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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   582 thread views

Transnational Thursday for September 17, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I don't really see how Europe is being "taken over by a green-red alliance." The electoral picture is pretty much the opposite.

As of September 2026, CIDOB's breakdown of the 27 EU governments classifies 15 as centre-right or right, compared with five centre-left/left, six centrist and Germany's grand coalition.

The European elections point in the same direction. In 2019 the Greens had 74 seats and S&D 154. After the 2024 election they were down to 53 and 136 respectively, while the centre-right EPP remained the largest group with 188 seats, and the ECR and Patriots for Europe held 78 and 84. (European Parliament)

And that trend hasn't exactly disappeared since. In Germany, current national polling has the AfD at 27–29%, compared with 18–20% for the CDU. In France, Le Pen is leading first-round presidential polling at 33–36%, and would be replacing a center right government, not a leftist one.

Even the UK's Labour landslide was a landslide in seats, not popular support: Labour won 33.7% of the vote but 63.2% of the seats under first-past-the-post, in what the House of Commons Library describes as the most disproportionate result on record.

So whatever you think of the direction politically, describing Europe as undergoing some growing "green-red takeover" isn't accurate. The fact that there is a lot of leftist screeching online that is then signal boosted by rightwing cw influencers is largely unconnected to electoral reality.

Europe is moving right, from a rightwing position, not left. And many of the policies people here have found objectionable were introduced by rightwing governments, often for largely rightwing reasons. Perhaps you'd want the reversal of these policies to go faster or further than they currently are but that's not the same as Europe moving in left/green direction.

The electoral picture is pretty much the opposite.

If you are talking about recent electoral pushback like AfD getting almost-majority in one state, then it's a reaction exactly on the consequences of the said takeover. And even this reaction is largely ineffectual - AfD does not have a majority and will encounter uniform rejection from pretty much every other party. All the problems that the emergence of the alliance caused - mass migration, crime, cultural destruction, welfare abuse, economic stagnation, military impotence, suppression of civil liberties, etc. - remain and I don't see any signs of anything improving there, however AfD or Le Pen are polling.

The fact that there is a lot of leftist screeching online

I don't know what the leftists are screeching about, and I don't care - they always screeching about something. That's not what I am talking about - I am talking about what's happening on the ground. I do not see Europe "moving right" in any substantial way, but I see all the problems I mentioned above, and really I don't see how they are solvable - you can not invite millions of migrants and not give them vote, if you're a democracy. You can not give them vote and not enact policies that they would like to have, if you're a democracy. And since nobody in Europe is ready to reject multiculturalism and declare assimilation to be the only way - they will have to change instead, to accommodate the people they have accepted.

Perhaps you'd want the reversal of these policies to go faster

"Faster" than "not at all"? Sure, I'd want that. But the question is not what I want, but what they do, and I don't see any reversal. Are we seeing mass deportations? Are we seeing welfare reform? Are we seeing Europe abandoning multiculturalism and adopting the policy of assimilation? Are we seeing deregulation, privatization and abandonment of speech controls? I don't see it.

I don't really see how Europe is being "taken over by a green-red alliance." The electoral picture is pretty much the opposite.

Public sentiment vs. institutional sentiment. I can easily see it if we focus on the latter. Despite the popular support, many of the parties / politicians are locked out of power. Even if they do get into power, the EU is openly acting against them, and very little can be done about that regardless of how the European elections go (and it was designed to be this way on purpose). There's also the question of how meaningful that classification even is. The "center-right" of Germany is happily working on removing ano/pseudo-nymity from the internet precisely because they don't like how the public sentiment is swinging.

I think that overstates how uniform this supposed institutional lockout actually was. It certainly existed in places like Sweden, Germany and France, but it wasn't some general European rule. Even during 2010–2020, Wilders' PVV supported the Dutch government, Norway's Progress Party was in government for most of the decade, the Finns Party entered government in 2015, Austria's FPÖ in 2017 and Salvini's League in Italy in 2018.

And since then the direction has mostly been toward weakening those barriers, not strengthening them. Parties that were previously treated as beyond the pale have increasingly entered governments or supported them. Germany is the clearest major exception, where the firewall against the AfD still largely holds.

The same rightward movement is visible at EU level. The new migration pact introduces mandatory border procedures, stronger screening and faster return procedures for rejected asylum applicants. (EU Council) Whatever label you put on it, that's a shift in a more restrictionist direction.

Likewise, Merz opposing online anonymity doesn't demonstrate a left-wing institutional bias. That's an authoritarian/non-libertarian position, not inherently a left-wing one and the SPD opposed it. Being opposed to libertarianism doesn't make the CDU left-wing.

There absolutely was a broad establishment consensus on immigration in much of Western Europe, including much of the centre-right. But that's different from saying the institutions had been captured by the green-left. If anything, the fact that those old exclusions are weakening and EU migration policy itself is becoming more restrictive is evidence of the broader movement to the right.

Being opposed to libertarianism doesn't make the CDU left-wing.

That is true, but it certainly makes it mis-aligned with American values. In the US, at least, freedom of expression, freedom of political participation and robust societal discussion of current political issues has been a nationwide shared value. It is not the value of the Left anymore - which is why one is tempted to associate the similar positions of CDU with the left wing - but going back to the original topic, if even the supposed "right" in Germany is hostile to the values that many in the US hold sacred - one is tempted to ask, what kind of alliance do we have? What do we have in common? Of course, US history knows many cases where we temporarily allied with countries much worse than todays Germany - such as Stalin's USSR, for example - but that was the alliance of necessity, and it was dissolved once the need passed. Is this the kind of alliance we have between US and Europe, which was necessary when USSR was alive? Is it still necessary today? In which form? To what purpose? I think these are the questions that need to be asked.

It does seem fair to point out that America created modern Germany, in pretty much its current form. If I remember rightly, a lot of the German opposition to free speech, the censorship apparatus and one-party media was put in place by America for obvious reasons, and the CIA maintained a very strong grip over German media for decades.

The new migration pact

The one with relocation quotas and 20K EUR per migrant fines for not meeting them? The one that opens the door to 7 zillion Indians - no wait, that's a different deal.

Likewise, Merz opposing online anonymity doesn't demonstrate a left-wing institutional bias. That's an authoritarian/non-libertarian position, not inherently a left-wing one and the SPD opposed it. Being opposed to libertarianism doesn't make the CDU left-wing.

Does "a liberal society must still be able to adequately protect it's citizens, including from false information, from personal putdowns, from discrimination, and from many other things that ultimately define our personal lives in freedom" sound like he's about to crack down on Antifa to you?

There absolutely was a broad establishment consensus on immigration in much of Western Europe, including much of the centre-right. But that's different from saying the institutions had been captured by the green-left.

I don't follow. If even "right-wingers" are left wing, that sounds like institutions being captured by the left. And if you add on top of that all the environmental stuff they're pushing through, with essentially no one opposing it, that sounds pretty green as well.

If anything, the fact that those old exclusions are weakening and EU migration policy itself is becoming more restrictive is evidence of the broader movement to the right.

Again, if we separate public from institutional sentiment, I think it's perfectly accurate to say the institutions are taken over. Now that the public sentiment is getting bad enough, they are also seeing a need to appease the public, that doesn't mean they are willingly implementing a right-wing program, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, like they have been doing with left-green policies.

If even "right-wingers" are left wing, that sounds like institutions being captured by the left

Do you propose that people like the Koch brothers were leftwing and that Bernie Sanders was rightwing in 2015?

"Left Wing" and "Right wing" are fuzzy social categories, not mathematical primitives. You should sort by tribe, it's closer to the joints of reality.

Kinda. Look at how all the anti immigration lefties were treated by their supposed fellow left-wingers. They were treated as enemies, and that means that whatever you want to call them, they definitely weren't left-wing.

The main reason the “right wing” has so many diverse policy viewpoints is that the left has a rolling omnicause, and anyone kicked out of the left will thenceforth be described as right-wing.

Reddit is firmly convinced JK Rowling is a “right-wing nut job” because she disagrees with trans ideology, despite holding fast to every other piece of the left’s policy platform. They believe famous Monty Python comedian John Cleese is now a right-winger because he's outspoken against Muslim migration to Britain.

Really, there are three axes, and you can only be a left-winger if they say you’re on the left side of all three: anti-patriarchy, anti-colonialism, and socialism. The Kochs are for unbounded immigration, which is anti-colonial, but not socialism.

If anything, the fact that those old exclusions are weakening and EU migration policy itself is becoming more restrictive is evidence of the broader movement to the right.

Too little, too late.

You might well believe that but it's also clear evidence against Europe being taken over by the left/green. Europe is moving in the other direction, and from a position largely defined by the rightwing.

By the right wing in a political spectrum that has shifted so far left that even the most tepid immigration control measures are considered the extreme of permissible politics. I'm sorry, but no, this movement to the right in no way proves that the left is not in firm control. Their electoral setbacks are, in the greater scheme of things, temporary and minor, while their social and demographic victories are permanent and far-reaching. Yes they overreached, did too much too quickly and alienated voters that way, but the left needing to spend some time without control of this or that executive or legislative and seeing a small fraction of their accomplishments rolled back is not proof of the lasting ascendancy of the right.

Even if this should be the full awakening of the natives to their intentional replacement and the imminent grab for power of the right over all the governments of Europe and even the end of all immigration, the demographic damage is done. The left can afford to let go of the reins of states for a while, or maybe even altogether. It won't change the fate of the continent at this point.

Call me when remigration is on the table. All else is mummery.

What you're talking about is ethno-nationalism, which could be left or rightwing.

A rightwing party not being in favor of ethno-nationalism doesn't make it not rightwing. It might make it unappealing to you specifically but thats a different question.

I don't really see how Europe is being "taken over by a green-red alliance."

You don't see it happening because it already happened.

Yes we currently have an upswing of right-wing sentiment as the leftist strangelhold on public discourse slackens, but that's because the leftists, in their time of triumph, overreached somewhat while already on the finishing line. But it's only a stumble; they can and most likely will recover, and if the footrace metaphor holds, then this stumble makes no difference because the right is crawling along far behind with its legs hacked off and bleeding out.

Alright, enough metaphor.

The left has already won. The takeover happened, and it held, and still holds. All public institutions all over Europe are firmly in the hands of leftist partisans. All the predominant narratives that public discourse rests on are shaped by leftist framing. And above all, greatest accomplishment and final victory of the left, demographics are a done deal. The natives are on an inescapable track towards becoming minorities in their own countries, and foreigners will become the majority in Europe within this century. There is no fixing this, and there is no suriviving it for the right.

The current electoral successes of the Right are too little, too late. Fait very much already accompli.

The left has already won.

There is an important point that is being left out: The left that "won" is the US influenced left. Not the traditional "workers rights"-left but the "We must always consider the feelings of BIPOC LBGTQ people"-left.

No. I refer to the European left that can trace its roots right back to the earliest Worker' organizations. Nowadays one might be able to see a difference between the socialists and the woke, but go back a few decades and they all blend together. And it doesn't do to just look at the current state of affairs - they started their great social project early in the last century, and made their great breakthroughs after the right thoroughly discredited itself in the middle of the last century, and prepared the way and the materials and the institutions and the narratives for all who followed later. The US left barely factors into it, and has not been the driving force behind the left's most singal victories. The leftist most influenced by the US left are the ones that showed up after the great work was already accomplished.

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