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The right only cares about wellbeing of the rich, and is usually keen to exploit the demographic majority in the interest of the few (see what is happening in US now). I follow politics of democratic countries closely for few dozen years, but I have yet to find an example of rightist party which improved economic wellbeing of its constituents (except those who are already rich)

Worth considering Spain. Spain should be much wealthier than it is. And that's due to Franco.

Exactly. The establishment doesn’t care about the people and wave them off, so populist parties took the advantage. This happened before and will happen again.

Let's be crystal clear, parties like the AfD don't care either. History is chock full of examples where far-right leaders got into power and broke most of their promises and achieved the polar opposite for most of their followers. For example Trump campaigned on "eggs too expensive" and promptly passed legislation that allowed the farms to price-fix even harder leading to "eggs even more expensive". The same has happened again and again with the "let's make the country secure again" claims, e.g. starting WW2 did not in fact make the average German's life safer.

Their propaganda is that they care so the point is that the other guys don’t care so people flock to someone who says they genuinely care. It’s hard to fix the economy so I don’t think anyone can fix it. And as history shows again and again I think whoever gets the government is going to sleep with the big corps anyway.

Are you not a fan of AfD if you believe everything they claim and completely demonize the other side?

I don’t really understand what you’re asking, but I don’t think the AFD is really a unique phenomenon. The popularity of right wing parties is across the entire West and IMO it’s for the exact reasons I just wrote.

Harris lost to Trump in 2024 for what I see as exactly the same reasons.

I think you downplay the role of social media in fanning the flames.

"Careless People" talks about it and how it was the inception of Meta's powerplay into politics by becoming indispensable for politicians to use their platforms to reach voters. The only thing they cared about is engagement and avoiding regulations, both are easily achievable if polarisation becomes the norm, the obliteration of proper political discourse into the form it exists now is a consequence of that.

I don't believe those far-right parties would have this much support if public discourse wasn't mostly focused on online platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X, etc., they wouldn't have the reach nor the tools for creating information bubbles as existing right now. Those platforms allow for the formation of entire separate realities that are self-reinforcing.

Sure that’s a factor. But I think it’s pretty obvious in reality that a lot of people are not having a good time in contemporary western society. Social media didn’t invent that.

> Social media didn’t invent that.

Hence why I started with "fanning the flames". It means the issues are there, they need to be worked on but with social media we are stuck, solving complex issues require compromises, long-term thinking and planning, nothing that is enabled by social media's knee-jerk reactions, ephemeral messaging, etc.

I think both can be true: there are issues with affordable housing and integration of immigrants. But at the same time parties are poisoning minds with mass-scale disinformation, propaganda, trolling, through social media. These are even more effective when issues already exist.

Sadly, some of the parties that are involved (tech bros, Russia, etc.) are not going to do any good when it comes to these issues. They'll only make the housing issues worse (by accumulating even more wealth and invading your country, respectively). But blaming everything on immigrants and elites has always worked extremely well, in-group vs. out-group is something that our brain needed for survival in the past, so it is very easy to trigger.

The saddest part is that those that push the anti-elite narrative (Trump, Musk, etc.) are often the elites themselves.

That's like saying the establishment would have an easier time controlling the unruly populance if they still had an iron grip on all public communication. True, but doesn't exactly advance the argument that I think you want to.

That's not at all what I'm saying, you can make your point without trying to stuff words in my mouth.

The mistake in your analysis is that it is not just the far right but populism in general is on the rise, Mamdani, Green party in the UK etc.

I don’t see how that goes against what I’ve said. It’s not about right wing parties becoming more inherently popular, it’s about them taking advantage of the unpopularity of the establishment, and voters looking the other way on moral issues because of it.

That doesn’t imply that the candidate must have morally dubious character, just that morally dubious characters are taking advantage of it.

> I don’t like having opinions on political parties in countries where

and then proceeds with extreme opinions on that parties.

Far-right parties have increased their presence thanks to inequality created by conservative parties and well funded campaigns by billionaries.

Let's not pretend that this is the will of the people when so much money is put into moving the blame of the current state of the economy from billionaires and monopolies towards working class people of foreign origin. (Like if it was working class people the ones hoarding money and power)

It's a little condescending to treat millions of people as puppets of billionaires. Are there not billions behind the media you consume? (ycombinator...)

A lot of 'extreme views' being bandied around are not really any different to what was spoken about in the 90s, tbh. Even Tony Blair was making comments on topics like immigration which would make today's audience blush.

We've had decades of centrist governments all throughout Europe. Do they not shoulder any blame for the rise of the far-right? Or is it only the "billionaires" who have agency?

> ... centrist governments ... shoulder any blame

I agree somewhat. However, the fault of mainstream politics is one of failure. The fault of extraterritorial actors is one of action.

I think that mainstream governments in the rounds haven't done enough for hoi polloi in the past few decades, but also that perceptions of what they could have fine may often be unrealistic. There are many prophets - some shallow thinkers might say "just read [ Das Kapital | Friedman ] and do that", but i don't agree that ideology delivers the benefits it promises.

It was a tall order to expect the past few decades of governing parties to satisfy the people enough that they don't turn to AfD shit.

Mainstream politicians' capital comes from votes, an expensive and limited resource. Extraterritorial actors do not have this constraint.

Where i end up is: yes, we should blame tired neoliberal parties for failing the people and driving then to charlatans. But that blame should be tempered by an understanding that government is a game that never leaves everybody satisfied. But extraterritorial actors? They are somewhere between philosophically vacant and hostile, and they are fucking with us just because they can. The blame is categorically greater.

The economic platform of the AfD doesn't even pretend to care about normal people. Neither does the Republican platform and Trump in particular in the US.

This argument has been repeated for decades, but I just don't see it.

> the AfD doesn't even pretend to care about normal people.

It explicitly cares about people who identify as traditional Germans, who in their own eyes are "the normal people".

On the economic side, Gemini tells me that they favour deregulation, smaller government, and reducing bureaucracy for small and medium-sized enterprises (Mittelstand). They also want to increase family support payments to incentivise having children. These are all economic policies that make sense to conservative-minded "normal people".

Deregulation, smaller government, and reducing bureaucracy aren't conservative values. Any conservative that believes that has been duped into libertarian capitalism.

> Deregulation, smaller government, and reducing bureaucracy aren't conservative values.

They're fiscally conservative values, as you likely already know. Social and fiscal conservatism are correlated, as you likely also already know.

In order for you to make this statement, you had to take a word ("conservative") that can be interpreted in one of two well-known ways ("social conservative", "fiscal conservative"), and pretend that when I used that word, I must have meant the way that doesn't make sense, instead of the way that obviously does.

Sure, fair enough, but in my defense, "conservative" used to mean fiscal conservativism is a very American concept. I wouldn't say 'conservative-minded "normal people"' in a discussion about the AfD necessarily or obviously invokes the idea of fiscal conservativism.

You're probably too well informed. Most people aren't.

Most people, at least in the US, have no clue wtf is going on.

I'd seriously wager maybe 20% of the US population even understands the basics of how their state government functions. Less than 10% probably understand their local government or could name more than 1 local politician.

This isn't hyperbole. A shocking number of Americans are PROUD to not be engaged in politics in any way. Especially for young folks, politics and understanding the government are just not cool.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv98ze40jz18o

Correct, everyone is paying more except the top 1% under Trump.

I agree with much of what you are saying. Personally, I have a distaste for far-right and far-left parties, to put it mildly. However, I think it's really telling that the term "populism" has been so vilified. Here is the definition of populism according to Merriam-Webster:

> 1. a political philosophy or movement that represents or is claimed to represent the interests of ordinary people especially against the Establishment

> 2. general concern for ordinary people

In US politics, both Bernie Sanders and Trump were put in the same bucket and derided as populists by the media, even though their policies could not be more different.

One thing I would add is that we have the most concentrated control of media/influence since pre-Gutenberg times. This is a huge issue, as a very small number of people have control of our politics and emotions, and use that to further their own increasingly weirdo interests.

The Nazis became popular during The Great Depression (which affected Germany) and we are seeing history repeat itself. Someone is now going to tell me we aren't in a recession because "number go up!" while everything around us tells us a different story.

The great depression was just as much a wealth concentration at the cost of the 95% as is happening now, history will repeat itself. Speculation followed by wealth inequality followed by tarifs followed by reduced international trade. Sounds familiar.

I have different hypothesis. How I see it democracy have 2 very good feedback loops.

Fast one - the one that used journalism (so called 4th branch of government) that enjoyed public trust and more or less was factual which in turn kept public opinion more or less in one shared and factual reality. This in turn put pressure on actual government in between elections.

And there is second one - slower - public could change government in elections based on the lived experience of last N years.

The monopolies broke 1st loop completely. And the 2nd was hindered. Now ppl cannot choose directionally in slow loop (elections) what is good for their self interest bcs they do not have factual picture of reality. So they can choose based on vibes which in turn is as good as "random move away form current status quo".

IMHO still way better then autocracy.

Case in point - ppl voted for Trump among other things bcs of gasoline prices. How it turned out...

And why right wing - bcs said monopolies put thumb on the scale - as their are capital after all. And they do have more self awareness what is best for their interest. If democracy survives next will move will be ditching current right wing for whatever else and then even monopolies thumb on scale probably will not help current regimes.

Well, this is exactly how people voted for Hitler, and I would have assumed people know from history how it ended when "moral approach" was thrown away.

Apparently, everyone forgot already.

You’ve taken the exact opposite point from the comment I wrote. Please try again.

> But I think this kind of moral approach is precisely why right wing parties have been winning globally

No, right wing parties have been winning globally because they are vastly more resourced both financially and media-space-ly than the opposition. If you can constantly flood the zone with bullshit, it becomes impossible for the opposition to correct the disinformation before the next flood arrives.