It’s been reported that in the German elections, a far right party has made ‘significant gains’.
In the UK (at least before the scandals) Reform UK seems to have had a significant boost and has even surpassed the right-wing Conservative Party in some polls/predictions.
Even France, one or two years ago, was threatened with a far-right government due to the French far right party gaining a lot of support.
It feels like in the last few years, the far-right has exceeded itself and had a surge in popularity. Is this the case? And if so, wtf is fuelling it?
I get what you’re saying. At the end of the day there is a lot of posturing on both sides. A comprehensive immigration policy is not something that can be typed up as a forum reply, at least not by me.
But I think youre kind of missing the point. Liberals aren’t arguing in favor of immigration with arguments that account for “any and all business relationship, education partnerships, or trade that the lifeblood of that country already lives by”. They’re just trotting out slogans like “nobody is illegal” and telling anecdotes of immigrants and migrants being treated cruelly. And that’s not a mistake, because the average voter knows fuck-all about the complex economic impacts of immigration, nor do they really care to learn.
The problem is that the bleeding-heart message of “we have to help these people who are suffering” is losing to the message of “our way of life is under attack by immigration”. Like, everywhere. It happens every time - as immigration increases, attitudes towards immigrants become more negative. The alt-right is winning almost solely because they are the only ones who are tapping into this resentment.
If liberals and leftists want to stick to their more open-borders policy (which i would loosely define as accepting all refugees in need and not deporting people simply because they are illegal immigrants), they are going to continue to lose.
At least in the US, I actually do support open boarders unironically. People like to use “you’re standing on stolen land” as an empty platitude. But I actually internalize it.
I live on stolen land that was given to my ancestors after a genocide. I didn’t personally commit such an act. I don’t feel a moral responsibility for things that happened before I was born. But still, I do benefit from it today. Morally, we probably should give the land back to the natives. There’s no statute of limitations on returning stolen property. As a practical matter, however, we simply can’t just give all the land back to the Native Americans, regardless of the morality of it. You can’t just make 300 million people stateless. We can’t undue the Native American genocide. We can’t even give all the land back. There’s no way to give that much land back without creating a humanitarian disaster on the scale of the original Native American genocide.
Giving the land back is impossible. But at the same time, I realize that I as a white person living in the US have fuck-all right to tell anyone they can’t move here. My ancestors had no right to come here, and they did anyway. What right do I have to tell someone from another country they can’t come here? Fuck anyone lamenting the loss of “American culture” and “the American way of life.” Unless you’re Navajo, you can fuck right off with that. The native people can complain about the loss of a way of life. The rest of us are just a bunch of illegal immigrants squatting on native land.
I think we in the US should be “the nation of the world.” It should be a place where literally anyone, anywhere, has a right to come here. What better use for a land conquered by genocide? We should have open borders, or as close to open boarders as practically possible. You can’t take in a hundred million people over the course of a single year. But the only limits on the number of immigrants we take in should be logistical ones. But as long as we can keep growing enough food and building enough housing for the new arrivals? We should have effectively open borders.
I don’t even think this is a losing issue. Democrats have been trying for years to move further and further right on immigration, and it hasn’t worked. Biden deported more people than Trump did in his first term. But when the Democrats move right to try to appeal to Republican immigration voters, the Republican party just moves even further to the right. There’s no actual immigration policy that the right won’t portray as open borders. The Democrats fell into a trap.
Instead, Democrats should go hard the other way. They say we want open borders? No Democrat has ever actually publicly campaigned on that. But fuck it, maybe we should. You’re damn right I want open borders! What right do I, a squatter living on stolen land, have to tell someone else they can’t squat here as well?
This is why Democrats have been stuck with empty platitudes. They decry the cruelty of Trump’s immigration policies. But their actual policy proposals aren’t that different - they’re just less performatively cruel. They have no interest in dismantling ICE. If MAGA loses in 2028, Democrats will maintain most of the same policies as Trump, just with fewer ICE thugs brazenly harassing people in the streets.
Democrats don’t actually have a response on immigration, which is why they’ve lost so much ground on it. Maybe the answer instead is to revive the American tradition of viewing itself as a beacon and refuge to the world. It was carved onto Lady Liberty for a damn good reason.
Liberals claiming that people should not be thrown in concentration camps for their skin color does not mean they oppose immigration reform. Most of them agree the policies need small improvements, but can also point to great improvements in life through immigration. In decades past, America (even under Republican leadership) actively sought it, and received economic booms through it.
You claiming that the message of helping people is losing needs some MASSIVE citations, since it stands against everything that most of us have grown up around from a basic moral standpoint, as well as well-founded research about how societies improve based on mutual support, rather than selfish hoarding. In America, for instance, most of the vocal anti-immigrant sentiment doesn’t actually come from people living in areas that have been “ruined” by immigrants - it comes externally from people who have been given entirely facetious narratives of these immigrants, hallucinating a reality where the cities are “burning in chaos” from their impact.
If you want to discuss the point, don’t dare with the “It’s gonna happen” fallacy, used by Trump to try to claim Denmark (no), Russia to claim Ukraine (no), or hateful bigots to push racial ideologies masked as “anti-DEI” (no).
And if you believe there is actually a “problem to address” that goes beyond the R-word, then you’d need to point out what actual, tangible issue oppression and violence thinly masked behind an “Immigration enforcement” label somehow solves. Elucidate the point. Maybe it’s “Well, everyone knows immigrants are an issue! Just look at the job market!” So say “JOB MARKET”, and we can discuss that. Otherwise, I doubt there’s much to talk about, because it likely DOES go back to the R word, no matter how much you want to defend it by sheer populism.