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On October 13 2024 05:45 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2024 04:21 Godwrath wrote:On October 13 2024 02:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 13 2024 02:23 Gorsameth wrote:On October 13 2024 02:18 GreenHorizons wrote:
With the increasingly likely probability that Trump wins in November, I find myself wondering what Europeans are planning if Trump is the fascist dictator many believe him to be.
How fascist can the US get before Europeans demand their politicians cut off relations/start sanctions/etc?
Or does Europe just follow Trump's lead? Just look at how the EU deals with China? cutting of relations isn't really an option unless you want to completely blow up your own economy. That perspective provides an interesting conundrum if Trump and Putin are as aligned as many would suggest. Interesting is quite a funny way to call it. Nothing about It is interesting, just fuck up. So it seems Europeans are just not really considering the about 50-50 shot they have a US president that gets along better with Putin than some of them in 4 months. I mean if he loses no problem, but if he wins, seems like some stuff people should have thought through for a bit before being confronted with it. Clearly there isn't a plan, or even concepts of a plan.
Do you mean like every other US election ?
Or how your shitty political ideologies are permeating through the EU countries (mostly through Bannon think tanks back in the day) where right now far-right and not so far-right parties in my country use talking points that could directly be taken from the US (for example, gun laws, like what the actual fuck). I mean i understand you are completely ignorant about most stuff outside of US, but we already have our shitty fascists doing fascist shit and gaining traction, so what do you expect Europeans to do when they are truly moving in the same direction than the US, even if it's a slightly different speed.
Seriously, it's just like reading a reddit post in 'americans said another stupid thing', but funnily from someone who critiques the US all the time.
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On October 14 2024 06:06 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2024 15:46 BlackJack wrote:
If you don’t vocalize exactly how tolerant of American fascism you are then how do you expect GH to be able to point out that he’s less tolerant of fascism than you and thus an overall better person. It's baffling that people still entertain this nonsense. Especially given GH is extremely tolerant of fascism and Israel etc. He never does anything about any of it.
It's not that difficult to tolerate nonsense, don't worry. You're still posting and we're fine.
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On October 14 2024 06:26 Godwrath wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2024 05:45 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 13 2024 04:21 Godwrath wrote:On October 13 2024 02:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 13 2024 02:23 Gorsameth wrote:On October 13 2024 02:18 GreenHorizons wrote:
With the increasingly likely probability that Trump wins in November, I find myself wondering what Europeans are planning if Trump is the fascist dictator many believe him to be.
How fascist can the US get before Europeans demand their politicians cut off relations/start sanctions/etc?
Or does Europe just follow Trump's lead? Just look at how the EU deals with China? cutting of relations isn't really an option unless you want to completely blow up your own economy. That perspective provides an interesting conundrum if Trump and Putin are as aligned as many would suggest. Interesting is quite a funny way to call it. Nothing about It is interesting, just fuck up. So it seems Europeans are just not really considering the about 50-50 shot they have a US president that gets along better with Putin than some of them in 4 months. I mean if he loses no problem, but if he wins, seems like some stuff people should have thought through for a bit before being confronted with it. Clearly there isn't a plan, or even concepts of a plan. + Show Spoiler +Do you mean like every other US election ?
Or how your shitty political ideologies are permeating through the EU countries (mostly through Bannon think tanks back in the day) where right now far-right and not so far-right parties in my country use talking points that could directly be taken from the US (for example, gun laws, like what the actual fuck). I mean i understand you are completely ignorant about most stuff outside of US, but we already have our shitty fascists doing fascist shit and gaining traction, so what do you expect Europeans to do when they are truly moving in the same direction than the US, even if it's a slightly different speed.
Well, nothing. That was sorta the point. Don't think Europeans will do much of anything if Trump hands Ukraine over to Russia either. Don't really see a reason Trump wouldn't do that. That is ostensibly an existential threat to Europe.
Just seemed like something you guys would have been thinking about more to me, I was wrong.
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On October 14 2024 06:26 Godwrath wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2024 05:45 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 13 2024 04:21 Godwrath wrote:On October 13 2024 02:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 13 2024 02:23 Gorsameth wrote:On October 13 2024 02:18 GreenHorizons wrote:
With the increasingly likely probability that Trump wins in November, I find myself wondering what Europeans are planning if Trump is the fascist dictator many believe him to be.
How fascist can the US get before Europeans demand their politicians cut off relations/start sanctions/etc?
Or does Europe just follow Trump's lead? Just look at how the EU deals with China? cutting of relations isn't really an option unless you want to completely blow up your own economy. That perspective provides an interesting conundrum if Trump and Putin are as aligned as many would suggest. Interesting is quite a funny way to call it. Nothing about It is interesting, just fuck up. So it seems Europeans are just not really considering the about 50-50 shot they have a US president that gets along better with Putin than some of them in 4 months. I mean if he loses no problem, but if he wins, seems like some stuff people should have thought through for a bit before being confronted with it. Clearly there isn't a plan, or even concepts of a plan. Do you mean like every other US election ? Or how your shitty political ideologies are permeating through the EU countries (mostly through Bannon think tanks back in the day) where right now far-right and not so far-right parties in my country use talking points that could directly be taken from the US (for example, gun laws, like what the actual fuck). I mean i understand you are completely ignorant about most stuff outside of US, but we already have our shitty fascists doing fascist shit and gaining traction, so what do you expect Europeans to do when they are truly moving in the same direction than the US, even if it's a slightly different speed. Seriously, it's just like reading a reddit post in 'americans said another stupid thing', but funnily from someone who critiques the US all the time.
We can't really blame them for those shitty political ideologies, it was a collective effort to get to this point. People like Bannon and the US alt-right in general were heavily influenced by European "intellectual fascists" like Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, Julius Evola, Alexander Dugin, Renaud Camus, etc.
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I'm so confused right now. Isn't the big Putin - Trump fear that Trump will go isolationist and stop supplying weapons, economic support to Ukraine, drop out of NATO, cut economic ties or start a trade war for Europe. And somehow the solution to this maybe happening is to do exactly what Putin wants and Europe and the fear world are scared about happening?
Like what now? My idea of fighting fascism involves do exactly what Putin hates, not exactly what he wants.
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Worst case scenario, in the medium term we would have to get more nukes.
It's not like the EU can do much about Ukraine if the US decides to hand over Ukraine to Putin. We are already paying most of the cost for the war but if we can't even buy weapons from the US we can't even arm ourselves properly. So short of declaring war on Russia not much to do.
In order to safeguard the rest of Europe we need more credible deterrence so we have to diversify our nuclear arsenal. It's easier than switching all our conventonal weapons to domestic manufacture which would take time.
It's also a safeguard against the EU splintering up which would be the next step for Russia.
After that we would have to run our own foreign policy agenda which is almost impossible for the EU.
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On October 14 2024 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2024 06:26 Godwrath wrote:On October 13 2024 05:45 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 13 2024 04:21 Godwrath wrote:On October 13 2024 02:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 13 2024 02:23 Gorsameth wrote:On October 13 2024 02:18 GreenHorizons wrote:
With the increasingly likely probability that Trump wins in November, I find myself wondering what Europeans are planning if Trump is the fascist dictator many believe him to be.
How fascist can the US get before Europeans demand their politicians cut off relations/start sanctions/etc?
Or does Europe just follow Trump's lead? Just look at how the EU deals with China? cutting of relations isn't really an option unless you want to completely blow up your own economy. That perspective provides an interesting conundrum if Trump and Putin are as aligned as many would suggest. Interesting is quite a funny way to call it. Nothing about It is interesting, just fuck up. So it seems Europeans are just not really considering the about 50-50 shot they have a US president that gets along better with Putin than some of them in 4 months. I mean if he loses no problem, but if he wins, seems like some stuff people should have thought through for a bit before being confronted with it. Clearly there isn't a plan, or even concepts of a plan. + Show Spoiler +Do you mean like every other US election ?
Or how your shitty political ideologies are permeating through the EU countries (mostly through Bannon think tanks back in the day) where right now far-right and not so far-right parties in my country use talking points that could directly be taken from the US (for example, gun laws, like what the actual fuck). I mean i understand you are completely ignorant about most stuff outside of US, but we already have our shitty fascists doing fascist shit and gaining traction, so what do you expect Europeans to do when they are truly moving in the same direction than the US, even if it's a slightly different speed. Well, nothing. That was sorta the point. Don't think Europeans will do much of anything if Trump hands Ukraine over to Russia either. Don't really see a reason Trump wouldn't do that. That is ostensibly an existential threat to Europe. Just seemed like something you guys would have been thinking about more to me, I was wrong.
Do you realize none of us here is in charge of anything?
Of course European countries should organize a much more cohesive and a common foreign policy. We should have a real european army and we should really, really stop depending so much of a partner that is no longer reliable.
I think most people agree on that. I know it’s the objective of many European capitals since 2016 but it’s easier said than done. Europe is divided, it has its own fascists and they are very powerful.
I don’t really know what you are expecting anyone to answer.
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if Trump - then brits - else EU will cuckout.
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Germany picked the absolute worst time to implode. Just when some stability and leadership is needed in Europe, Scholz escalates the internal fight. Look, I know the coalition was a bad match, but Scholz bungled it at every turn. Real shame the center-left blew their first and last real chance at governing Germany in a long time. At best, we're looking at months more of toothless impotence followed by elections and a CDU government, at worst the elections force the CDU into a coalition with AfD.
In either case, it leaves Europe in complete disarray. Everybody knows Macron is on borrowed time, leaving Meloni, Sánchez or Tusk to take over the rudder. If they all 3 agreed on the course, that'd probably work, but a neo-liberal, socialist and fascist are definitely not going to work together on most, if any, issues of import. I can't believe we miss the UK's leadership over here.
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On November 07 2024 18:40 Acrofales wrote:
Germany picked the absolute worst time to implode. Just when some stability and leadership is needed in Europe, Scholz escalates the internal fight. Look, I know the coalition was a bad match, but Scholz bungled it at every turn. Real shame the center-left blew their first and last real chance at governing Germany in a long time. At best, we're looking at months more of toothless impotence followed by elections and a CDU government, at worst the elections force the CDU into a coalition with AfD.
In either case, it leaves Europe in complete disarray. Everybody knows Macron is on borrowed time, leaving Meloni, Sánchez or Tusk to take over the rudder. If they all 3 agreed on the course, that'd probably work, but a neo-liberal, socialist and fascist are definitely not going to work together on most, if any, issues of import. I can't believe we miss the UK's leadership over here.
Scholz was never a leader for EU like Merkel was (for better or worse). This was basically the first time he did anything since beeing elected. CDU is pushing for election ASAP now which is a good thing in general. There will not be a coalition with AfD. It'll probably be CDU + SPD for 50%
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Finland940 Posts
My worry is that AfD and BSW will together gobble enough votes to make other coalitions untenable in the long run. The recent state elections were not exactly promising, but whether that carries over to the federal elections, we'll see.
I also predict snap elections by the end of March.
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On November 07 2024 22:49 hexhaven wrote:
My worry is that AfD and BSW will together gobble enough votes to make other coalitions untenable in the long run. The recent state elections were not exactly promising, but whether that carries over to the federal elections, we'll see.
I also predict snap elections by the end of March.
The recent state elections were definitively alarming, but it is important to note that they were elections in eastern Germany. Eastern Germany is currently kind of broken, the west is not as okay with electing the hard-right. They still get a lot of votes, but not in the way of the east where they can actually be the strongest party.
That being said, i am also very worried about the result. It is kind of sad that the best we can hope for is a chancellor Merz with SPD as minions, or some shit like that. Basically, the best case result of the election is not even something i am that happy with, so my optimism isn't really there.
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Northern Ireland25894 Posts
On November 07 2024 18:40 Acrofales wrote:
Germany picked the absolute worst time to implode. Just when some stability and leadership is needed in Europe, Scholz escalates the internal fight. Look, I know the coalition was a bad match, but Scholz bungled it at every turn. Real shame the center-left blew their first and last real chance at governing Germany in a long time. At best, we're looking at months more of toothless impotence followed by elections and a CDU government, at worst the elections force the CDU into a coalition with AfD.
In either case, it leaves Europe in complete disarray. Everybody knows Macron is on borrowed time, leaving Meloni, Sánchez or Tusk to take over the rudder. If they all 3 agreed on the course, that'd probably work, but a neo-liberal, socialist and fascist are definitely not going to work together on most, if any, issues of import. I can't believe we miss the UK's leadership over here.
I can’t believe it either!
I think it was always a mistake to not really push our relative weight around and be part of the furniture in driving things and collaboration/competition a la France and Germany. The right wing press continually banged the hammer that the UK didn’t have influence and was dictated to by those Euros in Brussels, it kinda requires one to try
The impression I had was various UK leaders worked well with their European counterparts on all manner of foreign policy, but largely didn’t when it came to the actual EU’s politics and its direction of travel
Not disruptive, but not a particularly engaged party either. Would that be vaguely accurate or the perception amongst continental Europeans who follow such things?
As much as I complain about the UK and various governments, it’s still a very powerful nation/economy that generally is quite politically stable. Even if not especially engaged, I can certainly see the UK being something of a stabilising anchor just for its presence alone
Interested in the thoughts of others there.
It’s like Trump’s election is some harbinger of wider doom. As you say, it’s really not a great time to have Germany destabilise. Plus Netanyahu fired Gallant the other day and appears set to go more hawkish there.
While Europe doesn’t have much leverage over that conflict itself, that conflict is quite a destabilising one within European countries, some notably more so than others. Which has its own knock-on effects too, even if it’s indirect.
Ukraine policy will almost 100% certainly be revisited by Trump once he’s in situ, I’d imagine rather quickly indeed.
The more the centre fragments, the less likely the pull of the ‘leave Ukraine to it’ crew, Orban et al will be resisted.
While it’s not my personal position and I think it would be a humanitarian, moral and wider geo-political disaster, that kind of sentiment is also growing in countries that were previously very supportive of some kind of intervention.
Worrying times indeed
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Finland940 Posts
Looking like Germany will get elections on February 23rd, slightly earlier than March that was still predicted last week. Scholz will have some time to try and pass a few more laws before then. This includes trying to put some safeguards in place for the German constitutional court. The worry is that if AfD/BSW get enough votes, they'll be able to hinder any future German government even if they're not a part of it.
From DW
As of now, only one of Scholz's big plans is certain to gain support from the CDU/CSU: The so-called "AfD-proofing" of the country's highest court.
This draft law, which CDU lawmakers helped to draw up, would ensure the number of judges (16), the judges' terms (12 years), and their maximum age (68) are fixed in the German constitution. A separate draft law is also being formulated to create alternative paths to electing judges should there be an impasse in the German parliament.
These laws would effectively prevent the AfD — or any party that wins more than a third of the seats in the Bundestag — from blocking the selection of new judges to the court or changing rules relating to it. Given that the AfD could potentially significantly increase its share of seats in the Bundestag in February, it is seen as vital to pass the law now.
I reckon that big themes this election season will be the industrial sector, where VW is looking to shut down several plants, energy costs and general cost of living, the war in Ukraine and whether it costs Germany too much or not, and of course immigration.
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On October 14 2024 06:27 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2024 06:06 KwarK wrote:On October 13 2024 15:46 BlackJack wrote:
If you don’t vocalize exactly how tolerant of American fascism you are then how do you expect GH to be able to point out that he’s less tolerant of fascism than you and thus an overall better person. It's baffling that people still entertain this nonsense. Especially given GH is extremely tolerant of fascism and Israel etc. He never does anything about any of it. It's not that difficult to tolerate nonsense, don't worry. You're still posting and we're fine.
Every time I come back to this thread and see this post, it gets another chuckle.
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We had our 1st round of presidential elections yesterday and it was the strangest election I've ever witnessed anywhere. A virtually anonymous fascist with no campaign outside of social media and polling at less than 5% a month before the election won with 23%, while the current prime-minister and big favorite finished 3rd and missed the run-off by 2k votes in a reverse-sweep (he had a 400k vote lead at midnight over the candidate that finished 2nd but the votes from the largest cities where he does poorly were added last).
I should point out I didn't use fascist in the "person I disagree with" sense but in the openly admires fascism and fascist historical figures sense. You might be thinking "fraud?" - the answer is no, the two largest parties have the most resources and observers in every voting precinct and they're the big losers here as both their candidates missed the run-off. The winner doesn't even have a party or staff on the ground, his entire logistical operation consists of some Tiktok bots and a few hundred volunteers.
I'm optimistic for the 2nd round because the people that voted this guy don't seem to know what they voted for and once he's in the spotlight he loses the advantage that anonymity brings in an unpopular line-up of choices.
We're bickering over policy minutiae here in our quaint politics bubble and debating what Kamala's campaign did wrong, meanwhile there's millions of people out there voting for someone just because of spam under the funny cat videos they're watching.
I can go into more detail after work if there's interest.
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On November 25 2024 20:49 Dan HH wrote:
We had our 1st round of presidential elections yesterday and it was the strangest election I've ever witnessed anywhere. A virtually anonymous fascist with no campaign outside of social media and polling at less than 5% a month before the election won with 23%, while the current prime-minister and big favorite finished 3rd and missed the run-off by 2k votes in a reverse-sweep (he had a 400k vote lead at midnight over the candidate that finished 2nd but the votes from the largest cities where he does poorly were added last).
I should point out I didn't use fascist in the "person I disagree with" sense but in the openly admires fascism and fascist historical figures sense. You might be thinking "fraud?" - the answer is no, the two largest parties have the most resources and observers in every voting precinct and they're the big losers here as both their candidates missed the run-off. The winner doesn't even have a party or staff on the ground, his entire logistical operation consists of some Tiktok bots and a few hundred volunteers.
I'm optimistic for the 2nd round because the people that voted this guy don't seem to know what they voted for and once he's in the spotlight he loses the advantage that anonymity brings in an unpopular line-up of choices.
We're bickering over policy minutiae here in our quaint politics bubble and debating what Kamala's campaign did wrong, meanwhile there's millions of people out there voting for someone just because of spam under the funny cat videos they're watching.
I can go into more detail after work if there's interest.
I think there's an almost universal sense at the moment that the political systems across the world that have been ticking over for the last 30 years or so aren't working for people any more.
People are voting for insane, wild shit because the sensible, reasonable guys have let everyone down... really really badly.
I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it. It feels to me like even if a sensible government does get elected - pretty much anywhere, they are on borrowed time.
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Northern Ireland25894 Posts
On November 25 2024 20:49 Dan HH wrote:
We had our 1st round of presidential elections yesterday and it was the strangest election I've ever witnessed anywhere. A virtually anonymous fascist with no campaign outside of social media and polling at less than 5% a month before the election won with 23%, while the current prime-minister and big favorite finished 3rd and missed the run-off by 2k votes in a reverse-sweep (he had a 400k vote lead at midnight over the candidate that finished 2nd but the votes from the largest cities where he does poorly were added last).
I should point out I didn't use fascist in the "person I disagree with" sense but in the openly admires fascism and fascist historical figures sense. You might be thinking "fraud?" - the answer is no, the two largest parties have the most resources and observers in every voting precinct and they're the big losers here as both their candidates missed the run-off. The winner doesn't even have a party or staff on the ground, his entire logistical operation consists of some Tiktok bots and a few hundred volunteers.
I'm optimistic for the 2nd round because the people that voted this guy don't seem to know what they voted for and once he's in the spotlight he loses the advantage that anonymity brings in an unpopular line-up of choices.
We're bickering over policy minutiae here in our quaint politics bubble and debating what Kamala's campaign did wrong, meanwhile there's millions of people out there voting for someone just because of spam under the funny cat videos they're watching.
I can go into more detail after work if there's interest.
That sounds rather depressing but if you did want to expand further I’d certainly be interested.
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Governments would need to do stuff for the people instead of for the capital. But sadly, that is both unlikely (because the capital is very good at influencing debate and political parties), and something the angry people are actively against.
While ever more wealth accumulates with the super rich, while the average people have less and less, the people will feel left behind and vote for more stupid shit.
One would hope that the owner class would recognize that if stuff goes too crazy, that may lead to a guillotine situation, and maybe sharing some of their wealth to keep the system they are profiting from so greatly running would be a good idea, but that seems unlikely, too.
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Norway28701 Posts
Would honestly love more detail on that, sounds wildly interesting
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EPT
