Does adopting far-right rhetoric help the political center? (No, it helps the far-right)

9 comments

1. Who would have predict it?

   When labour is losing hard to reform

   When in Denmark the social-dems have been losing 8% in polls since the last election and the far-right has been gaining in the polls

   People need to stop thinking that people vote for far-right parties solely due to immigration

   There are a lot of factors

   But one thing is certain we will all get fucked by the far-right

2. The only way to stop the far right is to address the issues that people are concerned about and kill their echo chambers. This means dealing with economic growth in a more sensible way than importing a bunch of immigrants (especially from incompatible backgrounds) and it means regulating the fuck out of social media.

   Every social media right now is awash with far right (and far left) propaganda. Of course this eventually leads to people voting for them.

3. This is a crosspost of a press release that requires the reader to click three links before getting to the actual study which discusses the findings at issue:

   https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-political-research/article/farright-agenda-setting-how-the-far-right-influences-the-political-mainstream/D247EC90E46089A9EDA3223B435BC149

   Okay, but the study doesn’t actually say anything about a link between A: “centrist” parties using “far-right rhetoric” and B: far-right parties gaining seats in the legislature, where B is what we, supposedly, want to prevent. 

4. Pendulum always swings.  It never rests in the center

   People inherently will push back harder and Overton window shifts 

   Everything just seems to be radicalized, but in reality,  the extremes are still pushing the exact same crap but with different ‘cover stories’ to buy support 

   Uniparty = UN

   Unelected bureaucrats setting policy and ratified by installed muppets and treasonous punks 

5. There is a difference between adopting rhetoric and understanding the needs the far right go after that help them in politics.

   The political left has become mostly the political upper class left, ignoring the needs of the majority. Leaving the right plenty of people to cater towards.

6. I don’t get it.

   One of the issues is immigration AND integration. It’s simply out of control. The solution can’t be to do nothing about it because “hurr it fuels the far right” when clearly the far-right would never have gotten that far without the situation as is.

7. Immigration is not a salient issue because center-right parties talk about it. Center-right parties talk about it because it’s a salient issue. Anyone who thinks that ignoring the stuff voters actually care about will make them just forget about it is delusional.

8. The left has to be more accepting of people in the center or we’re just going to keep having people like trump get elected. The whole “everyone who disagrees with me is a nazi” rhetoric is old af and the normal people are mostly losing trust in the democrats

9. I know people are gonna say “immigration is causing this” but I don’t think it is that. As the top commenter said, the Denmark Soc-Dems, the same party that implemented the harshest immigration policy in Western and Northern Europe, are losing traction. Hell, in Denmark, [a majority still think immigration is too high](https://yougov.co.uk/international/articles/51684-eurotrack-publics-across-western-europe-are-unhappy-with-immigration), with the largest plurality of polled Danes thinking immigration is bad for Denmark. This is in the country that has Western and Northern Europe’s strictest immigration policies

   Normalising far-right talking points whilst being left/right of centre to centrist doesn’t win votes from the far-right, it makes them more viable, since voters would see the far-right and it’s policies becoming mainstream and think to themselves that this party might be something to vote for. Immigration is the big one, because it’s what almost all far-right parties run on, but we’re seeing a similar thing going on with anti-trans rhetoric too

   I know immigration is the most salient point, and I’m unsure how to fully tackle it, but [Bernie Sanders’ interview with Ezra Klein for Vox](https://youtu.be/vf-k6qOfXz0?si=cEY8yDhomJ7sGilh) when he was running for President in 2016, is a good start, to tackle immigration from a leftist perspective

   Hell, personally, I’d take Bernie’s proposal here, give it a snazzy name to get support from the general public such as “Smart on Migration” and add to Bernie’s proposal, 1. A data-driven and evidence/proof-based approach, 2. A push for circular migration, 3. Allow for the deportation of illegal immigrants who’ve actually been shown, in a court of law, to have committed a violent or sexual crime, or any type of abuse against another person, and 4. Allow for the deportation of anyone who wants to be part of the host country but refuses to integrate and respect their host country’s values, back to their home country so long as that home country is safe, and stable for them, and they can go back without fear of persecution, after all avenues to integrate them and try to get them to understand the values of the society they want to join, have been exhausted

   I feel this is the best approach for immigration from a leftist perspective, but it doesn’t tackle all issues, particular if immigrants refuse to integrate and accept the host country’s values, or are convicted of a sexual, or violent crime or abuse, yet the home country they came from is unsafe, unstable or would put them in danger of persecution. That’s really the biggest sticking point, and I’m not sure how the best way to tackle it is, but I do know it’s certainly not mass deportation or [re-migration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration).

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