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ulyssessword  4d ago (text post)   1458 thread views

Canada Federal Election 2025

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ensure permanent domination

Not how politics work. It’s never over. The entire political spectrum moves left with the new median voter, maintaining equal winning chances. Show goes on.

It has been over in Europe for a long time, for the right. True, there's AfD in Germany (shut out of "polite society" but still alive) and LePen (here the establishment succeeded to do the same they failed to do to Trump) but there's no movements comparable to MAGA (or even Tea Party) and no powers comparable to Republicans on the right in Europe. I don't see why America must be any different and why, if the circumstances allow, Republicans couldn't be turned into AfD-like permanent opposition, useful for scaring the voters into compliance but powerless otherwise. Of course, there still be politicians competing, just like there are politicians competing in San Francisco or Chicago, but that would be like watching which Politburo member is elected into the Central Committee - whoever it is, it's still a Politburo member. There's no real alternative.

You can define "the right" to exclude mainstream conservative parties like the German CDU, and then say it is all over for the right. But then you are using non-standard definitions of words to do the work, not facts about the world.

The point @Tree is making is that functional political parties adjust their positioning in order to chase votes. Big-tent right-wing parties are torn between their desire to win elections and their desire to push right-wing policies, and end up positioning themselves slightly to the right of the median voter. @Tree is right that no matter how left-wing a country is, there will usually be a right-wing party doing directionally right-wing things, and consisting of recognisably right-wing people. Even in Denmark, which is so left-wing that the main right-wing party is called "Left" and the centrist liberal party is called "Radical Left", you have a right-wing party full of obviously right-wing people (they stick out like a sore thumb at Liberal International conferences) and with obviously right-wing policies like tax cuts and reduced immigration.

@JarJarJedi is of course correct that it is all over for a specific policy agenda if that political agenda becomes sufficiently unpopular. If you define "right" sufficiently strictly, then it was all over for the right in 1945 (and good riddance). And if @JarJarJedi thinks that Meloni and Farage are insufficiently right-wing to count, then for him it probably was.

conservative parties like the German CDU

They present as "conservative" but from their actions it doesn't seem like they actually are. It looks more like what is called the Uniparty in the US context - parties that pretend to provide alternative solutions but once elected fall back into the same set of policies no matter which label is on them currently.

The point @Tree is making is that functional political parties adjust their positioning in order to chase votes.

Sure, I do not disagree with this. And that's exactly my point - if you instantly add a California-worth of leftist voters, the political parties will have to shift left, or go extinct and be replaced by the left-shifted ones. And if your politics is based on principles and not on whether "our team" or "their team" wins, and your political principles happen to be on the right, then it would be a disaster for you, because no political party - however it would be called - would be willing to adhere to your principles and provide any policies according to them.

then it was all over for the right in 1945

If you mean the German National-Socialist party, calling them "the right" was a propaganda trick in 1930s and will remain so in 2030s. Mentioning them in the broader political context as the valid definition of the whole term raises from a trick to a libelous smear. A behavior one would be ashamed of if there were any decency left, but we all know that ship has sailed long time ago.

And if @JarJarJedi thinks that Meloni and Farage are insufficiently right-wing to count, then for him it probably was.

I never mentioned Farage (for the simple reason that his political power right now is microscopic, 4 seats out of 650?). But I would like to hear in plain speak what you mean by this, because it certainly sounds like you're calling me a Nazi. Which would be nothing new - it is basically a propaganda tick of the left since, again, 1930s, but I'd like a clarification this this particular case - what do you mean by this?

If you mean the German National-Socialist party, calling them "the right" was a propaganda trick in 1930s and will remain so in 2030s.

The German right (in particular the DNVP, the Stahlhelm, Papen's right-wing faction of Zentrum and the clique of conservative aristocrats around Hindenburg) were broadly supportive of the NSDAP and actively enabled Hitler's rise to power. The German left (in particular the SDP) opposed it. I'm happy to admit that the relationship between the NSDAP and the KPD was more complex. But I think "the Nazis were right-wing" had a clear meaning in the context of 1930's Germany and that meaning is obviously correct given who was on which side. If you think you understand the politics of the NSDAP better than the German politicians of its time, then you need a better argument than "there is an S in NSDAP."

Mentioning them in the broader political context as the valid definition of the whole term

My position is that the CDU (and CSU in Bavaria) is "the right" in 21st century Germany. You disagree, and argue that "the right" should correctly refer to some other political tradition which rejects the CDU from a further-right perspective. The reason why no such political tradition has existed in Germany since 1945 is that "the right" in your sense discredited itself by being either proud supporters of or useful idiots for Hitler, and thus contributing to the utter ruination of Germany. It wasn't just Nazism that discredited itself in this way - it was the broader illiberal right including the DNVP, the Chamberlain-Halifax wing of the British Conservative party, throne-and-altar conservatives in Catholic Europe, and the militaristic conservatism of Quisling and Petain.

it certainly sounds like you're calling me a Nazi

I'm not calling you a Nazi - just as I wouldn't call Papen and Hugenberg Nazis, because they weren't. But they both did jail time after WW2 for collaborating with Nazis. I think that you are defining "the right" in a way which means anyone who is a reliable ally against Nazis doesn't qualify. I note that you explicitly endorsed the AfD, a group that was kicked out of the right-populist ID group in the European Parliament after its lead candidate defended the role of the SS in WW2, as an example of what you consider "the right". I think the AfD is lousy with Nazis (it isn't a Nazi party per se), and I think that someone who supports the AfD is sufficiently comfortable working with Nazis that they fall into the broad category of "right-wingers whose approach to politics should have been discredited by events leading up to 1945."

I never mentioned Farage (for the simple reason that his political power right now is microscopic, 4 seats out of 650?)

The proposition we were arguing about is "the right is over". Farage doesn't have power right now, but nobody paying attention to British politics thinks that Reform UK is "over". If you say that "the right is over" in the UK, you are implying that Reform UK isn't right-wing enough for you.

throne-and-altar conservatives in Catholic Europe

What throne and altar conservatives were discredited by(or indeed relevant in) WWII? The Carlists in Spain probably would have picked Hitler over Churchill but they weren’t a relevant factor(indeed they were a minority party of a neutral power). There were clerical fascists in central Europe who collaborated but that is, literally, a different thing.

I think that someone who supports the AfD is sufficiently comfortable working with Nazis that they fall into the broad category of "right-wingers whose approach to politics should have been discredited by events leading up to 1945."

Do you feel the same way about left wingers who are comfortable working with communists?

Are there any left wingers at all that aren't comfortable working with communists? I mean, a while ago, there were real flaming anti-communists, even among prominent democrats. But among modern prominent democrats - are there any anti-communists at all? Are there any that at least are able to give proper recognition to the crimes committed by communist regimes in the last century and not just treat as "it was long time ago, let's not talk about it"?

The US House of Reps just in 2023 passed the resolution Denouncing the Horrors of Socialism with 109 Dems voting for it (86 against). Last year, the same House passed Crucial Communism Teaching Act which "makes optional educational materials available through the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to help educate high school students about the dangers of communism and totalitarianism and how those systems are contrary to the founding principles of freedom and democracy in the United States" with even more Dem support.

Thanks, the first one looks good, even though I don't see a single D cosponsor, but at least the majority of Dems voted for it. One has to wonder though if it were about denouncing Nazis, would there be 86 congressmen saying "nah" and another 14 saying "I don't care so much I can't even form an opinion on this".

For the second one, it sounds like communism is so much dead the Congress feels they need to pass federal legislation to counter its influence in the schools (despite school programs traditionally being a local matter and not the federal Congressional matter). If it's politically dead the politicians certainly don't think so. But again, it is encouraging to see the majority of Dems voting for it.

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