The shit's about to hit the fan in the EU, VSPs.

[Lago PARANOIA]

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.614440

Far-right politician Marine Le Pen would win the French presidency in a run-off election against incumbent François Hollande, according to the shock results of a poll released on Friday.

I'm sure that the Very Serious People would like us to believe that the current status quo of the EU is, while unfortunate, indefinitely stable so no drastic action needs to be taken. The fucking National Front becoming the majority party in France shows that this is not the case. Like Hollande, Le Pen might just prove to be another austerian shill that ends up discrediting her nominal ideology -- and that's the most plausible best case scenario. The worst case scenario is... well, do I even have to elaborate? Fascists have a propensity for fucking things up.

[Fwib]

There appears to be a lot of 'right wing'/xenophobic shenanigans going on in European politics lately - I think a lot of it might be to do with the economic problems.

Personally, I am just hoping for the bad things to go away.

[Koumei]

Apparently the ECB are trying their hand at quantitative easing, despite Angela Merkel not liking this, in an almost last-ditch effort to fight the problems caused by austerity. Now it's probably too little too late in regards to fixing everything, but it might do enough good that the fascist movements lose popularity and more people decide it's good for their country to flat-out tell Germany to go fuck itself.

[Username17]

There appears to be a lot of 'right wing'/xenophobic shenanigans going on in European politics lately - I think a lot of it might be to do with the economic problems.

Personally, I am just hoping for the bad things to go away.

This is exactly why the EU is fucked. Empires hold together because they are able to credibly offer a carrot to their subjects and credibly offer a stick to those who would tear them apart. Call it the mandate of heaven if you want, empires who lose that credibility do not last long.

What credibility does the EU have? The Euro zone is running an unemployment rate of 11.5%, can the EU credibly promise stability or prosperity? Absolutely not. Not only have they failed to produce growth, they have failed to outperform the Great Depression. But it's worse than that! What's the EU plan for getting economic recovery? It's a combination of hard money policies that deter investment and austerity measures that directly reduce the government's contribution to employment. Leaving aside the fact that that is literally the textbook example of the worst possible plan, even if you took them at their word that it could work how is that an argument for the EU?

They aren't promising to do anything about the crisis, they are promising to do absolutely fucking nothing while local enterprise and multinational corporations fix the problem themselves. Even if you believed the plan would work, why we would you accept marching orders from Bruxels? Why not eliminate the middle man and swear allegiance to local warlords or private corporations directly? Over and above the fact that the EU has empirically demonstrated that they should not be considered an authority on anything, they don't even have an argument as to why they should have any moral authority at all.

So that's the carrot out of the way. The EU is in worse position to promise prosperity for your loyalty than Julius Meinl. What about the stick approach? Numerous empires have held together by simply murdering those who would try to escape. Flower wars and all that. Well, the EU responded to Switzerland unilaterally ending free movement of people and Hungary declaring an end to liberal democracy by doing... nothing. Really, before any of your threats can be considered credible, you have to not publicly fail to follow through on every one you've ever made.

So what's left? The only arrow left in the EU's quiver is to Godwin the conversation - to claim that if you don't do things their way, that Hitler wins. Now the kind of nonsense history you'd have to believe to think that following hard money Germans in a time of mass unemployment was the way to stop Hitler is hard for me to wrap my mind around. But undeniably, the EU's constant claim that the true opposition to their policies is Nazism has had the predictable effect of giving moral authority to actual fascists whenever they fuck up. And they've fucked up so often and so totally that if the election were held today, France would elect Girl Hitler for president.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

So what's left? The only arrow left in the EU's quiver is to Godwin the conversation - to claim that if you don't do things their way, that Hitler wins. Now the kind of nonsense history you'd have to believe to think that following hard money Germans in a time of mass unemployment was the way to stop Hitler is hard for me to wrap my mind around.
-Username17

I don't know whether it's the government's or the media's or academia's fault but the idea that hyperinflation, and not hard money, was the root cause of Hitler is distressingly common across the planet. Super, duper inflation and the Great Depression sort of get congealed into this historical mash in most peoples' minds.

[hyzmarca]

Images of people pushing wheelbarrows full of money and five billion mark postage stamps are very evocative.

[Morat]

Images of people pushing wheelbarrows full of money and five billion mark postage stamps are very evocative.

I think this is a big part of it. What little history people know is largely made up of stories that make sense to their preconceptions.

I also think that austerity fits the narrative better, so it can't possibly be to blame. Things went wrong, therefore someone must be punished, and the medicine has to be unpleasant. Thus, Keynesian policies are a priori wrong, because they prescribe jobs programs instead of grinding poverty. And this is extra appealing, since the people being hurt the most are the lower orders who obviously caused the problem, by forcing multinational investment banks to make stupid bets with money they didn't have.

It also helps Germans feel superior, as the rational, responsible adults who have to clean up the mess that those lazy, hedonistic Spaniards/Italians/Greeks/whatever made. The conservatives (who are, of course, in power) especially would rather not accept that austerity was also the big plan of Weimar conservatives and it was such a success that it brought Hitler to power. Much easier to blame the Nazis on hyperinflation that obviously those profligate Social Democrats caused.

[Blade]

I seriously doubt Marine Le Pen really has her chance. Presidential elections in France follow a two round system.
With Hollande that low, he would be unlikely to get to the second round.

The percentage of people who actually support Marine Le Pen are probably around 25% to 30% at most. And I think that a majority of people in France are against her. They might say that they prefer her over François Hollande, but they won't want her as a President.

This is actually confirmed by the full results of the poll: according to it, the second round would be between Marine Le Pen and the UMP candidate, and the UMP candidate would win with more than 60% of the votes. Actually, due to the large number of non-voters who'd actually vote against the Front National in that situation (as happened in 2002 when the Front National made it to the second round), the UMP would probably score higher than that.

The extreme right is on the rise in France, and it has been for quite some time, but for now this is more fear mongering than anything else.

[Koumei]

The extreme right is on the rise in France, and it has been for quite some time, but for now this is more fear mongering than anything else.

That's still more influence than sane people are comfortable with them having, though.