Italy has already elected a far right government that endorses fascist rallies
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/01/10/italy-s-government-under-fire-from-opposition-after-fascist-rally-in-rome_6420540_4.html
AfD is making record gains in Germany
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germanys-far-right-makes-strong-gains-eu-vote-despite-scandals-2024-06-09/
National Rally are poised to win elections in France
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-69102843
It's a bit naive to think that they weren't already fascist. Banning Russian news outlets and putting people in jail for expressing pro-Russian opinions isn't fascist? Giving arms, training and billions of Euros to Nazis isn't fascist?
What is happening in the inevitable backlash to the disastrous failed policies of the so-called "centrist" liberal parties and the misguided center-left that constantly tails them. They have allowed the right wing xenophobes to monopolize the anti-war position by denouncing anyone who advocated for any form of caution or common sense in the policy toward Russia as a Putin puppet. Their obsessive sanction mania has plunged Europe into a catastrophic economic crisis from which it may never recover, cutting themselves off from the cheap source of energy upon which the international competitiveness of Europe was built. Europe is being deindustrialized.
They put all their chips on the US, NATO and the EU. They (and this includes the vast majority of "leftist" parties) tried to marginalize anyone critical of Europe's subservience to Washington and of the EU's undemocratic and neoliberal impositions upon sovereign European countries and in so doing drove them right into the arms of the right.
I am not at all surprised by this result. It is what happens when the left (excluding the communists) totally and utterly fails to provide an alternative. An anti-war alternative, an anti-NATO alternative, an anti-EU alternative, an anti-austerity alternative. When the entire mainstream European left throws its lot in with the neoliberals and the Atlanticist warmongers.
That's why I put openly in the title. Europe has obviously been sliding into fascism for a while, but now the mask is starting to come off.
Banning Russian news outlets and putting people in jail for expressing pro-Russian opinions isn’t fascist?
It wasn’t considered fascist because Russia is (was) considered the big bad villain, so any repercussions against supporters is (was) seen as justifiable. Pushing the whole “Putin = Hitler” thing really warped people’s perspectives…
It could only happen because there was no leftist push back against the further eroding of rights. If Leftist orgs had done their job of at least presenting an obstacle to the narratives, sanctions and repressions, they would have some credibility. But they didn't.
They didn't just not present an obstacle, it's far worse than that. The "leftist" orgs were at the vanguard of the repressions and denunciations. They were among the most enthusiastic supporters of the anti-Russian witch hunt. They were so desperate to prove that they were not with "the enemy" that they became "more catholic than the pope" as the saying goes.
I don't know exactly what it was in Europe that caused this derangement. At least the US left has the excuse of having their brains broken by the Russiagate psyop. But the European left has no excuse. I guess Europeans are just deeply russophobic and really enjoy thinking of themselves as culturally superior and more civilized than "those eastern barbarians".
Well there is the factor of "looking towards" the West instead of the East. For some reason or another, some backward countries see the West as progressive and the East as conservative, this is a misconception deeply rooted in some societies. But why leftists would actually adhere to it, if only to appease to a wider electoral body, is a mystery to me. Leftists aren't usually the ones to blindly follow liberal propaganda.
But why leftists would actually adhere to it [...] is a mystery to me.
I don't think it's that much of a mystery, they're simply racist/chauvinist.
Cyprus got an outright fascist (from the ELAM party) and another "apolitical" influencer with fascist sympathies (Fidias Panagiotou) to the EU parliament. So that's 2 out of 6 seats to fascists.
Greece got 4 fascists in its 21 available seats (2 for the EL party, 1 for Afroditi Latinopoulou and 1 for the NIKI party). That's a record for them.
Austrian and German fascists are also scoring a major victory in EU elections.
Weird things are going on in France, with Macron dissolving parliament after an exit poll showing the far right winning? I have no idea what's going on there.
It's not just 4 fascists that are from Greece. A lot of people from the centre-right New Democracy party are openly right-leaning.
Germany and Italy… looks like the gang is making a comeback 😬
I know Portugal had their election back in March and also elected a right wing party, but not nearly as far-right as other European countries.
As ABBA once said “the history book on the shelf is always repeating itself.”
but not nearly as far-right as other European countries.
They are fascist in every sense of the word. The only difference, is that these far-right cucks are anti-Russian and pro-EU.
I stand incredibly corrected! I guess I was too focused on CHEGA as the farthest right that I didn’t realize this winning party was still pretty bad. I don’t see much coverage of the winners on the news I get over here so I honestly didn’t think they were as bad as other far-right parties making waves across Europe.
Portugal does look like its still going through an election phase or something because I’m seeing different parties doing public speeches (a poppy party and the PCP), I have no idea what they say and what’s going on but it seems important.
Poppy Party is LIVRE, they're leftist from what I've seen (and not half bad) but meh. PCP has fallen, barely got any votes 💀
The PCP is in coalition with the sunflower party, right? Is that maybe why they fell? Or did they team up to hopefully regain what they lost? I guess the state of the left in Portugal is the same as everywhere else, which really really sucks.
No, PCP is in a coalition with PEV, an environmentalist party which also happens to have a flower as its symbol. There’s two of those actually: PEV and PAN.
Here in Italy, unlike in Germany, criminals from the regime were never prosecuted nor underwent trial and condemnation (unlike, say, Nuremberg trials). Because this would have made left parties stronger and, in the 50s this means the Communist party, which the Americans didn't want at all. Here is the result, well done allies! History repeats itself so that people can learn unlearned lessons better, like not passing an exam.
I'm gonna calm you down a little here and say that at least in Germany we are still firmly in the grip of neoliberal centrists. The AfD may have made gains (especially in the east) but the biggest winners were still the CDU/CSU. The same goes for the wider European picture. Ursula von der Lügen's coalition of center-right parties is still by far the biggest player in the EU parliament. Nothing that much will change, the liberals will still have a firm grip on the reins of power, and they will continue, as they have already been doing, to capitulate on more and more non economic, non foreign policy points (i.e. those which do not harm the bottom line of capital and do not threaten the Euro-Atlanticist project in Europe) to placate the right. Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chôse.
That is an interesting coincidence, because from 1933–1974 Portugal was a parafascist régime: people have claimed that the head of state was no fan of Adolf Schicklgruber, and the régime did indeed arrest some fascists for basically being too radical, yet it also offered the arrestees jobs, and it was one of the Third Reich’s biggest traders. That a ‘moderate’ right‐wing party would take power in Portugal once again is odd, yet fitting.
Portugal’s dictatorship was incredibly weird with regard to its relationship with other fascists at the time. The Carnation Revolution was almost a turning point but that got hijacked real quick, plus it’s legacy has been whitewashed (at least from what I could gather on the news coverage of the April 25th celebrations).
Portugal really lives up to “saudade.”
oh i wish lol, they are as far-right as the others, it's just that they hide themselves under the thin veil of liberalism.
Worrying rise in anti-immigration views in both European governments and public. There is little to no understanding of imperialism or the history of nationalism.
The right always makes use of an easy scapegoat and people fall for it every time. My question is, what happens when they ban all immigrants and the problems still aren’t solved? Are they still going to blame minorities or will they finally realize what the real issues are? I want to be optimistic and say that people would open their eyes but I think they’d just pivot to the next victim of the day…
They'll say that the "dirty brown people" are conspiring against the poor innocent whites, so their countries must be sanctioned, invaded and genocided.
Every single poortuguese "commentator" is at best a CIA asset at worst a fucking Nazi lol, so yeah I agree we are headed towards very dark times.
Jose Milhazes, I don’t know what his problem is but he’s on my shit list. Every time I see him on SiC I can’t help rolling my eyes and getting angry.
That and Paulo Portas, honestly fuck that dude. My dad loves him for some reason
