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" Approximately no one asked for the gender self-ID laws being passed in Europe, but we keep getting them."
I'm guessing transgender people and some college-educated non-religious social liberals asked for them, and since basically all politicians in non-reactionary parties end up being college-educated non-religious social liberals in modern times, they had no issue with it.
"OTOH an end to mass migration, and having some semblance of a domestic farming / manufacturing base does tend to be popular, but we're just getting more globalisation."
Now, I'm sure there's polling showing that on mass migration, but the issue is, there may be a majority opposed to mass migration, but once you account for people's salience on the issue, and what the parties advocating against mass migration are also for, that's where you run into problems. Also, there's the small matter that no European nation is actually totally independent anymore, but unfortunately for you at least, the aftermath of Brexit killed any real moves to leave the EU by any country for a generation, so even somebody like Meloni in Italy can't do much about the refugees.
But yes, you can have 70% in favor of stopping mass migration (just made up number), but if the only anti-mass migration party, because the others are all run by college-educated social liberals, are also staffed well, people who have either terrible policy views or continue to shoot themselves in the foot to win over normal voters, you get what you currently have. Now, I do actually think you'll eventually get what you want, a sort of Fortress Europe, but even then it's going to be very tough to deport many migrants already there, and Europe is basically on a permanent downslide that it's been on since basically the end of World War II, and people will blame the migrants, the EU, and such, and never blame the fact you guys just aren't special anymore. Meanwhile, us American's will screw up massively, then stumble upon some giant pile of lithium or whatever else we need, because that's how it goes.
Then, yes, in theory, people hate globalization, but they love the cheap stuff, and get very upset, as we've seen recently, when things get more expensive at all. Kind of a revealed preference in that people frankly, would rather have cheap stuff than a strong manufacturing base.
Did they? When I'm talking about self-ID, I do mean self-ID - a law that allows you to declare yourself to be another sex on the basis of nothing more than your say-so, and be considered such in the eyes of the law. My impression is that it's considered rather controversial even among trans people, seeing as this already resulted in rapists being sent to women's prisons, let alone for the modal non-religious social liberal. In countries like Spain and Germany, you could make the argument (I'd debate it though) that enough people must have wanted it, that the laws passed, as there was at least a proper public debate around them, but it's less believable in Malta where it was snuck through, or Ireland, where the activists themselves admit to pushing the law through under the cover of gay marriage.
An anti-immigration party losing fair and square because the issue isn't as important as others, or because they can't help but sperg out on other issues and turn off the voters is not what I'm talking about. Mainstream parties establishing "cordons sanitaires", because working with outright communists is fine, but a coalition with an anti-immigration party is beyond the pale, or playing with the idea of outright banning them when such a cordon might not be enough, is closer to what I'm talking about. But another part of it is when people elect supposed "fascists" on their anti-immigration platform, and they proceed to import immigrants anyway.
Yeah... that might be one of the reasons people were against immigration when there still weren't that many immigrants...
The problem with that argument is that pre-globalization is in living memory, and this claim doesn't make sense in light of it. My father-in-law supported his family on a single income, owns several properties, and his only education is a trade school. I think we could do worse then that (and in fact we are).
People get upset over expensive rent and food, not over expensive iPhones.
Revealed preference requires two options to be available to people, and taking the one that goes counter to what they express in public when you ask them. How does that apply to globalization? What switch can people flip to try the version of their country where they have expensive foreign goods, and a domestic manufacturing base?
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