main force, I think, is the collapse of capitalism. That capitalism is its own self-destruction mechanism has been observed for centuries; it’s kind of one of the main takeaways from Das Kapital. With the ceaseless rise of wealth capture by the ruling classes, discontent rises correspondingly among the general population, and the beige centrist neoliberals that tend to occupy power seats in most democracies keep onboarding more and more far right talking points in an apparent effort to keep this discontent from getting an actual left wing government elected: drawing false equivalency between left and far right policies, forming coalitions with the far right to prevent even a mildly left wing party from forming a government, etc.

The latter seems particularly driven by the flow of donor money from the wealthy elites.

But it also looks like in many countries, the national media are disproportionately captured by said wealthy elite, who also increasingly push the same far right societal framing for the same core reason.

Historically speaking, this private capture of wealth and power does not stop on its own, and it goes to some pretty bad places before it gets better. It’s bleak as hell, but we can take hope, I think, from another historical observation: it always gets better, eventually.

Till then, take care of each other, y’all.

I’m not political why is far right on the rise

Bruh. Inaction/neutrality helps the oppressor. Far-right is both a distraction from inequality and a tool to promote the interests of the elite by propping them either established success stories, or (alt-right) as alternative voices of genius fighting the corruption of public sector and big governments, even though they benefitted from that more than anyone else.

That is why.

It’s money. Of you’re ever unsure it’s money. It’s always tax breaks for the rich and hating minorities. It’s always money. All the time.

Wealth concentration, information manipulation and concentration, lack of education and media literacy. We’ve slowly pulled back the taboo of being a Nazi.

Information warfare is almost entirely responsible for this. People are generally good and generally doing better than in the past but led to believe the world is ending and that their life sucks.

No one is immune to this but also many aren’t even aware they are victims. Just read this thread: “everything sucks wha wha wha” when objectively everything is better than 30 years ago literally everywhere. I’m not diminishing people’s issues but the consensus does not match reality and yall know that. It’s so easy to capitalize on these pains and gain control, “divide and conquer” etc. etc.

(Social) media control

The current system no longer works for an average citizen. Current and future generations can’t expect a higher standard of living than our parents had while the environment gets destroyed all around us. This disillusionment with current ruling class leads people to support anti-establishment candidates which tend to be far right populists. It’s still possible for socialists to provide a valid alternative but in many countries the left is too fragmented and/or too focused on the wrong issues.

Without wanting to be controversial….

Society tends to swing back and forth wildly, attempting to find communality. Gay people were openly oppressed, then accepted, then granted legal equality in marriage, then some adoption agency starts giving gay couples a boost up the waiting list - and somebody completely loses their head and the reverse process begins.

We went from housewife who knew her place (/s) to “believe all women” in less than 3 generations. Some people can’t cope with the change of pace or seeming over-correction.

Again, immigration: they should stay over there. We actually do need some medical staff and shop keepers. Wow, their food is nice. He was born and grew-up here and is one of us. I look like I’m the foreigner in my own high street. Send them all back.

If society goes too far, or too quickly, one way then there tends to be a knee jerk reaction back there other way.

Conservatism has always been popular, because a lot of people like the status quo. WHEREVER THAT MAY BE AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME. The fact that conservative values change over time is immaterial.

Hate is cool again

Mental retardation

Russia.

Something common among the rising rightwingers is a “Stop punishing poor Russia!”. The AfD in Saxony Anhalt and Meklenburg-Vorpommern for example are very heavy on “give us back the cheap Russian oil and gas!”

I actually hope that the AfD will somehow rule Saxony Anhalt - it would little damage, as it is an irrelevant backwater state, but it would show that they cannot put their election promises in reality. That would either violate the Grundgesetz (Constitution), violate federal law, require gift showers from the federal government, or plain and simple miracles like raining money. Or even several of those points at once.