How dangerous is the European far-right ?

What a coincidence as the (Right-Wing) German Bild headlines today:
GERMANY WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Refugee Crisis is back and Politics deconstructs because of the AFD
(Deutschland wir haben ein Problem -Flüchtlingskrise ist zurück – Die Politik zerlegt sich wegen der AFD) – and
so –
somehow?
the terrible German rag paper – which likes to call itself the voice of the people connects all of the preverbal dots?
As didn’t the German Far Right rise (again) by the collapse of the democratic consensus
that we shall not blame
AGAIN!!
‘all the others’ (‘the Refugees – the Fureigners – the Jews and the Brown and the Blacks)

JUST LIKE IN FRANCE
or
JUST LIKE IN ITALY -(and the UK and the US too)?
And so ‘politics throughout the capitalist world from the 1970s, might have had some influence BUT in Germany the major influence for the horrifying rise of anti-semitic and racist attacks and thusly also of the far right is NOT the Politics of some Neo-Liberalists or Greens -(who finally have taken fighting Climate Change seriously) BUT the rise of ALL the BAD OLD FASCISTIC IDEAS – and the point that in Italy the Neo Fascism of a Meloni defies a lot of the old dogmas -(and in the UK and in France it get’s played in other different ways) doesn’t make the German way less…
may I say… ‘original’ -(or ‘dangerous’)

As what does so absurdly ALL these Rabid Racist Reactionary Right Wingers unite beyond any of their Nationalistic Differences is – the absolute HATE
of all
‘THE OTHERNESS’
(which has to be blamed for everything and especially for taking YOUR wealth away)
And
YES!
PLEASE!!!
tell US guys –
how dangerous will it get – if now even the Germans –
(who supposedly had learned from the past that the Far Right is NO political option)
play:

FASCHISTEN ALLER LÄNDER VEREINIGT EUCH?

In the US, climate change and Republican criminality are wildcards with potential to change the game somewhat, but abortion is front-and-center and is changing votes now.

On the other hand, the moneyed elite in this country is becoming less conflicted about fascism. So there are elements that pull in both directions.

The narrative of an unstoppable rise of the “far-right” has been strengthened by the electoral victories in Israel, Greece, Turkey and if I remember correctly Austria, not to mention the battlefield victories? It seems to me difficult to identify trends from one data point. Nonetheless, the question of the danger posed is an interesting one in general.

In general, it seems to me that danger in “far-right” parties generally is not even posed by their electoral victories at all. Historically the “far-right” takes power with the approval of the military and security services, often with the explicit approval of long-standing traditionalists long ensconced in places of power. The notion of surging masses thrusting the “far-right” into power in a Walpurgisnacht of bestial passions—of the sort naturally endemic in the lower orders—seems I think to express a fairly conservative, traditionalist approach to class-in-the-SES sense. The unenlightened love them some “far-right,” I suppose is the idea. So far as I can tell, insofar as mass support, rather than elite support, is a part of a “far-right” movement is small property owners and independent professionals and lower rank military officers and police, all feeling threatened by something or other.

Since the traditional military and security services are such major supporters of the “far-right” elections are not definitive. War policy must be examined. In recent events, the natural fit between Finland joining NATO/resuming the Continuation War seems to have played a role in events. The collapse of a formal alliance between open “far-right” and traditional conservatives won’t change the war policy. It’s not clear that the majority of elites worldwide see the war policy as a danger, rather than an opportunity or even a glorious crusade.

Which brings up the other point: The creation of openly “far-right” political campaigns—in the US you cannot really speak of parties in the way you would in a functional (bourgeois) democratic system, I think—is political engineering by the people who pay to create them in the first place. They are meant to move the Overton window, to borrow a buzz phrase. What was once unthinkable becomes at least thinkable. And the Partido Popular becomes discreetly Franco-ish, if not yet blatantly Franco-ist.

My conclusion is that the menace posed by the “far-right” is significant, rising and even worse, well camouflaged by the rather arbitrary claim the “far-right” is not conjoined with the “centre-right,” a term whose meaning is uncertain. Is this any more a real thing than “centre-left?” My favorite words to describe political parties are, Ins and Outs. The magnitude of the threat, the real threat that the supposed necessities of the war for [whatever the official ideal is] will demand discipline, social and economic and political, is proportional I think to the intensity of the drive for war. That seems to me to be a topic too sensitive to allow dissent. The masses at large are not really for war, of course, but then, the masses don’t make those decisions. And they will be told it is simultaneously a war for survival, an easy triumph over contemptible foes, a moral epiphany for the world and a stern task requiring hard choices, i.e. at other peoples’ expense.

Lastly, the view from far from Australia is that the turn to Trump is that the owners have reached a new political consensus that the compromises of the New Deal have been swept away. The issue is not the failure of consensus, the great political issue is the unpopularity of the new consensus and the aggravation of working with via elections to form a government to carry out unpopular policies. Polarization of the masses by SES and bipartisanship in the political operatives for their investors is a tricky business, but it is the consensus plan I think.

It’s not at all clear in what sense “neoliberalism” has failed the rich. But the expenses and annoyances of mass politics and the unprofitable squabbles between Ins and Outs are now perceived as irrational. The old party system (speaking loosely) was never held up by mass support, it was merely ratified by pluralities.

The forces driving the shift to the right are threats to property and profits and world power, not the discontent of the people.

There has not been any emergence of a new left alternative.

The Greens have no significant ideas.

The Republican Party is united.

The Democratic Party is divided, even to the point leading Democrats are trying to siphon away funding. (That’s the No Labels group, which is a joke as an appeal to the people, but then, it isn’t meant to be.) Biden is a placeholder who can’t be removed because the party is too divided.

One of the most important facts in US politics right now is the universal opposition of the mass media to Biden. There was always mass media support for Trump but since Afghanistan, all mass media are hostile to Biden. Unlike the days of the Alzheimer’s presidency, for instance, Biden’s lack of mental capacity is openly promoted as a presumed fact, as if it mattered. (There is no indication that Biden has ever done any work himself, including any work thinking for himself: It’s his staff all day, all his life, I suspect.)

Lastly and most controversially I’m sure, the claim Marxism is a dead end, is programmatic proposal of anti-Marxism. But anti-Marxism has been the dearest political principle of liberalism, and soft neoliberalism, for decades. It is anti-Marxism that is the dead end.

Any failures of a particular “far-right” campaign in the merely electoral field are as insignificant as elections. But each one shifts the politics to the right. Fairly crass material interests and fears, including irrational ones, for those interests are ultimately driven by fairly objective trends in world economy and the politics generated thereby. A world economy in decline, or even crisis, will drive the ruling class consensus. National issues, which is to say again, war policy, will determine the ultimate expression of policy. But then, I find myself repeating the threat of the “far-right” is significant and increasing, despite the reluctance to even see it. I mean, it seems to me that CT (a handful of commenters doesn’t count) dismisses January 6 as ugly but no big deal?

The increase in illegal immigration/refugee seekers is a significant driver. People with etho-nationalist tendencies are frightened by these immigrants. People with particular religious views are horrified by accomodations made toward LGBTQ people. I think these factors alone, or in combination are far more potent than the real or imagined hurt caused by neo-liberalism.

It’s worth pointing out that many of the far-right voters were once far-left voters. (France is the usual exemplar.) When Eurocommunism collapsed, there were a lot of voters who were extremely discontent with the system, and thus were not attracted to the center-left or center-right. They had nowhere to go but the far right.
Note that it is possible for a sensible center-left politician to appeal to such voters. Bernie Sanders alone proves it. He barks loud, but seldom bites the hand of New Deal capitalism. However, Bernie is an exceptional case. It is very difficult to channel anger without being captured by it. Maybe that is the challenge for the next generation of center-left politicians.

@6 ”In recent events, the natural fit between Finland joining NATO/resuming the Continuation War seems to have played a role in events.”

Is this the hot take from RT? By my count, John Q. has already ”permanently banned” stj three times from commenting on his threads for posting drivel like this.

In Germany there’s a lot of crossover between Green ideas and Far Right

Wrong – in fact the Green party and the AfD couldn’t be further apart. There’s however some crossover between Die Linke and the AfD:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/29/sahra-wagenknecht-german-left-die-linke-breakaway-far-right-afd

…”What we’re seeing is a stable right-wing movement in Eastern Germany,” said Hubertus Buchstein, who is a political science professor at the University of Greifswald and one of the book’s authors. “Some of them have started organic farming—it seems to fit the right wing. Now, instead of being militant, a new strategy is to live in the country and sell organic apples. Some are vegan, very strict.” As the Böll foundation’s book points out, environmentalism in Germany—an issue that today, while mainstream, is still strongly identified with the left—has deep right-wing roots. Late nineteenth-century “blood and soil” narratives celebrated a racist, often anti-Semitic and socially-Darwinistic picture of the German countryside. The Nazis, who adopted the “blood and soil” idea, were proponents of a quasi-mystical connection between the land and ethnic identity. “Today, neo-Nazis still like to point out that Hitler’s environmental protection laws stayed on the books until the 1970s,” writes the journalist Toralf Staud in “Brown Environmentalists.” Even the Green Party had an extreme right-wing contingent at its founding in 1980…

John Q: “Perhaps the need to respond to the climate disaster will finally generate some real change.”

I think we need a “mixed-economy institutionalism.” But prior to this, we need a grammar of complex systems to explain what it looks like:

This is a playlist. They start elementary and are very short. Climate extremes is #21 and climate policy is #24.

YouTube keeps putting ads back on after I delete them, sorry.

If the link doesn’t work, tap my name above for my YouTube channel, and watch the “World Story” playlist.

In terms of numbers and influence on the larger far right political community the vegan organic Nazi farmers are sure irrelevant. Are we debating them now because of a serious interest in the historical roots of the quasi relgious sub brand of German environmentalism, or just because it is fun to yell Nazi at greens in a rather far fetched way.

The Putin loving migrant hating corona conspiracy theorists within die Linke are a more significant political factor. Albeit even those are a minority within their own party.

AND
how dangerous do YOU ‘sink’ this is:

at a rally in Dresden, The Nazi FÜHRER Höcke questioned the guiding precept of modern Germany — the country’s culpability in World War II and the Holocaust — calling on Germans to make a “180 degree” turn in the way they viewed their history.
Germans were “the only people in the world to plant a monument of shame in the heart of their capital,” he said, referring to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin.

The Nazi Höcke has used metaphors reminiscent of Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist, saying that Germans need to be wolves rather than sheep and in his book, “Never Into the Same River Twice,” he openly advocates bringing down Germany’s postwar liberal order.
(or was that… FF von Clownstick?)

The Nazi Höcke uses terminology and concepts once used by Hitler himself, including racial suicide, a “decaying state’’ and “cultural Bolshevism.”
Followers of Mr. Höcke’s Wing routinely call mainstream news media the “lying press,” another Nazi term –
(or is/was that a ‘TrumpTerm’?)
AND while Mr. Höcke himself has on occasion threatened critical journalists personal and after being shown the clips of AfD lawmakers unable to distinguish between his words and those of Hitler, Mr. Höcke stormed out of an interview with the public broadcaster ZDF — but not until promising the interviewer “massive consequences.”

“Maybe I will one day be an interesting political personality in this country, who knows,” Mr. Höcke said.

And NOTHING OF THAT is any crossover to the Greens!

What Robert Weston and hix said.

There were some rightwing elements in the Green Party in the early 80s but they were gone before you knew it. And of course there is a long tradition of “back to nature” in Germany, part of which was right-wing, and there is a minor and disingenuous attempt to co-opt that theme by some on the right.

But this is completely irrelevant to the current political discourse in Germany, which consists of the neoliberal to righwing spectrum constantly denouncing the center-left for their green policies (and on immigration).

Trying to smear the German Green movement in this way is rather vile and doesn’t reflect the current political situation in Germany at all – there isn’t “lots of crossover”, it’s the complete opposite.

Novakant, if you think centre-left is the “complete opposite” of right you need to work on your spatial reasoning…

there isn’t “lots of crossover”

Don’t. Mention. Heidegger.

Eg.

Næss taught that ecology should not be concerned with man’s place in nature but with every part of nature on an equal basis, because the natural order has intrinsic value that transcends human values… He faced controversy when deep ecology was attacked as “eco-la-la” by Murray Bookchin, who had founded the social ecology movement in Vermont, US. Bookchin claimed the philosophy came mainly from white, male academics and their students, and that its concerns were akin to New Age occultism, with undertones of paganism, and redolent of quasi-fascist Aryan movements…

I”m not convinced that the left is viable any more …

When is/was the time that you are drawing this contrast with (that is, the time when you think the left was viable)?

„ the only thing which sells is the “culture war” left“

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. There is no mirror image of the „culture war right“, a movement that really seems to be concerned with nothing but culture war against LGBTQ, women, foreigners, vaccines, even opposition against renewable energy is couched in terms of culture war. And let’s not forget support for Putin and de facto support for his non-metaphorical war, all conceived as being on the „right“ side of a culture war. There is nothing comparable on the left, absolutely nothing, and making claims like that is just another form of bothsidesism, and you should really know better.

Just compare Biden‘s impressive economic record (infrastructure, IRA, student debt relief which will go forward despite the Supreme Court etc. etc.) with Trump’s nonexistent record. In Europe, whatever can be said about the German government (hampered by the FDP), where do you see anything culture-war-like? They have passed important laws concerning infrastructure, clean energy, made public transit significantly cheaper for millions of commuters, have provided relief for high energy prices, and a lot more. There is a lot to criticize mainly because many of these measures don’t go far enough. Go ahead and criticize that. But accusing them of „culture war“? You must live in a fantasy world.

Engels‘ trolling is getting a bit obnoxious. Quoting Heidegger to smear the Green Party is like quoting Mussolini to smear socialism. Or like gleefully pointing out that the Nazis were, after all, a „socialist workers party“, as the dumb rightists like to do.

@TM 31 & 32

I have no idea why you say “There is no mirror image of the „culture war right“[…]”.
I’m just tanking for granted that the right is mostly about culture war, I would like the left to be better.

I do not think the right could be be better because:
“Do you think the right has a believable promise to sell to the people?”

no they don’t, but many people will vote the right anyway because of the culture war thing.

Which leaves us in a situation where one side does negative policies but is able to sell them due to “culture war”, and the other also responds to the “culture war” thingies and, while not being literally negative, is making minimal steps.

The problem is, after the great depression and WW2 we got the welfare state, keynesian policies etc. etc., because it was evident that the previous economic system produced a massive crisis.
These policies were reversed starting from the 80s.
After the 2008 crisis, that I’ll stress was the biggest economic crisis ever after the great depression, not peanuts, we had only minor changes in the way the economy works.
On paper, the years 2008-now were a period that shoul have been golden for the left, instead we got very few, it seems to me.

@J-D 39

I don’t think that the core disagreement between the left and the right is about wha I call “culture war” (cultural liberalism VS cultural traditionalism).

I think that the core disagreement between the left and the right is economic, and specifically the left wants more redistribution, the right wants less.

The right has a disadvantage in a democratic system, which is that most people are below average income and wealth.
For a certain period, from 1980 to 2008 roughly, the right didn’t have this problem because there were apparent efficiency problems with leftish economics, so people even in the left accepted rightish economic recipes (so called soft neoliberlaism).

But after 2008 straightforward rightish economic policies became unpopular again. This is the reason the right went more on the “culture war” side, and the populist right (fascist) became prominent.
Fascism proper also became prominent in the interwar period, for similar reasons: the economy in post WW1 Italy sucked, so much that there was a sort of attempt of a soviet style revolution, it didn’t go, but the liberal (european sense of the war, so pro free market) ideology couldn’t sell either, so the right turned into fascism.
In Germany too there were huge economic and financial problems, that the nazi blamed on the jews so that they could pretend they were restoring a previously idyllic “natural” order.

On the other hand the left shouldn’t have this problem, because leftish economic preferences are advantageous for the mayotity of the people, or at least this should be the plan.

But after decades of neoliberal dominance the left is still quite neoliberal (e.g. in practical terms the left is more austerian than the right, even if the public statements of both sides say the opposite).

As a consequence, the left too is retreating into “culture war” strategies, that shouldn’t be necessary or at least should not be the primary concern; it becomes necessary because, at present, the predominant economic view on the left is still soft neoliberlaism, which however is dead (due to the fact that we reached the zero lower bound and it is evident that we can’t use only interest rate setting to fight economic crises, that was the keystone of neoliberal economic policies).

Because the left doesn’t (yet) have a clear economic policy, it somehow disguises the “cultural” aspects as if they were an actual economic, policy, but this cannot work IMHO, because stuff like sexism, racism etc. are not what is really causing inequality (nor is “classism”, that at best is a consequence of inequality and at worst a meaningless word).

TLDR
Using “culture war” as the base of policy is an asshole and inherently dishonest thing, and therefore generally typical of the right; in recent years (like the last ten years) it also became an habit on the left, and this saddens and irks me a lot.

…in practical terms the left is more austerian than the right…

Do you expect me to believe this? Why? You’ve given me no reason to do so.

… the left doesn’t (yet) have a clear economic policy…

Do you expect me to believe this? Remember, you just wrote:

… the left wants more redistribution, the right wants less.

How is one of those clearer than the other?

As a proxy for austerian-ness, here is a table of increases of debts by president in the USA, and as you can see apart from thee outliers of Wilson and Roosvelt the table is dominated by republicans (hi Ronald):

https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and-percentage-7371225

In the EU, as per my previous comment, the problem is that the EU itself is quite austerian, but the left/center left are the ones who generally stand for the EU whereas the right guys tend to be more nationalist (a bit like states rights in the USA), so the leftish governments end up “owning” the austerity. In Italy, for example, the left is still reeling from having upheld the Monti government (2011-2013), that was strongly cherished by the EU, and that for example increased tretiremnt age of a few years flatly.
Sometimens here on CT the idea that the working time should be diminished comes about; increasing retirement age by 2 years is a way to increase working time so it shouldn’t be someting done by “the left”.

Previously (we are speaking the 90s early 00s) the “center left” implemented changes on the italian pension system so that, relative to previous generations, the retirement that I can expect fell by between 30% and 50%. This is something that comes from the “neoliberal” period, and the right would have done the same or worse, but still can be held against “the left” (Berlusconi, quite hypocritically, did use this against the left).
Even if these things happened 20 years ago they still have to be compensated.

I do not have an exaustive study but it seems to me that the examplesc are abundant that the left is more austerian than the right in practice, even if the projected identity of the two sides would ask for the opposite.

If the only evidence you have is that US government debt has increased more under Republican Presidents than it has under Democratic Presidents (except for some of them), then you don’t have enough evidence to justify the conclusion that the left favours austerity more than the right, or the conclusion that the left doesn’t have a clear economic policy, or the conclusion that the left mostly concerns itself with sexism and racism.

Please, keep comments short and at most one per day – JQ

I think that the core disagreement between the left and the right is economic, and specifically the left wants more redistribution, the right wants less.

“Austerity” is a policy whose purpose is to reduce debt, through a reduction in net spending (either a reduction in spending or a tax increase). Its opposite is “stimulus”, which works by increasing debt.

Increasing debt is not the same thing as increasing redistribution; decreasing debt is not the same thing as decreasing redistribution. To decrease debt is not to betray a commitment to increasing redistribution; to increase debt is not to betray a commitment to decreasing redistribution.

MisterMr 36, you are mixing something up. “Do you think the right has a believable promise to sell to the people?” was asked by J-D, not by me.

I responded to the term “culture war left”, which you used, and pointed out that there is no such a thing. I don’t know what you were referring to but to me it smacks of bothsidesism and I’m sick and tired of that.

JQ 38: It’s not just that these quotes are 30 years old or more. The point is that none of them has anything to do with the Green Party or any prominent Green Party politicians. I’m out of here, enjoy the trollfest.

MisterMr and J-D: Re “increases of debts” as a “proxy” for “austerianness”. Do I really need to point out that Bush and Trump raised the debt by enacting huge tax give-aways benefiting the upper class? Perhaps that doesn’t make them austerians but it certainly doesn’t place them in the economic left.

As an aside, in the US context, Democratic presidents have been constrained most of the time by Republican majorities in at least one chamber of Congress. The reverse is also the case but less often (Bush had both chambers for 4 years, Clinton and Obama for only 2 years). The asymmetry between the parties means that Democrats are more likely to allow (and sometimes force) a Republican president to raise the debt than the other way round. For example, Democrats allowed resp. forced Trump to spend huge amounts on Covid relief, whereas Republicans forced Biden to make cuts to social programs (albeit smaller cuts than could have been feared). These well-known facts (and I could cite many more) show that your comparison, MisterMr, is complete bullshit.

Also: the asymmetry between parties and their portrayal in the media also means that the Democrats, and leftist parties in general, always face more pushback when they raise the debt than right wing parties. This shouldn’t, I agree, be an excuse to give up on good policy, but it’s a fact that needs to be taken into account. Leftist parties have lost elections because of debt-mongering. I’m not aware that this ever happened to right wing parties.

… forcing long term austerity does empower right wing parties …

It’s not obvious why long-term reductions in government debt should empower right-wing parties. That seems an odd thing to suggest.

It’s not obvious why long-term reductions in government debt should empower right-wing parties. That seems an odd thing to suggest.

That might be why it hasn’t just been “suggested” but carefully argued.

Regarding the headline: I´d say there is a huge difference between nations. The former communist countries look a lot more vulnurable to outright failure of democracy. Austria in contrast which looked rather scary for a long time still keeps landing on its feet as far as the relativly low standard of remaining a functioning democracy is concerned.

Don´t think the AFD or a more competent precedessor will be in charge of a government in my liftime. Probably not even part of one. So in that sense, the AFD is “not dangerous” and everything is fine in Germany. Still remains a nightmare for anybody interest in decent politcal outcomes, along with others who sucesfully embrace part of the AFD style conspiracy/culture war nonsense like the Wagenknecht wing of Die Linke or the Aiwanger fraction of Freie Wähler.

The later one is a majority within its own party, and Frei Wähler poll ahead of Social Democrats in the upcoming Bavarian regional election.

I don’t follow German politics that closely but it seems Orwellian to call this position culture warfare:
https://labouraffairs.com/2021/12/05/sahra-wagenknecht-the-self-righteous/

Robert 61: It may be relevant to the discussion of French politics:

French mainstream newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche was bought by a fascist billionaire, who installed a fascist editor in chief at the paper.

“Journalists at France’s leading Sunday newspaper announced Tuesday that they were ending one of the longest media strikes in recent French history, but they predicted that dozens might resign to protest the appointment of an editor with a far-right track record as the new editor in chief. …
The drama at The JDD revived longstanding concerns over press freedom in a country where over four-fifths of privately owned newspapers and TV and radio stations are owned by French or foreign billionaires or financiers.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/business/jdd-france-newspaper-strike.html

engels 62: Wagenknecht says stuff like marriage equality and LGBTQ rights are a distraction from class warfare. Of course marriage equality (which was legalized in Germany in 2017) doesn’t prevent here from going about class warfare. An obvious question is, why does she even need to bring up marriage equality in the context of class warfare, rather than just doing her class warfare stuff? Because she thinks that by appealing to right wing culture war tropes, she will be able to bring about some sort of Querfront, which she thinks she is well placed to lead. Her pro-Putin position also fits well into such an alliance.

Here’s a typical quote that is a bit older (2018) but sums it up well:
“Weltoffenheit, Antirassismus und Minderheitenschutz sind das Wohlfühl-Label, um rüde Umverteilung von unten nach oben zu kaschieren und ihren Nutznießern ein gutes Gewissen zu bereiten. Und es widerspricht sich ja nicht: Ehe für alle und sozialer Aufstieg für wenige, Frauenquote in Aufsichtsräten und Niedriglöhne dort, wo vor allem Frauen arbeiten, staatlich bezahlte Antidiskriminierungsbeauftragte und staatlich verursachte Zunahme von Kinderarmut in Einwandererfamilien.” (https://www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=31415)

So she kind of accuses cosmopolitanism, antiracism and marriage equality of being responsible for growing social inequality. Where’s the connection? There is none. It’s typical culture war stuff. The list of cosmopolitanism, antiracism and LGBTQ rights is near identical with the typical right wing list of grievances.

A bit OT, but here’s another unfair and mean-spirited attack on Cornel West:

“Presidential candidate Cornel West, who has spent most of his career advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy, owes the IRS more than half a million dollars in unpaid taxes.”

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/08/trump-supporter-has-trumpian-attitude-toward-paying-taxes

I am generally wary of claims that academics as a group are upper class, but some academics are at least pretty high up in the upper middle class. Which doesn’t necessarily make their political positions suspicious but…

“I don’t follow German politics that closely but it seems Orwellian to call this position culture warfare:”

Because she claims herself to be against culture war and the others started it just like everybody else doing culture war? The disgusting cutlure war politics start when you pretend the craziest vaguely left cutlure war view out there would have any power or majority within its own broader fraction, typically while ignoring the crazy right wingers with often real power, like say running Bild.

You don´t get to be right because a handfull of your most vocal opponents are indeed crazy people of another type than you (or maybe not really that different, as those personalities tend to switch within the extremes rather fast).

Culture war is frankly one of the nicest thing one could say about Wagenknecht anyway.

“I read the description ‘Bari Weiss equivalents on the center left’ and I can’t imagine what you could possibly mean by it. There are no Bari Weiss equivalents on the center left.”

Bari Weiss, who describes herself as a left-leaning Centrist, has made it her mission to fight what she calls the “Woke Revolution.” So do a number of well-known French political and media figures who also classify themselves as center-left: Rachel Khan, journalist and author; Raphaël Enthoven, philosopher and commentator; Marlène Schiappa, the former cabinet minister; Gilles Clavreul, commentator and high-ranking civil servant; the Printemps Républicain organization, among others. Then, of course, there’s Bernard Cazeneuve and Manuel Valls, the two former Prime Ministers.

The disgusting cutlure war politics start when you pretend the craziest vaguely left cutlure war view out there would have any power or majority within its own broader fraction, typically while ignoring the crazy right wingers with often real power, like say running Bild.

The chapter I linked explicitly says she’s “horrified” by the AfD and Trump is “poisoning the political climate”.

Wagenknecht on war crimes in the Ukraine: “Both sides to them”.
Wagenknecht on vaccinations: “I don´t need them”…..

Suppose she is the objective centrists voice of reason on culture war and not involved in anything like that herself.

Nothing more along these lines, please, on any of my threads

and did somebody who goes by the name of Engels just comment:

‘Both sides in Ukraine have committed war crimes…

AND again –
and hopefully the last time –
I HAVE to correct – but this time not with my own words but the collected words of an Australian Prof.:

‘I’m going to pre-emptively rule out bothsidesism and Trumpism: you can take that to X or tell it to CT?

Good catch, this one slipped through, but I’ve erased it

Fine, I said I’d stop anyway. If you want to see a herd of Selbstgerechten in the wild, just check out the “when would you like to have been born” thread.

Bari Weiss, who describes herself as a left-leaning Centrist, has made it her mission to fight what she calls the “Woke Revolution.”

Bari Weiss’s self-description is not reliable; and what Bari Weiss has is not so much a mission as a grift.

Returning to the earlier comment which prompted my questioning:

A couple of other factors considering, based on my observation of the French political landscape – … The visceral hostility of media and political elites to anti-racism as well as ethnic and racial diversity movements.

If somebody told me that there are some people in France, prominent in politics or the media, who are hostile to anti-racism and to ethnic and racial diversity movements, my response would be: ‘I’m sure there are; there are everywhere, so why wouldn’t there be in France?’ If somebody told me that there are more such people in France than in other countries, my response would be: ‘Which countries are you using for comparison, and how did you make your measurements?’ If somebody told me that some of these people (in France or elsewhere) used to be politically active on the centre-left, my response would be: ‘It wouldn’t surprise me particularly; people change political positions all the time.’ If somebody told me that there are people who consistently combine centre-left politics with hostility to anti-racism and to ethnic and racial diversity movements, my response would be: ‘I doubt that such positions are internally consistent; I can’t figure how they could be; of course, sometimes people contradict themselves, out of muddle-headedness or for other reasons; still, I suspect who people are actively hostile to anti-racism and to ethnic and racial diversity movements are going to find it hard to maintain genuinely centre-left positions’.

@TM 81
I wasn’t berating you, I just tought (and still think) that one observation you quoted is weird.

“If somebody told me that there are some people in France, prominent in politics or the media, who are hostile to anti-racism and to ethnic and racial diversity movements,….”

I see.

At the risk of restarting thread derailment (and feel free not to post this as it is a bit OT and long), this is not directed at anyone in particular but rather a general comment borne out of frustration:

It seems to me that in many countries within Europe (and the US, and no doubt others too) there are ongoing struggles over immigration, reproductive rights, the demonization of LGBTQ+ people, etc. It also seems to me somewhat odd (and dare I say trivialising) to refer to this as a mere “culture war” when arguably it is something better understood as state oppression and the ability of reactionary, cross-class alliances to push the state to intensify that oppression.

Since it apparently needs to be pointed out, capitalism is built on the exploitation of women’s reproductive labour; it has been built and continues to be maintained by racialised labour exploitation; and it continues to reproduce itself through the exploitation of feminised labour (and more often than not sexual exploitation in private spaces) through division of the population into an enforced sexual hierarchy. To dismiss this as “culture war”, putting these struggles – mostly the struggles of the subaltern working class – outside of the realm of class warfare, and even to try and render it as a distraction, is to ignore that these are in fact part of the class struggle (or economic struggle, if you prefer a less socialist framing).

Within the UK, for example, the care workforce is heavily staffed by women who (and for those from ethnic minorities in particular) are deeply underpaid and exploited for reasons that can not be separated from how racialisation and gendering affects their ability to demand a share of their labour value – similarly, many of those who belong to other minorities face exclusion from the labour market. To suggest that improving economic conditions under leftism does not concern people engaged in these struggles (as seems to be an increasingly vocalised opinion within certain left-wing circles) demonstrates, to put this as mildly as possibly, a lack of solidarity which I find deeply disturbing. Perhaps this is unfair, but I have been in the fight for a long time and I am afraid my patience is wearing very thin these days. There has long been an unfortunate undercurrent of “brocialism” which argues that addressing attacks on minorities is “divisive” to “The Real Struggle”: that socialism should focus on class exploitation while ignoring racism as a mere bagatelle “outside the remit of True Socialism”; that misogyny within our movements can’t be addressed because “it could harm the cause”, and besides “sexism a product of capitalism that will wither away after the revolution”; that socialists shouldn’t worry about those LGBTQ+ people, because “such deviancy is a product of the decedent bourgeoisie”, and anyway there is a class war to fight. In reality, ignoring the ways in which people are prevented from being able to claim their labour power while historically unions have deployed racism, sexism, etc. to try to preserve white cisgender men’s rights in the workplace over all those of other workers is blatant revisionism avoiding the recognition that this is, and long has been, part of the class struggle.

If someone actually cares about uniting the working class, then their solidarity has to begin with the lowliest first. After all,which class benefits the most from arguments that minority human rights as divisive and in need of minimising or discarding, exactly? The dominant class (though I’m sure capitalists will happily make money off of minorities via the various mix of gig economies most will be forced to labour under). To brush aside solidarity as a mandatory part of class consciousness and unity in general is adopting elements of contemporary right-wing rhetoric in order to resist disruption of established socially oppressive norms – this is, I would argue, not about economics (or rather, not solely about economics) but rather marked vs unmarked ideologies. Those who won’t hold themselves in solidarity with the whole class might be, at best, temporary allies of convenience on certain points, but in no-way would I regard them as reliable or a meaningful part of the class struggle.

Let me try to be clear: intersectionality without anticapitalism/class consciousness will inevitably be insufficient and fail to deliver meaningful reform – a class system which rests on maintaining worker disempowerment and separation from meaningful labour and the fruits thereof is fundamentally axiomatically in opposition to egalitarian liberty. However, the reverse is also true – defining class exploitation in a way which ignores intersectional oppression will end up replicating much of the exploitative hierarchical nature of the system it opposes, and the path to liberation will not lie that way.

As I said quite some time ago, I think that significant social changes are coming whether we want them to or not – and it is up to humanity to shape whether these changes will be for the better or worse. For me, the most important part of securing our future is to form a strong, international left-wing coalition which recognises the importance of intersectionality, and uses its soft power to push for social, economic, and political changes which favour the disempowered and people whose main possession of economic value is their labour in order to redress the current imbalances in societies. But of course, that is just my opinion.

/rant over

Wagenknecht: “Typical left-liberals, however display the opposite: extreme intolerance towards anyone who does not share their view of things.”

Insightful! Concerning! Dare I name it cancel culture? (This written by an author making nearly a million with culture war screeds like this and constantly appearing on all the talk shows).

I did, out of curiosity, ask you to “explain” only one thing: how does it work that gay marriage “conceals” upward redistribution. Just that. How does the mechanism work that the fact that gays now can marry makes social inequality invisible.

How does the mechanism work that the fact that gays now can marry makes social inequality invisible?

Not sure if you’re expecting me to whistle or type in invisible ink but fwiw nobody said that.

engels 92: “Nobody really said that”, cut the bullsht. Wagenknecht said exactly that: minority rights etc. are used to “conceal” social inequality. You are the guy who insisted on taking her wording literally, which I did as a concession to argument, and you claimed that this rreactionary bullshit is “blindingly obviously true”. I guess you have been really blinded by this “truth”. I’m done with your bad faith sophistry.

And re 93, literally nobody on the other thread has claimed that “the neoliberal period of the last forty years has been broadly progressive”. They have claimed that some things have gotten better, which is demonstrably true, and which isn’t the same thing. Nobody around here does the strawmanning and putting words in other people’s mouths more consistently than you engels.

Well I disagree; but given the number of topics I’ve been instructed not to mention it’s impossible for me to explain why so just fume away: you seem to enjoy it.

Nobody around here does the strawmanning and putting words in other people’s mouths more consistently than you engels.

I don’t feel that I’m in a position to judge one way or the other whether this is true; but for anybody who does feel that way, I suggest that the obvious solution is to avoid reading comments written by engels.

engels 97: “using “protection of minorities” as a “feelgood label” to whitewash upward redistribution (ie neoliberal capitalism), as the “neoliberal left” has done since Blair”

I’m gonna address this because the reference to Blair is interesting. Did Blair use minority rights like gay rights as a “label” to “whitewash” (or “conceal” as was stated earlier) neoliberalism? I think engels’ narrative has it exactly backwards.

Blair did enact a number of important reforms (https://www.france24.com/en/20140926-former-british-pm-tony-blair-named-gay-icon) that concretely benefited the gay community. These were not just labels, they had material effects on many people’s lives. Moreover, this was a time when gay rights were far less popular and far less mainstream accepted. It’s not the case that Blair ran around showing off his commitment to gay rights while secretly pursuing upward redistribution. It’s more the opposite: Blair openly campaigned on neoliberal policies, he didn’t try to hide them (similar Macron: the guy campaigned twice on the promise to raise the retirement age – there was no concealing anything!) As I recall, one of his first acts was to cut welfare benefits for single mothers. He did it very publicly, to show off his toughness. And Blair was elected three times, not despite but because of his neoliberalism.

Gay rights on the other hand may have cost him more votes than it benefited him electorally. In fact, Blair was warned that campaigning on gay rights might cost him the 2001 election, and section 28 was only repealed in 2003 (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/19/tony-blair-warned-anti-gay-section-28-repeal-harm-election-chances).

It seems to me that the record shows Blair not as a cynic who used gay rights to whitewash neoliberalism, but as an ambivalent figure who did some genuinely good things out of conviction, and some very bad things, also out of conviction. Is there any causal connection between Blair’s apparently genuine commitment to gay rights and his equally genuine commitment to neoliberalism (and to the Iraq war)? Is there any reason to believe that a Blair government less commited to gay rights would have been less neoliberal? I don’t think these questions even make sense.