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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   587 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.

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.

I think the Germans were censoring free speech since before Germany was unified; certainly they were doing it in the interwar period, when Hitler was censored.

This isn't a claim against the US using that for their own purposes, but the cultural or political tendency predates American involvement in German internal affairs.

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.

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