Interesting!
> It’s not a mystery why people are pissed off and looking for non-mainstream candidates.
Why are they? Generally, economies are doing well, there is peace - at least, they were until the fascists started disrupting it.
> It’s made a come back in Italy and India.
Hungary, Poland, US, Russia, Brazil, El Salvador, ... where does it end?
> A big mystery is why the far-left has vanished.
Agreed, and even the moderately left.
There's also secular decline in a lot of southern european manufacturing, so the economic basis for stable income and family life in a lot of places just isn't there anymore.
That’s the big wedge issue for the far right - migration of people and capital.
When their factory closes down and is moved to a cheaper country, might the workers be worried about open borders?
That conflates the centrists, including left and right (when there was a center-right) with the left. The progressive left was always dubious at best about globalization, iirc.
The migration thing is, to a great extent, people inflaming ethnic hatred. People like open borders when they want to migrate themselves, or hire migrants; it also brings trade and tourism; it brings peace and eliminates pointless political distinctions.
I agree that globalization needs to address the relatively easy mobility of capital relative to labor. But that problem is arguably extreme capitalism - where the capitalists get whatever they want - not globalization. Globalization writ by labor would have looked a lot different.
Notice the protests by farmers, truckers, etc.
The progressive left in America is formed in heavily globalized universities. They are 100% in support of globalization, as they are beneficiaries and producers of it.
I don’t know where the “heart and soul” of the European progressive left is. Other than Spanish socialists, I don’t think there are many.
Eh, this varies. Most people in the labour force are young, and young people are generally leftward-leaning. In some regions of the UK, labour have traditionally been pretty socially progressive.
There’s little support for neofascism in the UK, so it’s not the best example as to why fascism is making a comeback.