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Comment by jack_tripper | Hacker News Reader

>Europeans don't vote left and green.

Not difficult to see why when both parties have implemented policies that have become very unpopular with the masses. You're not gonna win voters on "let them eat cake" policies when the no. 1 concern of voters is keeping their job and affording the ever increasing bills.

Both left and green parties have been writing cheques that the working class had to cash, so now they're experiencing the backlash consequences of their actions. It's just democracy at work.

They need to "git gud" and give the people what they want if they want votes. It's really not rocket science, but self reflection seems to be heavily lacking in politics due to how detached the ruling class are from the working class.

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Social policies and a clean environment is what I want

What social and environmental policies are you currently lacking? Be specific please.

And we all want many thing in life, like for example I would want my bus to work every 5 minutes instead of every 30 minutes, but everything nice in life has a hefty price, and if you make a large part of the economy bankrupt or leave and workers unemployed or broke from rising costs, in exchange for financially unrealistic environmental targets that only a small part of the population can tolerate("let them eat cake"), then that might not sit well with a large part of the democratic voting population who has to bare the brunt of your wishes.

A balance has to be found between what's nice and desirable and what's economically feasible without causing economic hardship on others, otherwise something breaks and you get rising extremism and .

That' true, but now everything depends on "what is economically feasable" and unless we are experts ourselves we can't really know. We need to rely on experts to tell us what is economically feasable, but those experts are the ones under pressure from lobbyists to say one thing or the other. Some parties says that it's economically feasable and that will actually save money, other parties say that it's not feasable and it would cost too much.

Oil companies and countries that sell oil will say it's not feasable and companies that produce panels says that it is.

We cannot rely on "what is economically feasable" because unless you are and expert you will have to get that info from one side or the other, and even independent bodies will be under lobbying pressures.

Then vote for it. Seems a growing majority disagree with you now. Maybe those policies haven’t worked well for them.

When the majority agree with me, it's just democracy working as intended.

When the majority disagrees with me then there must be some anti-democratic meddling or foreign interference going on.

In my experience, it’s almost always the right wing parties who harm working class while supporting their own.

They just do a fabulous job of convincing the working and lower classes that they’re “one of the people” while shifting the blame onto other people (immigrants, disabled, anyone who wants a living wage from their 40+ hour job, etc).

Left and right are just sides of the same cleptocratic coin, catering to different audiences but ultimately doing the same thing.

Because wealth inequality and housing unaffordability has increased regardless if left or right wing were in power.

There's no good and bad one here, they're both just cosplaying.

I’m don’t think either the Uk or the US have had a properly “left” party in power. They are just a cosplaying, as you say. But that doesn’t mean that left wing parties don’t exist.

What exactly is a "properly left party" that we don't have?

Is that like the meme on how communism isn't bad, because we never had "real communism"?

No. More like central or Western European parties. Or Green in the UK. Most left-wing politicians in America would seem right wing in, for example, Netherlands.

I think bringing communism into the discussion around left wing parties is as daft as saying all republicans or Tories are Nazis.

The problem with the UK and US is we’re so used to right wing policies that anything moderately left is considered “extreme”. There’s no nuance left because people are closed off to it. (And to be fair, may left wing folk don’t help when they call their right wing peers “racists”. There definitely needs to be more tolerance on both sides)

>No. More like central or Western European parties.

That couldn't be more vague. That's like saying I want a car like the ones in that parking lot over there.

You have no idea that some parties in Poland, Hungary or Romania would make Donald Trump look left wing.

When I asked you what type of left parties you claim are lacking, I expected to hear the exact policies you want but are lacking, not pointing at random parties that not everyone knows.

And we've have enough left wing and green policies in Europe since they're the ones who championed the "refugees welcome" open borders problem, gas dependence on Russian gas and denuclearisation.

> That couldn't be more vague.

That’s why I then gave examples ;)

> You have no idea that some parties in Poland, Hungary or Romania would make Donald Trump look left wing.

You’re now talking about nationalist parties.

But yes, I do agree that there are right wing leaning counties in Central Europe as well.

To be honest, it feels like the whole world is heading that way right now.

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