What happened?

Far right parties gaining significant popularity especially in France and Germany. It’s not great for the neo-liberal centre who created and perpetuated the economic downturn we’re all in and indicates a failure of the left to present a coherent alternative. There’s a lot to unpack about it. France has already dissolved their parliament and triggered an election because of these results.

Netherlands also going great. At least the xenophobes hate Europe so much they don’t bother showing up for European elections to simply say they want less foreigners.

Netherlands actually didn’t change much. PVV got +5, but FvD (a worse PVV) lost 4. And the VVD (where Wilders came from originally) also lost 1, so it kinda cancels out. Same goes for the left parties which went from 9 to 8, but that seat went to a progressive center party.

Overall very little has shifted here. And it seems at the European level the same coalition will continue too.

But I still haven’t seen a definitive answer to why so many voters are switching to far right parties, and how exactly they can be won back. Because the far right parties sure aren’t going to solve their problems (although they do name them), and the center assume they need to more of the same, just better, and that dpesn’t seem to be working.

It often happens when a society’s prosperity decays, even if the right doesn’t offer rational solutions. Climate change is driving a ton of problems but for many of these voters it is nonetheless a lesser concern. I think for many people who feel desperate, everything starts to look like a zero-sum game. So they vote for a policy of all take and no give.

That’s part of it another is that the right offers some easy answers to some very complex questions. They aren’t the right answers but they’re easier to wrap your head around. As prosperity drops, the time, effort and resources the average person can commit to understanding the complex problems facing their country also drop. This means the easy answers take root easier, and spread further and faster because the less informed are less resilient to them.

We lefties have some easy answers and they feel quite right, too. Eat the rich. But I guess it’s not that famous in the less educated social stratum - “What if I am one of the rich, after I won the lottery?”

“Eat the Rich” aka attack the middle class while the elite laugh in your face.