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On April 22 2025 06:04 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2025 02:32 Simberto wrote:On April 22 2025 01:42 maybenexttime wrote:On April 22 2025 01:08 Mohdoo wrote:On April 22 2025 01:02 maybenexttime wrote:On April 22 2025 00:54 Mohdoo wrote:
Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office. NATO is just shorthand for membership in an alliance with credible deterrence. It can be a successor to NATO (without the US and Hungary), but it could also be the EU. Yeah, I suppose to be more concise, I don't see why Russia would consider it a win to prevent NATO if EU did something similar. No matter how you slice it, war with everyone other than the US is still catastrophic for Russia. And so I don't think its enough for Russia. I think in reality they want even more than preventing NATO. Their goal is to break us from within. They're betting on Orbans and Le Pens to break the EU or render it dysfunctional. Agreed. Also important to not that they are not just passively betting on that, but also actively pushing towards it. Our most important defense goal needs to be to protect ourselves from the russian interference. Military defense is relevant, but only after we made sure that we are not dissolved from the inside by russian PsyOps and their useful idiots. I know this is a wildly unpopular take, but Europe throwing voters a bone by making a significant change to immigration policies would reduce Russia's psyops capabilities more than anything else. Doesn't need to be some MAGA dogshit, But something that meaningfully makes voters feel heard regarding immigration would deeply harm all these Russia-sponsored "movements"
Which country in Europe is not doing this currently?
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On April 22 2025 06:04 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2025 02:32 Simberto wrote:On April 22 2025 01:42 maybenexttime wrote:On April 22 2025 01:08 Mohdoo wrote:On April 22 2025 01:02 maybenexttime wrote:On April 22 2025 00:54 Mohdoo wrote:
Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office. NATO is just shorthand for membership in an alliance with credible deterrence. It can be a successor to NATO (without the US and Hungary), but it could also be the EU. Yeah, I suppose to be more concise, I don't see why Russia would consider it a win to prevent NATO if EU did something similar. No matter how you slice it, war with everyone other than the US is still catastrophic for Russia. And so I don't think its enough for Russia. I think in reality they want even more than preventing NATO. Their goal is to break us from within. They're betting on Orbans and Le Pens to break the EU or render it dysfunctional. Agreed. Also important to not that they are not just passively betting on that, but also actively pushing towards it. Our most important defense goal needs to be to protect ourselves from the russian interference. Military defense is relevant, but only after we made sure that we are not dissolved from the inside by russian PsyOps and their useful idiots. I know this is a wildly unpopular take, but Europe throwing voters a bone by making a significant change to immigration policies would reduce Russia's psyops capabilities more than anything else. Doesn't need to be some MAGA dogshit, But something that meaningfully makes voters feel heard regarding immigration would deeply harm all these Russia-sponsored "movements" You can't. Because its not about the facts on the ground but about feelings, and everyone is already saying they are doing 'something'.
You can't take away that point of pressure because there is no way to just easily fix the underlying issues, and its not just immigration, its the entire spectrum of class and wealth inequality.
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On April 22 2025 06:07 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2025 06:04 Mohdoo wrote:On April 22 2025 02:32 Simberto wrote:On April 22 2025 01:42 maybenexttime wrote:On April 22 2025 01:08 Mohdoo wrote:On April 22 2025 01:02 maybenexttime wrote:On April 22 2025 00:54 Mohdoo wrote:
Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office. NATO is just shorthand for membership in an alliance with credible deterrence. It can be a successor to NATO (without the US and Hungary), but it could also be the EU. Yeah, I suppose to be more concise, I don't see why Russia would consider it a win to prevent NATO if EU did something similar. No matter how you slice it, war with everyone other than the US is still catastrophic for Russia. And so I don't think its enough for Russia. I think in reality they want even more than preventing NATO. Their goal is to break us from within. They're betting on Orbans and Le Pens to break the EU or render it dysfunctional. Agreed. Also important to not that they are not just passively betting on that, but also actively pushing towards it. Our most important defense goal needs to be to protect ourselves from the russian interference. Military defense is relevant, but only after we made sure that we are not dissolved from the inside by russian PsyOps and their useful idiots. I know this is a wildly unpopular take, but Europe throwing voters a bone by making a significant change to immigration policies would reduce Russia's psyops capabilities more than anything else. Doesn't need to be some MAGA dogshit, But something that meaningfully makes voters feel heard regarding immigration would deeply harm all these Russia-sponsored "movements" Which country in Europe is not doing this currently?
Maybe the echo chambers I participate in don't play it up much since its unpopular on the left. But I have not seen any major messaging out of left-leaning European political parties indicating stuff like "We need to accept when we were wrong and we were wrong, We are taking major steps to undo bad policy"
It feels more like a series of small changes here and there, without much messaging/marketing. Its like they are trying to do it under the table so as not to anger their voters.
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On April 22 2025 06:34 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2025 06:04 Mohdoo wrote:On April 22 2025 02:32 Simberto wrote:On April 22 2025 01:42 maybenexttime wrote:On April 22 2025 01:08 Mohdoo wrote:On April 22 2025 01:02 maybenexttime wrote:On April 22 2025 00:54 Mohdoo wrote:
Another ignorant question from me. Forgive me if I’m missing something obvious.
So the current administration would never protect Ukraine if it invoked article 5. So in many ways NATO membership isn’t helpful to Ukraine beyond European assistance like Poland, France, and Germany.
If a “peace plan” from the US stipulates Ukraine won’t be in NATO, what difference does it really make? If European nations can craft their own defense partnerships and protocols with Ukraine, and the US is out of the picture anyway, does Ukraine really have any benefit to holding on to NATO membership as a goal? My impression is it’s essentially all the same so long as Trump is in office. NATO is just shorthand for membership in an alliance with credible deterrence. It can be a successor to NATO (without the US and Hungary), but it could also be the EU. Yeah, I suppose to be more concise, I don't see why Russia would consider it a win to prevent NATO if EU did something similar. No matter how you slice it, war with everyone other than the US is still catastrophic for Russia. And so I don't think its enough for Russia. I think in reality they want even more than preventing NATO. Their goal is to break us from within. They're betting on Orbans and Le Pens to break the EU or render it dysfunctional. Agreed. Also important to not that they are not just passively betting on that, but also actively pushing towards it. Our most important defense goal needs to be to protect ourselves from the russian interference. Military defense is relevant, but only after we made sure that we are not dissolved from the inside by russian PsyOps and their useful idiots. I know this is a wildly unpopular take, but Europe throwing voters a bone by making a significant change to immigration policies would reduce Russia's psyops capabilities more than anything else. Doesn't need to be some MAGA dogshit, But something that meaningfully makes voters feel heard regarding immigration would deeply harm all these Russia-sponsored "movements" You can't. Because its not about the facts on the ground but about feelings, and everyone is already saying they are doing 'something'. You can't take away that point of pressure because there is no way to just easily fix the underlying issues, and its not just immigration, its the entire spectrum of class and wealth inequality.
Yeah, it simply doesn't work. We get more and more xenophobic policies, and the crazy right just gets stronger. What we would actually need to fix some of the core problems that make people angry is some massive redistribution from the top to the mid and bottom, but that is the opposite of what these people vote for.
It is not that the core problem don't exist, it is just that people are really bad at actually figuring out where their problems stem from, and then take easy answers.
We are the first generation in a long time that isn't obviously more wealthy than our parents. We can not afford having a family on a single income. Housing and food gets more and more expensive, and our pay doesn't increase in turn with it. There are less and less working people and more and more older people that require caretaking. These are real problem that people notice in their lives. And nothing effective seems to be done about it by the governments.
But the reason for that is not foreigners taking stuff away from us. The total wealth still increases, it just no longer gets distributed, and instead gets focused to an ever smaller group of super-rich billionaires. This inequality is what needs to be tackled to actually keep our democracies stable.
But it won't, because wealth buys influence, and dragons don't share their hoard.
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Pretty much what Gorsameth and Simberto said. You can't beat the far right by enacting their policies on immigration, because (1) it doesn't work, and (2) it legitimizes those parties. Just look at the pushback in Germany when the CDU sought support from the AfD.
I really do think Spain with Sanchez is taking the right approach. The government is unable to really get the hard-hitting policies done, because it has a very fragile minority coalition with tacit support from parties like Junts, who are fickle to say the best. However, the stance on immigration is from a humanist point of view, and they are trying to do things like labor reform, tax reform, and housing market reform to address at least the economic core issues. Vox (and the PP) hammer on the socio-cultural aspects, like the loss of traditions and values, and the imbalance in crime rate, and they will always have some support, but I think if the need for an economic scapegoat disappears, then the "values" argument sways far far fewer people. Whether that's actually true or not is something that hasn't really been tested yet: most of the rest of Europe took a swing to the right, with neo-liberals and their corporatist policies firmly entrenched. Anyway, it's more something for the european politics thread. Insofar as this relates to Russian psyops, it means that you'd need to work with the less crazy ones and shut out the influence of the fringest. You see that Wilders is governing in the Netherlands, but the coalition is in favor of supporting Ukraine. In Italy, Meloni waffles, but the official stance is in support of Ukraine. However distasteful I find those politicians, they are better than AfD, Vox and RN, not only on their Ukraine stances, but in general craziness (Wilders used to be at that level but has had to tone a lot of it down).
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Northern Ireland27462 Posts
Without further derailing too much, it’s quite instructive that the Russian information machine has put so much effort in in this domain.
In the sense that it’s not purely capitalising on existing trends of dissatisfaction (although it also is), but it has to exaggerate the phenomena in the first place to get quite the same traction.
Just to add that, although other posters have also done a great job in outlining the potential pitfalls of effectively buying in to the Russian line to defuse it, which I don’t think is particularly doable
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Didn't Denmark beat the far right by integrating their proposals on immigration?
People started voting for the far right party because of their immigration policies. Then the more mainstream parties adopted some or all of the far right party's policies in regards to immigraton/integration, and people stopped voting for the far right party. Now, the far right party is pretty much non-existant.
Could be wrong about all that, but that's what I thought happened at least. In any case, it might not work the same in every country, but if it has worked in one maybe don't automatically write it off.
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United States44361 Posts
The grievances are manufactured. Take the UK leaving the EU to regain control over its borders and stem the flow of non EU immigrants. Voters completely failed to understand that the EU has nothing to do with chain Pakistani migration. You can’t give them what they want because they don’t know what they want or how it relates to their demands. They’re just angry.
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On April 22 2025 08:48 Just_a_Moth wrote:
Didn't Denmark beat the far right by integrating their proposals on immigration?
People started voting for the far right party because of their immigration policies. Then the more mainstream parties adopted some or all of the far right party's policies in regards to immigraton/integration, and people stopped voting for the far right party. Now, the far right party is pretty much non-existant.
Could be wrong about all that, but that's what I thought happened at least. In any case, it might not work the same in every country, but if it has worked in one maybe don't automatically write it off.
Yes. Immigration reform is either done or being done in most countries in Europe.
I don't agree with Immigration being a made up topic you can't win on but it's certainly amplified.
Two biggest things now would be a stable Syria and an end to the war in Ukraine. Would mean a lot refuges could go home and would lead to net migration out. Together with stricter Immigration in general it would likely kill the issue in most countries.
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On April 22 2025 18:31 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2025 08:48 Just_a_Moth wrote:
Didn't Denmark beat the far right by integrating their proposals on immigration?
People started voting for the far right party because of their immigration policies. Then the more mainstream parties adopted some or all of the far right party's policies in regards to immigraton/integration, and people stopped voting for the far right party. Now, the far right party is pretty much non-existant.
Could be wrong about all that, but that's what I thought happened at least. In any case, it might not work the same in every country, but if it has worked in one maybe don't automatically write it off. Yes. Immigration reform is either done or being done in most countries in Europe. I don't agree with Immigration being a made up topic you can't win on but it's certainly amplified. Two biggest things now would be a stable Syria and an end to the war in Ukraine. Would mean a lot refuges could go home and would lead to net migration out. Together with stricter Immigration in general it would likely kill the issue in most countries.
No it wouldn't. Sure, Syrian and to a lesser extent Ukrainian refugees are a target for the far right, but their main talking points are about economic migrants, and their descendants. And those aren't going anywhere.
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On April 22 2025 19:31 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2025 18:31 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On April 22 2025 08:48 Just_a_Moth wrote:
Didn't Denmark beat the far right by integrating their proposals on immigration?
People started voting for the far right party because of their immigration policies. Then the more mainstream parties adopted some or all of the far right party's policies in regards to immigraton/integration, and people stopped voting for the far right party. Now, the far right party is pretty much non-existant.
Could be wrong about all that, but that's what I thought happened at least. In any case, it might not work the same in every country, but if it has worked in one maybe don't automatically write it off. Yes. Immigration reform is either done or being done in most countries in Europe. I don't agree with Immigration being a made up topic you can't win on but it's certainly amplified. Two biggest things now would be a stable Syria and an end to the war in Ukraine. Would mean a lot refuges could go home and would lead to net migration out. Together with stricter Immigration in general it would likely kill the issue in most countries. No it wouldn't. Sure, Syrian and to a lesser extent Ukrainian refugees are a target for the far right, but their main talking points are about economic migrants, and their descendants. And those aren't going anywhere.
Which countries haven't reformed economic migration?
It's pretty hard to immigrate to Sweden as an economic migrant these days if you are not from the EU. Need to already have a job with decent pay before you arrive.
Poorly integrated people are another problem entirely. Can't solve that with immigration.
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On April 22 2025 08:48 Just_a_Moth wrote:
Didn't Denmark beat the far right by integrating their proposals on immigration?
But did these proposals really make much of a difference in migrant numbers?
Migration has always been about perception management and not reality.
If that position is now under siege that's only because one side chose to die on that hill.
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On April 22 2025 20:08 pmp10 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2025 08:48 Just_a_Moth wrote:
Didn't Denmark beat the far right by integrating their proposals on immigration?
But did these proposals really make much of a difference in migrant numbers?
I honestly don't know, but apparently it did make people stop voting for the far right parties. I believe it did help with cultural integration/assimilation of immigrants though, even if the numbers were the same.
On April 22 2025 20:08 pmp10 wrote:Migration has always been about perception management and not reality.
Maybe in a modern sense. Historically migrations have caused a lot of conflicts and violence, and often these migrations, of whole people groups, were for reasons of access to resources; essentially economic reasons.
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Germany7421 Posts
There is also quite a difference who is migrating. In my closer enviroment the most problematic are near east and african immigrants because these are almost exclusively young male. They live cramped in some sort of housing and hang around in all kinds of public places as a consequence. This is making a lot of my female friends uncomfortable going out alone, even in broad daylight.
Now on the other side you have UA women and children. Those rarely make trouble. People love to help them get set up with housing, clothes and supplies.
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On April 23 2025 18:04 Harris1st wrote:
There is also quite a difference who is migrating. In my closer enviroment the most problematic are near east and african immigrants because these are almost exclusively young male. They live cramped in some sort of housing and hang around in all kinds of public places as a consequence. This is making a lot of my female friends uncomfortable going out alone, even in broad daylight.
Now on the other side you have UA women and children. Those rarely make trouble. People love to help them get set up with housing, clothes and supplies.
I think this also has to do with the fact that Ukraine is much closer culturally to other European countries than immigrants from the middle-east and Africa. There's much less barriers to fully integrating them into your society bar the language (and the fact they actually want to integrate).
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On April 23 2025 05:57 Just_a_Moth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2025 20:08 pmp10 wrote:
Migration has always been about perception management and not reality.
Maybe in a modern sense. Historically migrations have caused a lot of conflicts and violence, and often these migrations, of whole people groups, were for reasons of access to resources; essentially economic reasons.
I didn't mean the barbarian invader-colonizers of yore.
The worst that migration brings today is organized crime and parallel societies, but the reality is that getting more of poor native working class would come with the same problem.
It's certainly an issue but not on a scale to be a threat to a modern state.
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So under the latest, this time "take it or leave it" Trump / Witkoff / Putin proposal Ukraine gets the few sqare miles of Kherson Russia controls, the "border" is set at the current lines and they "get" to maybe join the EU, deffinately not NATO and as a cherry on top of the cake they get to share power from Zaporizhzhia nuklear facility with Russians but the plant would be under Ukrainian control.
So, basically, Ukraine is expected to completely bend over, Putin gets all of Luhansk and most of Donbas + Crimea "officially" becomes Russian as far as the US is concerned.
I'm sure that this would be received well by the Ukrainian people almost as much I'm sure that Trump won't try to shove Zelenskyy under the bus for being "ungrateful and unreasonable" for "ruining the negotiations"...
Regarding the anti-immigrant propaganda and situation in general, that is only going to get worse, Trump is in the process (and it can already be felt across social media and media at large) of putting the full might of the US propaganda machine behind this project, you don't really have to look further then JD Vance's Munich remarks, diversity and immigrants are the enemy of Europe, Russia is not, stated very plainly.
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Northern Ireland27462 Posts
On April 23 2025 23:20 Jankisa wrote:
So under the latest, this time "take it or leave it" Trump / Witkoff / Putin proposal Ukraine gets the few sqare miles of Kherson Russia controls, the "border" is set at the current lines and they "get" to maybe join the EU, deffinately not NATO and as a cherry on top of the cake they get to share power from Zaporizhzhia nuklear facility with Russians but the plant would be under Ukrainian control.
So, basically, Ukraine is expected to completely bend over, Putin gets all of Luhansk and most of Donbas + Crimea "officially" becomes Russian as far as the US is concerned.
I'm sure that this would be received well by the Ukrainian people almost as much I'm sure that Trump won't try to shove Zelenskyy under the bus for being "ungrateful and unreasonable" for "ruining the negotiations"...
Regarding the anti-immigrant propaganda and situation in general, that is only going to get worse, Trump is in the process (and it can already be felt across social media and media at large) of putting the full might of the US propaganda machine behind this project, you don't really have to look further then JD Vance's Munich remarks, diversity and immigrants are the enemy of Europe, Russia is not, stated very plainly.
Also good to know Rubio and Witkoff pulled out of planned talks with us pesky Europeans
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Uh-oh...Is US administration just admit they are completely without control of the situation and the peace they want is much more hard to negociate by tariff genius than they anticipated? How unexpected.
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EPT
