Gregory's ServerLooking at the results this morning the EU elections are definitely in "it could have been much worse" territory. While France continues its constant inexplicable flirtation with people called Le Pen and AfD somehow caught enough zeitgeist in the eastern parts of Germany to turn in an undeniably alarming performance, elsewhere.. it was less so. The biggest story is how badly the Greens lost. Even with their gains, the ID group plus ECR and AfD/Fidesz (both NI) are still smaller than the largest group (the EPP). On the left, Left plus S&D are nearly as large as the EPP and have only lost one seat between them. And both Fidesz in Hungary and PiS in Poland took a spanking, albeit in the former case this being "got less than half the vote". The fascists have not "won" this election. Not by a country mile. Don't listen to the constant "Far right takeover of Europe!!!11!!ELEVEN!!" stuff -- it just isn't true. Not only that, non-fascists are getting better at fighting the fascists electorally. There is room for optimism.
Looking at the results this morning the EU elections are definitely in "it could have been much worse" territory. While France continues its constant inexplicable flirtation with people called Le Pen and AfD somehow caught enough zeitgeist in the eastern parts of Germany to turn in an undeniably alarming performance, elsewhere.. it was less so. The biggest story is how badly the Greens lost. Even with their gains, the ID group plus ECR and AfD/Fidesz (both NI) are still smaller than the largest group...
@m In Sweden, the rightmost EPP party lost one seat, and the ECR party also lost vote share, while the Left gained one seat, and the Greens kept the one they got after Brexit (so a gain from the 2019 election, if not from the outgoing parliament).
So I'm quite relieved. Given how much talk there was in media of an extreme right wave sweeping over all of Europe, I expected it to be much, much worse.
@m
There is strong tendency of "let's go back to 1970 and have a new wave of prosperity".
Decent housing, children doing better than us, secure healthcare etc. can't be faulted as the underlying objective of that.
The problem is that there are two missing elements, which they don't want to confront. The first is the absolute necessity of clawing back wealth from the oligarchs. The second is the absolute necessity of replacing an open growth economic model with circular growth, like a compost cycle.
The far right have snarky campaign bodies. Given actual levers of power, they will fail miserably. There is maybe no way for some people to learn that, other than touching the hot kettle and discovering that, yes, it burns their hand.
@m
There is strong tendency of "let's go back to 1970 and have a new wave of prosperity".
Decent housing, children doing better than us, secure healthcare etc. can't be faulted as the underlying objective of that.
The problem is that there are two missing elements, which they don't want to confront. The first is the absolute necessity of clawing back wealth from the oligarchs. The second is the absolute necessity of replacing an open growth economic model with circular growth, like a compost cycle.
@m
If the EU Greens are anything like the Australian Greens:
1. They CANNOT organise themselves!
2. (The Aust) public is DUMB, and pretty much only considers the 2 major parties (Coalition nazi/rich, and Labour neoliberal former progressives)