We need to start asking why.

[NotOneOfTheInCrowd]

So trump has won. In the UK elections reform gained good ground. In the rest of Europe the far right are gaining ground.

It’s clear that the world as a whole is leaning further towards this stance, and instead of expressing horror and insulting those who are voting that way, we need to start asking why that is. Because clearly it is.

it’s easy to say that people voted for Farage because they didn’t want to vote Tory.

Or that they voted for Trump because they didn’t want a woman.

But it has to go further than that. There are too many of these votes for it to be that simplistic. so it’s time we looked at what the realities and the reasons are, and how they can be resolved without putting it in the hands of people like Farage or Trump to resolve them.

The lack of genuine debate and critical thinking seems a lost art form from top to bottom with MPs not helping. So many conversations cannot be had due to immediate insults and judgement. As for the rich celebrities and the endorsements, they are not helpful at best, completely detrimental at worst. Especially when food in America has increased the likes of JLo, Robert DeNiro and Beyoncé just widen the them and us narrative. It was the same when the Tory's kept winning and the answer was to just call all Tory voters cunts, because that will change voters minds.

I actually use our follow very little media but l have some family members and friends living in the States. Not Trump supporters. But faith teaching is banned in public schools there and the schools are quite strong on introducing teaching on transgenderism at quite a young age. Which can be confusing at vulnerable stages of a child's development. This is not an issue in lreland as we probably are too much the opposite. People here in lreland/ UK and US are struggling with the massive increase in immigration as they are unsure how people are vetted and how far its going to grow. My own family in the USwere immigrants so they don't have a problem with it but a lot of people do. No matter what the ordinary people in lreland say to the Government about this they are completely ignored, scoffed at in the media, and written off. This encourages a swing to extreme groups. How can governments not see this?
Instead of mocking ordinary folk they need to listen.
It's always difficult to get a balance and if it seems to be swinging too far in one direction the instinct of people is to swing the opposite way.

Agreed. There has always been self righteousness in politics but now the left is weaponising it in a way I don't recall seeing previously, and placing it above what would actually practically bring support to it. I almost wonder if it's intentional on some level.

It's largely down to immigration I think. It's been listed as the number 1 public concern for I don't know how long, and politicians consistently choose to ignore it.

It's easier to dismiss anyone with concerns as a 'racist' than actually try to tackle the issues.

Oh, I see. Well, the ban on faith teaching in the US is hardly new, is it? I gather the separation between Church and State was one of the founding tenets of the US.

The most sensible comment on this situation i have read!

So, what ARE the issues around immigration? 🤔

Also this. There's a large, wealthy, highly intolerant, left wing, metropolitan elite who talk down to the 'little people' and think that they know it all, when actually, they don't have a clue about life is like working class people. Most working class people hate champagne socialists.

The right wing at least pretend to understand their concerns.

The left despises the working class because they are all middle and upper class! Our universities are left wing indoctrination factories!

Sadly, I think the reason is simply that fascism is very appealing to a lot of people, and our collective memory of how awful it was last time has now faded to the point that it is no longer enough to deter people.

There will be lots of handwringing amongst the left about how they didn't listen to people enough, how they didn't do enough to engage those people who were feeling left behind, how they didn't put up the right candidates etc. All of that probably does have some truth in it, but I don't think it addresses the fundamental issue that Trump's message clearly appealed to large swathes of the population, especially men but many women too. They voted for the fascist because that was the option that they preferred. Just as previous generations did back in the 1930s.

It's really easy to dismiss large swathes of the electorate as stupid and lacking in agency, as if we could have persuaded them to vote for our preferred candidate if only we had manipulated them more effectively. But the fact is, the electorate knew exactly what Trump was and they voted for him anyway.

They proactively chose the racist, misogynist rapist who refused to accept the result of the previous democratic election and incited a violent insurrection in response.

That cold hard fact is very hard for some of us to accept because it forces us to think very differently about our fellow human beings, and so we look for other reasons that might help to explain it away. Making Trump's win about the failure of the left allows us to hold on to some notion of control. Personally, I think it's time for us to face up to the reality that a lot of our fellow human beings actually like the fascist shit. Only when we have accepted this can we determine the best way of fighting back.

Why? Because lots of people agree with him and Farage. It’s as simple as that. But in real life people are scared shitless to admit they agree with their views for fear of being labelled a racist or ‘thick’ or ‘far right’ so they keep quiet. It then comes as a shock when the result comes in. Exactly the same as BREXIT, people couldn’t believe the majority of Brits voted leave.

@crackofdoom
To many people
To many people who have no interest in integrating into British society and western values.
To many people being handed money and housing after arriving here when we have people who have worked/lived here all their lives unable to get any benefits or housing
Terrorism
Not enough infrastructure to deal with the influx of people
Whole areas becoming unrecognisable to the British people who have lived their all their lives
Two Tier policing of these incomers

All the fallout from covid, how quickly people forget that the economy got wrecked from that. Easier to blame whoever happened to be in power at the time and change government for the sake of it. It's gone from 'in it together' to 'as long as I'm OK nothing else matters'.

So, what ARE the issues around immigration? 🤔

@crackofdoom

That's not really relevant to the conversation is it? The point is that there are numerous concerns. The specific nature of these concerns will be for different communities and different countries. I'm sure you're capable of doing some online research if you want to know the issues.

This

Some of Trump’s votes will have come from pro life people. People who are sickened by the fact that more than 63 million abortions have been carried out since Roe v Wade.

I suspect that in the UK it's also the 8 million per day spent on housing asylum seekers.

I'm in Ireland too and I agree with you!
Our politicians, apart from a small , notable minority, see to me to absolutely despise the Irish people. Considering they are supposed to be our representatives, and, as we the Irish people are sovereign, our servants, they act as if we ae something they have stood in. They treat us with utter contempt, 10s of 1000s of our own are homeless, including children, and government does nothing for them. Our public health service is a shambles, they seem hellbent on sexualising children at school, criminalising anyone who speaks out against their anti-Irish, anti-human and certainly anti-Christian agendas, our infrastructure cannot cope anymore and the CoL keeps shooting up; so many of us are struggling.
To me it's clear our current government serve someone other than the Irish people. If we don't get them out and keep them out, they will destroy us. I will only be voting for genuine Irish patriots, candidates who show they regard themselves as servants of the Irish people, in the next election. I can only hope and pray the majority do the same or this country which I love so much, whose people have suffered so much and for so many centuries, will be ruined!

It’s exactly crap like this being peddled that gets trump and Farage elected.

most people don’t want unlimited immigration
most people are poorer than they were 4 years ago
most people don’t want to be told what to think and say

there you go. That’s why people vote for the “far right”

I didn't vote reform, but I did consider it.

I don't like Labour. I think their policies are disgracefully unfair - they slam little subsections of society (private schools, farmers, ordinary businesses, pensioners, 2nd home buyers) so that the masses don't feel that they have been taxed and don't complain. The only complaints come from those minorities directly impacted and so Labour get away with it - but the real effect is that we will see prices rising, allowances frozen etc and therefore the "working person" actually will be "got" by these policies, just very indirectly. I find it all very dishonest and very unfair to those who are directly impacted.

I'm not impacted directly by any of it, but I have just finished putting my SEN DC through private school. So that policy makes me feel sick - although won't hurt me.

So, if I won't vote Labour and I think that the conservatives literally ate themselves, who should I vote for? Reform starts to look attractive.

Again, I didn't do it. But it would have had nothing to do with racism or hatred if I had done it. It would have had to do with total disillusionment with the main parties and the general feeling that they were both dishonest - in quite different ways.

Nutshell.

This! Internet is a cesspit of misinformation and lies. Can’t see anything improving anytime soon 😔

Do you think we were better informed 50 years back with 2 tv channels and 5 news papers?

Right.
Well, nobody is "being handed money and housing" the moment they arrive here. Asylum seekers have to wait years to have their cases heard, during which time they are not permitted to work, even though most of them would desperately like to and we desperately need workers in some sectors. During this time they get a tiny amount of money per week to survive on- I think it's about £30-40.

Other immigrants, who arrive on work or student visas, "have no recourse to public funds"- in other words, no benefits for them. In addition, they have to pay a certain amount of money per year to be able to use the NHS.

"Not enough infrastructure to deal with the influx of people"- this is not an immigrant problem, it's an under investment problem, which has got a lot worse under the Tories. In addition, people form a lot of our infrastructure, especially in the health, social care and construction sectors. We currently have a massive lack of builders, care workers, dentists, nurses- particularly severe since Brexit.

"Two tier policing"- this is a right wing fabrication, with no basis in fact.

I could go on, but a lot of these "genuine concerns about immigration" are based on misinformation. And who's pumping out this misinformation? The Mail, the Telegraph, GB News, Fox News- all of them owned or funded by exceptionally wealthy men who want to distract from the fact that it's them who are hoovering up all the wealth in our society and want to pit the rest of us against each other like rats in a sack.

Because people ultimately:

Do not want immigrants in their countries.