2013-05-06

Japan, UK, Hungary, Russia swing right; U.S. right begins to organize

As always, there's a great gulf between what each party stands for in each country, but the general trend is away from left-wing politics.

In the UK, a major victory for UKIP: Local Council Elections: UKIP Make Big Gains
With UKIP averaging 26% of the vote in county council polls, leader Nigel Farage said he was "astonished" by the party's breakthrough, and put it down to what he described as the "total disconnect" between the "career politics" of Westminster and ordinary people on the streets.
Current PM David Cameron said in 2006 that UKIP was full of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists." After these results, he said he will fight to win their votes back.

Japan PM's 'stealth' constitution plan raises civil rights fears
Many Japanese conservatives see the constitution, unchanged since its adoption in 1947 during the U.S.-led Allied Occupation, as an embodiment of Western-style, individualistic mores they believe eroded Japan's group-oriented traditions.
Just to be clear about the Japanese trend:




In Hungary: Jobbik rally against World Jewish Congress in Budapest
"The Israeli conquerors, these investors, should look for another country in the world for themselves because Hungary is not for sale," party chairman Gabor Vona told the rally, according to Reuters news agency.

Marton Gyongyosi said Hungary had "become subjugated to Zionism, it has become a target of colonisation while we, the indigenous people, can play only the role of extras".

Last year, Mr Gyongyosi had sparked outrage by saying all government officials of Jewish origin should be officially listed, as they might be a "national security risk".
Jobbik isn't likely to win any significant power in Hungary, but they have moved criticism of foreigners into the mainstream. What many of the articles on Hungary and other nations often fail to report is that the tone of the debate is shifting and positions considered racist/xenophobic are being expressed more freely. As I've written before discussing other policies, this is partially a reaction against the extreme peak social mood. When social mood is extremely negative, people not only reject the presence of foreigners, they reject foreign influence from any source, including food or music. In normal periods, there is an open debate about whether something foreign is good or bad for the native cultures. When social mood is extremely positive, everything foreign is considered good and those who express reservations are labeled as xenophobic or racist. In reading Western media accounts, for example, one finds the anti-Semitic Jobbik often described in much the same was as UKIP because the Western media is still operating on peak social mood.

In Russia, the Orthodox Church continues to return to its traditional place in Russian society.

Who needs the Flying Elvises?
The Airborne Forces were established in the 1930s, during the worst of Stalinist repressions. I can’t help but a find a bit of tasty irony in the fact that, having survived the Bolshevik nightmare, the Orthodox Church is back in the field, among the Russian military, doing what it has done for two thousand years.


As for the U.S., the extreme political right have begun coalescing around the term "neo-reactionary." For the most part the movement is still completely under the radar and has no formal structure, but this map is the first formal sign of self-awareness. Unlike the political changes in the UK, Japan and Hungary, the U.S. movement is more fundamental and cultural and will probably not express itself formally in politics for at least a decade, as most adherents appear to skew young.

No comments:

Post a Comment