Depends where in Europe. It is a bit bit arguably not as hard right as the states. You also have to consider that the cut off for left and right differ wildly between countries. AOC is pretty much center for Scandinavia. Joe Biden is center right… Which is why we’re so concerned about trump.
The right-left spectrum is just a construct, a made up thing that doesn’t have much bearing on reality.
In reality politics is about pressure, not ideology. The the Democrats had the Whitehouse and Congress for a few decades, the US would be what you’d consider to be “further left” than Europe. Demcoracy is a process not a checkout on Amazon. You don’t choose which ideology suits you best (ideology is all just a scam) you choose which direction you want to pressure the government to go in.
Right now in Europe the pressure is going rightwards.
Fascism is a funny thing because it’s a hard focus on emotional manipulation to make it acceptable to flip the board and have a group of people seize authoritarian power. Communism is similar, they just exploit different emotional pressure points. A right-left distinction between radical ideologies is really silly since they’re all ultimately about emotionally manipulating people into being angry enough to think authoritarianism is a good thing. One promises to make you stronger another promises you make you more equal, but in the end it’s just authoritarianism.
Obviously the US is currently more vulnerable to this than Europe at the moment, but let’s not get under the illusion that Europe is safe because of made up political spectrums when so many people have been brainwashed by ideological bullshit in both places. Same goes for Canada (where I’m from) at the moment as much as it pains me to admit it.
I’d say the UK would be safer than both Continental Europe or Canada at the moment, since it’s guaranteed there will be at least four years without there being a chance of things going fascist, and it seems people there have generally gotten tired of the ideological bullshit and just want political stability. I doubt Kier Starmer will be doing any ideological purges.
These Syrian Islamists are also here. Like here in the Netherlands a couple of months ago two Syrians beat up an old Iraqi immigrant because he was wearing a cross. And in May a Syrian father honor killed his daughter with the help of his sons. This shit happens everywhere these Syrians fled to in huge numbers.
Yeah, sure, European reactionaries are so well known for their inclusive position towards the LGBTQ community; it’s those damn immigrants protesting drag shows and criminalizing abortion.
Stop instrumentalizing the discrimination minorities face to legitimize discrimination of other minorities, you xenophobe.
Lol stop thinking conservative Muslims aren’t a problem in Europe. Just because white racist conservatives are making live hard for the lgbtq and Muslims doesn’t mean the Muslim community are all allies. A person who suffers from discrimination can be themselves a bigot.
Also I’m an immigrant in the Netherlands myself living in a neighborhood with lots of Muslims. I’m seeing the problems some of the Muslim immigrants cause first hand. Lgbtq will never walk hand in hand in my neighborhood. Muslim youths will straight up harass and commit violence if they see a gay couple walking hand in hand. I’m not saying all Muslims are gay bashers but the portion of liberal minded Muslims is in my experience a tiny fraction of the Muslim community in my country.
I don’t think the Muslim community as a whole is an ally to the LGBTQ community, but to believe that this is an isolated problem that can be attributed to one single community is dishonest.
By thinking that homophobia is isolated to specific communities along ethnic or religious lines and not economic or educational ones, you’re replicating homonationalism.
You can and will have the same experience as an LBGTQ couple in a poor neighborhood inhabited by Muslim immigrants and a poor, conservative neighborhood inhabited by predominately white people. I would not want to hold hands with someone of the same gender in a rural Polish/Hungarian/East German/etc village.
I never said it’s purely isolated to Muslims, but the left far too often turns in my opinion a blind eye to the problematic ideology within the Muslim community, just because the Muslims are victims of discrimination themselves. In the last 30 years left wing politicians have been calling everyone racist in a knee jerk reaction when people point to the problems within the migrant Muslim communities even to people who were just pointing out to integration and social economic issues. And now Europe is swinging to the right because the left and liberal parties haven’t been listening to the people for those 30 years.
And like you said there are plenty of poor conservative homophobic natives in Europe, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to let more homophobes into the country. The left wing and centrists parties have been too soft on immigration of poor conservatives Muslims coming into Europe, it just made the homophobia worse and put the LGBTQ community at more risk. And since these conservative migrants are more likely to move into the liberal cities than conservative rural natives the share of attacks and harassment on LGBTQ by Muslims is disproportionately higher. Look the West should always take in people who are fleeing from wars or who are seeking political asylum, but we should be more stricter when we give out permanent residency visas. Letting intolerant refugees, who would have never qualified to migrate into the country if they weren’t refugees, stay when their home country is already safe just makes the country less tolerant to LGBTQ which also in turn makes the country less tolerant towards migrants.
I’d encourage LGBTQ folk to relocate to western and northern Europe. It ain’t perfect, but you’re very unlikely to get the shit kicked out of you.
I’m not sure about that for the UK at least. My British friends say Labour is going anti trans
That’s true. They don’t call it terf island for nothing.
Feels like Labour has really fallen behind other left-wing parties – to the point that they’re even right of Democrats on some issues.
Europe seems to be swinging hard right these days though isn’t it?
Depends where in Europe. It is a bit bit arguably not as hard right as the states. You also have to consider that the cut off for left and right differ wildly between countries. AOC is pretty much center for Scandinavia. Joe Biden is center right… Which is why we’re so concerned about trump.
The right-left spectrum is just a construct, a made up thing that doesn’t have much bearing on reality.
In reality politics is about pressure, not ideology. The the Democrats had the Whitehouse and Congress for a few decades, the US would be what you’d consider to be “further left” than Europe. Demcoracy is a process not a checkout on Amazon. You don’t choose which ideology suits you best (ideology is all just a scam) you choose which direction you want to pressure the government to go in.
Right now in Europe the pressure is going rightwards.
Fascism is a funny thing because it’s a hard focus on emotional manipulation to make it acceptable to flip the board and have a group of people seize authoritarian power. Communism is similar, they just exploit different emotional pressure points. A right-left distinction between radical ideologies is really silly since they’re all ultimately about emotionally manipulating people into being angry enough to think authoritarianism is a good thing. One promises to make you stronger another promises you make you more equal, but in the end it’s just authoritarianism.
Obviously the US is currently more vulnerable to this than Europe at the moment, but let’s not get under the illusion that Europe is safe because of made up political spectrums when so many people have been brainwashed by ideological bullshit in both places. Same goes for Canada (where I’m from) at the moment as much as it pains me to admit it.
I’d say the UK would be safer than both Continental Europe or Canada at the moment, since it’s guaranteed there will be at least four years without there being a chance of things going fascist, and it seems people there have generally gotten tired of the ideological bullshit and just want political stability. I doubt Kier Starmer will be doing any ideological purges.
These Syrian Islamists are also here. Like here in the Netherlands a couple of months ago two Syrians beat up an old Iraqi immigrant because he was wearing a cross. And in May a Syrian father honor killed his daughter with the help of his sons. This shit happens everywhere these Syrians fled to in huge numbers.
Yeah, sure, European reactionaries are so well known for their inclusive position towards the LGBTQ community; it’s those damn immigrants protesting drag shows and criminalizing abortion.
Stop instrumentalizing the discrimination minorities face to legitimize discrimination of other minorities, you xenophobe.
Lol stop thinking conservative Muslims aren’t a problem in Europe. Just because white racist conservatives are making live hard for the lgbtq and Muslims doesn’t mean the Muslim community are all allies. A person who suffers from discrimination can be themselves a bigot.
Also I’m an immigrant in the Netherlands myself living in a neighborhood with lots of Muslims. I’m seeing the problems some of the Muslim immigrants cause first hand. Lgbtq will never walk hand in hand in my neighborhood. Muslim youths will straight up harass and commit violence if they see a gay couple walking hand in hand. I’m not saying all Muslims are gay bashers but the portion of liberal minded Muslims is in my experience a tiny fraction of the Muslim community in my country.
I don’t think the Muslim community as a whole is an ally to the LGBTQ community, but to believe that this is an isolated problem that can be attributed to one single community is dishonest. By thinking that homophobia is isolated to specific communities along ethnic or religious lines and not economic or educational ones, you’re replicating homonationalism.
You can and will have the same experience as an LBGTQ couple in a poor neighborhood inhabited by Muslim immigrants and a poor, conservative neighborhood inhabited by predominately white people. I would not want to hold hands with someone of the same gender in a rural Polish/Hungarian/East German/etc village.
I never said it’s purely isolated to Muslims, but the left far too often turns in my opinion a blind eye to the problematic ideology within the Muslim community, just because the Muslims are victims of discrimination themselves. In the last 30 years left wing politicians have been calling everyone racist in a knee jerk reaction when people point to the problems within the migrant Muslim communities even to people who were just pointing out to integration and social economic issues. And now Europe is swinging to the right because the left and liberal parties haven’t been listening to the people for those 30 years.
And like you said there are plenty of poor conservative homophobic natives in Europe, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to let more homophobes into the country. The left wing and centrists parties have been too soft on immigration of poor conservatives Muslims coming into Europe, it just made the homophobia worse and put the LGBTQ community at more risk. And since these conservative migrants are more likely to move into the liberal cities than conservative rural natives the share of attacks and harassment on LGBTQ by Muslims is disproportionately higher. Look the West should always take in people who are fleeing from wars or who are seeking political asylum, but we should be more stricter when we give out permanent residency visas. Letting intolerant refugees, who would have never qualified to migrate into the country if they weren’t refugees, stay when their home country is already safe just makes the country less tolerant to LGBTQ which also in turn makes the country less tolerant towards migrants.
Both are true