Populist Right-Wing Parties Lead Polls in Europe’s Biggest Economies

From today's WSJ:

LONDON—For the first time, populist or far-right parties are leading the polls in the U.K., France and Germany, the latest sign of growing voter discontent in much of the continent following years of high immigration and inflation.

Far-right and anti-immigration parties have already entered government in countries such as Italy, Finland and the Netherlands. But this year marks the first time that they have been ahead in Europe’s biggest economies at the same time. That could provoke a period of political turbulence in all three countries, even if national elections are likely still a few years away.

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Source: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/right-wing-europe-dd4f1156?mod=hp_lead_pos7 (Paywall)

I imagine polls are no more indicative of future election results in Europe than here in the US, but it would be more than a bit thick-headed to believe immigration law and law enforcement aren't an important issue for voters in western democracies. The Democrats would do better if they could find a way to move right on this issue, IMO. They don't need to go full-Trump, but they could move away from their open borders policies, supporting both immigration law enforcement and pushing for a guest worker program. The GOP won't be doing the latter while Trump is at the helm, so it creates and opportunity for Democrats to become the adults in the room.

Democrats proposed multiple policies and laws to address the immigration issue. All were shot down by the GOP- because they knew racism is really at the core of this issue and what drives their base to vote for them- so they can then do what they really want: keep cutting taxes to the wealthy. If they had fixed the issue in some fundamental way back in 2012, they would have lost a critical part of their coalition and a big part of all their electoral wins since then.

Because ever since Nixon’s successful southern strategy, that has been the core coalition of the GOP: racists and plutocrats. The racists don’t mind living in a plutocratic society, as long as it remains racist, and plutocrats don’t mind living in a racist society, as long as it remains plutocratic. The racists have the electoral numbers, and the plutocrats have the money. Win-win!

So if you really want to know what’s behind all this concern about “open borders”/“DEI” on the one hand, and “small government” on the other- there ya go. Just an extension of the Southern Strategy.

NatMorton said:

From today's WSJ:


Source: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/right-wing-europe-dd4f1156?mod=hp_lead_pos7 (Paywall)

I imagine polls are no more indicative of future election results in Europe than here in the US, but it would be more than a bit thick-headed to believe immigration law and law enforcement aren't an important issue for voters in western democracies. The Democrats would do better if they could find a way to move right on this issue, IMO. They don't need to go full-Trump, but they could move away from their open borders policies, supporting both immigration law enforcement and pushing for a guest worker program. The GOP won't be doing the latter while Trump is at the helm, so it creates and opportunity for Democrats to become the adults in the room.

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Sure- But opposition to mass immigration is not 'far right'.

Sweden said:

Sure- But opposition to mass immigration is not 'far right'.

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Very true - but in the UK, the highest numbers of legal immigration happened under very right wing governments such as Boris Johnsons.
The stupid thing now and it shows the gullibility of the public (or lying cynicism) was that many here including our papers blamed Labour despite Labour not being in power for 14 years. In Gordon Brown's last year, legal immigration was 252,000 and illegal immigration estimated at 60,000 visa overstayers and 10,000 illegal migrants.

By Rishi Sunak's time, illegal migration by boat alone was 44,000 and legal migration had dropped to 450,000 which was half of the numbers in 2023.

So it may not be far right to be opposed to mass migration but it's ironic that UK right wing governments have been responsible for the highest numbers in history. (especially since Brexit)

NatMorton said:

they could move away from their open borders policies, supporting both immigration law enforcement and pushing for a guest worker program.

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Dems do not support "open border policies"--that is a right-wing talking point--and they tried to enact comprehensive immigration reform but were refuted by Republicans expressly because Trump was worried it would weaken his electoral position.

It's the Republicans that need to moderate on immigration if they know what's good for them electorally. It was their strongest issue in the last election but their approval on the subject is now underwater due to their cruel, economically disruptive, and often unconstitutional overreach. In fact, the most accurate pollster of 2024 recently found that voters now trust Dems more than the GOP on immigration. How does that align with your position that it is Dems who need to be doing something different?

Cameron said:

Dems do not support "open border policies"--that is a right-wing talking point-

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Yes, because both capital and labor should be allowed to freely cross borders. Tying people (or capital) down to specific geographic areas makes the world much worse off.

ataraxia said:

Democrats proposed multiple policies and laws to address the immigration issue. All were shot down by the GOP- because they knew racism is really at the core of this issue and what drives their base to vote for them- so they can then do what they really want: keep cutting taxes to the wealthy. If they had fixed the issue in some fundamental way back in 2012, they would have lost a critical part of their coalition and a big part of all their electoral wins since then.

Because ever since Nixon’s successful southern strategy, that has been the core coalition of the GOP: racists and plutocrats. The racists don’t mind living in a plutocratic society, as long as it remains racist, and plutocrats don’t mind living in a racist society, as long as it remains plutocratic. The racists have the electoral numbers, and the plutocrats have the money. Win-win!

So if you really want to know what’s behind all this concern about “open borders”/“DEI” on the one hand, and “small government” on the other- there ya go. Just an extension of the Southern Strategy.

Southern strategy - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

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Virtue signaling doesn’t make for good public policy.

Cameron said:

Dems do not support "open border policies"--that is a right-wing talking point--and they tried to enact comprehensive immigration reform but were refuted by Republicans expressly because Trump was worried it would weaken his electoral position.

It's the Republicans that need to moderate on immigration if they know what's good for them electorally. It was their strongest issue in the last election but their approval on the subject is now underwater due to their cruel, economically disruptive, and often unconstitutional overreach. In fact, the most accurate pollster of 2024 recently found that voters now trust Dems more than the GOP on immigration. How does that align with your position that it is Dems who need to be doing something different?

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I don’t think the left has any interest in removing people who are here illegally. If fact, they seem to oppose it at nearly every turn.

NatMorton said:

From today's WSJ:


Source: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/right-wing-europe-dd4f1156?mod=hp_lead_pos7 (Paywall)

I imagine polls are no more indicative of future election results in Europe than here in the US, but it would be more than a bit thick-headed to believe immigration law and law enforcement aren't an important issue for voters in western democracies. The Democrats would do better if they could find a way to move right on this issue, IMO. They don't need to go full-Trump, but they could move away from their open borders policies, supporting both immigration law enforcement and pushing for a guest worker program. The GOP won't be doing the latter while Trump is at the helm, so it creates and opportunity for Democrats to become the adults in the room.

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Established populations have been harshly marginalized by impractical programs that have encouraged excessive immigration. In part the problem is geographic. These are small countries trying to support too large populations. The population increases are a direct result of immigration. The problem is that established citizens have had their lifestyles diminished trying to support the constant flow of newcomers. France is a classic example with the increase in age of retirement. An overwhelming majority of the French don't want that. The British healthcare system is flagging for the same reason. At some point in time, governments need to be realistic about what is and isn't viable. Liberal governments play the race card as push back, insisting that racism is at the core of all discontent and thus immigration. Liberal governments' motives are transparent enough: to pile future constituents on their roster. What liberal governments haven't factored in is that second and third generation immigrants are now established and have had enough of marginalized lifestyles, too. Hence the rise in right leaning, conservative interest

NatMorton said:

I imagine polls are no more indicative of future election results in Europe than here in the US, but it would be more than a bit thick-headed to believe immigration law and law enforcement aren't an important issue for voters in western democracies. The Democrats would do better if they could find a way to move right on this issue, IMO. They don't need to go full-Trump, but they could move away from their open borders policies, supporting both immigration law enforcement and pushing for a guest worker program. The GOP won't be doing the latter while Trump is at the helm, so it creates and opportunity for Democrats to become the adults in the room.

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I mostly agree with this. Fortunately, America's problems with immigration aren't nearly as dire as Europe's problems are, but Democrats would do well to actually listen to the voters. I'm very pro-immigration, but we can't just have an unsecured southern border and an asylum system with so many loopholes you can drive a caravan through them. I don't think we even necessarily need to move right on immigration overall (in the sense of reducing the total amount of immigration), we just need to be smarter about it.

We need to reorient our immigration system in multiple ways:

• Fewer illegal immigrants relative to legal immigrants.
• Fewer asylum-seekers relative to refugees.
• Fewer family preference visas relative to meritocratic employment visas.
• Fewer graduating college students being unable to stay, more green cards for them.
• Fewer country-specific caps (i.e. unfair discrimination against Mexicans and Indians), more country-specific screening (i.e. I'm fine with saying that Canadians should have a better shot at a green card than equally-qualified Somalis).

NatMorton said:

I don’t think the left has any interest in removing people who are here illegally. If fact, they seem to oppose it at nearly every turn.

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Nonsense, deportations happen under Dem Presidents. The issue was at the Border.

NatMorton said:

I don’t think the left has any interest in removing people who are here illegally. If fact, they seem to oppose it at nearly every turn.

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Well, as usual, you are uninformed. The actual facts are that both Biden and Obama deported about the same amount of people as Trump has so far, without seizing control over cities or denying due process. The actual facts are also that Dems supported immigration reform last year, but Trump killed it. If it "seems" otherwise to you, maybe it's time to make some changes to where you get information and stop clinging to outdated partisan biases. The rest of America is waking up, at least.