The reason why far right parties thrive over here is that due to Europe being overwhelmingly white, minorities have no real political voice. Meaning appealing to the "legitimate concerns" of white citizens is way more politically viable than growing a backbone and showing empathy for the legitimate concerns of minorities for once.
The majority of white Europeans hate being told about racial problems because a combination of apathy and arrogance has lead to a complete lack of understanding of racism in Europe, and even bringing it up is worse than actual racism. Just see the reaction to post brexit racism on this very board. As a second generation immigrant my entire life has been defined by this ignorance.
Or it's all the lefts fault for actually trying to give a shit about people like me. That's probably a better conclusion.
From a French perspective, but this might apply to other European nations, I would say this is on a superficial level a rhetorical issue. I mean that the far right discourse answers a very widespread perception that a) we're slowly falling behind as a country while our systems and protections wither away and b) mainstream parties are all the same and, with their soft touch, haven't done anything to solve anything.
From a discursive standpoint, populist parties offer huge departures from these parties as they offer simple solutions that are opposite enough to what has been done so far to imply that they should work, considering the opposite didn't. This is obviously a fallacy, but the idea of new, radical solutions is appealing to people who believe they don't have much to lose. This is essentially the anti-establishment component.
There's also some kind of strongman cognitive bias at play here: the more expedient a solution seems, the more potent it should be. Your omelette can only get better as you break more eggs. Human rights are very often these eggs. Words themselves tend to betray these thoughts about human rights as besides the overused idiom "political correctness", hard righters will also use pejorative idioms such as "droits-de-l'hommisme" ("human-rightsism" which implies human rights have gone too far) and "bien pensance" ("well thinking" in a thought police sense).
This is a semantic context that is often overlooked but essentially boils down to a notion of silent majority, where human rights and openness keep the majority silent and prevent it from finding solutions to its problems if only it was allowed to speak up. The irony is of course that these people are 24/7 on TV or the radio, complaining about their lack of free speech.
One last thing, and this might be the most crucial part : voters need a political project, common goals, a legible roadmap to the future. Traditional parties have failed time and again to create a positive narrative that projects the county five or ten years from now, describing the kind of country they want. This means far right populists are pretty much the only ones with a story to tell that isn't more of the same. This inability of institutions and dominant parties to communicate their value will be their demise. They appear too complex and mired in technicalities, with no clear vision, while populists project the exact opposite. They don't sweat the details as long as they can sell their story.
Sorry if this is a bit disjointed, as I'm on mobile and was trying my hardest to not make it about the usual social, economic or demographic issues.
Good posts and just to add that it's fundamentally much easier to sell an easy solution of "throw out the brown people and let's revoke the human rights charter" than it is to sell a complex and hard solution that involves years of living with one another and accepting The Other (who is already being othered to an extreme degree by media and politicians with racist rhetoric and imagery)
Exactly. Gays are prosecuted in Islamic countries and some people from those countries still harbour the same belief. Unless they are willing to integrate to western way of life, I don't want them in my life. I moved to more a liberal country because I share the same belief as the people whose country I'm moving into. If you don't then why even move to that country and expect the people in it to change and accomodate you instead. Fuck that.
I totally get you Replicant, and that's more than fair. The problem is that it is not as simple as throwing people out. Besides, there are probably already other people who hold similar homophobic views who have lived for generations in the country, and we don't throw these people out (or at least make us turn to vote for far right parties). As long as the law and the general populace support gay rights, bigots in all shades should be dealth with appropriately within the frame of domestic law.
The rise of the regressive left is equally worrying.
What is the regressive left?
I agree with this. It is equally shocking.
In my view, people not willing to integrate with the value system in our society are not welcome. That includes gay rights, female equality, racial equality, criminalisation of domestic abuse, just to mention a few.
I employ women, gay people and moderate muslims, and it works just fine when everybody subscribes to the society they are part of. But I also share the worry that many people now migrating from middle-East are not like that, and believe it can be a problem unless we put our foot down for the values we have achieved.
And putting our foot down is an option and the goal of center and left parties.
Don't know what to do but if anything it's surely the fault of "leftists".
Because-because if they would "acknowledge" the problem by imitating politics of the far right, the votes for far right parties would magically disappear!
Exactly. That's usually the outcome of people saying the Left should do more with immigrants (aka adopt the same far right policies)