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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and France's Marine Le Pen headlined a rally in Madrid on Saturday by Europe's biggest far-right bloc, buoyed by Donald Trump's return to power and calling for "a 180-degree pivot".

Patriots for Europe has realigned extreme-right forces in the European Union. It became the European Parliament's third-largest force after Orban helped launch it last year to pull the bloc towards the far right.

"Yesterday we were the heretics. Today we are the mainstream... We are the future," proclaimed Orban, sharing the stage with other leading extreme-right nationalists including Dutch anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and former Czech premier Andrej Babis.

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 94 points 2 months ago

Much like America, I have to ask when the "before" was that they want to make great again. Because it always seems like the "before" in the case of MAGA people was "before slaves were emancipated and women were given rights."

So I'm guessing 13th century or so here?

[-] oktoberpaard@feddit.nl 35 points 2 months ago

I find it incredibly cringe anyway that all these parties just copy the same slogan. Some weird form of international nationalism, where they all just copy whatever the others are doing. It apparently works very well.

I guess in Western Europe it’s largely focused around anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiments, but with this movement being more and more international, I do notice an uptick in rhetoric concerning sexual minorities and women’s rights, with a lot of anti science and elitism/wokeism sprinkled in. It’s very scary. I’m happy that we don’t have a political system where the winner takes it all in my country, as it’s pretty bad already as it is right now.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago

I guess in Western Europe it’s largely focused around anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiments

That's part of what's so ridiculous though. Europe is basically a long history of wave after wave of immigration. So the "again" is when, the point when the Neanderthals colonized it?

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 13 points 2 months ago

Europe is basically a long history of wave after wave of immigration.

So is the US, and it's even more recent. Don't seek logic in it.

[-] The_Terrible_Humbaba@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 months ago

I don't know much about the history of anti-Semitism in Europe (so anyone feel free to correct me or add more info), but what I've been thinking is that the cause/origin of anti-Semitism is no different from the anti-immigrant panic from today. They both come down to people from a "foreign" or at least different culture coming into a society and getting jobs or opening business. It just so happens that now those foreign people are more diverse, whereas before (centuries ago in Europe) they were mostly Jewish.

This tells me we have learned nothing from our past except for the most surface level details. We learned that anti-Semitism is bad and beat people over the head with it, but we never properly addressed the roots of it, and so now the same thing is repeating but for different groups of people. It's the same sort of thing as when it is said that "people nowadays are more open minded", when the reality is simply that they were taught to be okay (or not) with certain things; but the bigoted though process has not really gone away.

[-] naeap@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah, mixing with those filthy homo sapiens was a bad idea...

[-] dbkblk@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I don't know about other countries' far-rights, but the father of Marine Le Pen was openly racist and said that gaz chambers never existed (he lost a trial about hatred incitement for saying this). He was also proud to have killed algerians during the war. She's more sweet in front of cameras compared to him, but she's the same as he. This party was created by old SS, so I don't think there's something more to add. There's no before for them, it's pure fantasm. They just want control and order.

[-] TomViolence@lemm.ee 6 points 2 months ago

This doesn't invalidate your point whatsoever, obviously, but what Le Pen exactly said is "Les chambres à gaz sont un point de détail de l'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale", which basically means that they do existed, but wasn't that big of a deal. Which in a way is actually even more insulting.

[-] dbkblk@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

You're right, I mixed it up!

[-] derpgon@programming.dev 4 points 2 months ago

Oh Czech's Babiš was in STB (then sort of secret service) and his job was to indict anti state people. His name is in official documents and he lost a trial about being there in Slovakia, so it is 100% confirmed. He was a piece of scum them, he is a piece of scum now. Not talking about all the other shit he did - like being one of the most wealthy people in Czechia and taking European donations for overpriced projects.

[-] guaraguaito 6 points 2 months ago

Nah, 13th century was too decentralised. It’s before the development of absolutism, nationionalism, and then totalitariansm. They are more going for late 1930s Italy/Germany style.

[-] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago

Autocracy, orthodoxy and nationality gaining relevance again after a hundred years.

[-] bier@feddit.nl 4 points 2 months ago

Probably 2013, the world didn't end in 2012 and if someone asked me finish this sentence "the last story I read was about Donald......" my answer would be Duck.

[-] MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

They want the 1950s without understanding that means buying a fraction of the amount of stuff most Americans have now.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

And the whole "still recovering from WWII therefore nothing is available" thing.

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 months ago

And the "rest of the world is devastated from the war, so there is no competition anywhere".

[-] x00z@lemmy.world 76 points 2 months ago

Europe is already great.

These guys are making it not great.

It's super simple.

[-] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Europe is already great

That REALLY depends on who you ask

[-] x00z@lemmy.world 33 points 2 months ago

People who are manipulated into only focusing on immigrants and how unfair the government is.

[-] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Was thinking more about the African countries that are still the victims of Eurpean economic colonialism

[-] Enoril@jlai.lu 7 points 1 month ago

While it’s true, this argument should not being used to defend people who don’t even consider Africa people as "real" human.

In fact, it’s probably the same people (few generations earlier but with the same mindset) who jumped on boat to create the slave routes, kill people for lands and ressources... You know the people that don’t consider we are all the same.

[-] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

It's not defending conservatives. It's pointing out that European exceptionally comes at the detriment of others which creates many negative opinions of the continent as a whole.

You don't get to claim Europe is already great when their entire way of life is propped on colonization and exploitation on the global south. Whether or not it's only conservatives that don't see them as ppl is debatable considering liberal and conservative alike have exploited African for centuries and actually never stopped.

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

Nationalistic Exceptionalism is a tool of the elites to manipulate the rest.

I'm from a country in Europe - Portugal - which had "colonies" in Africa and forced work camps for the locals there as little ago as the 60s - a form of Slavery - whilst the country was under a Fascist Dictatorship and most people in the "Fatherland" were themselves dirt poor to the point that the country actually got food help from other countries in Europe.

Most of the wealth from exploiting those other countries went to a handful of rich families (the so called "7 families") tightly tied to the regime and their wilful minions, not the majority of the people in a country whose "way of life" was supposedly "propped on colonization".

(I can't quite see which part of the miserable life of my grandparents, on both sides poor countryside farmers with many often undernourish children who didn't have shoes to walk to school even during Winter, was "propped on colonization")

But, damn, the Fascist Dictator was really big on propaganda about the "Glory of Portugal" and the "Superiority of the Portuguese".

Absolutelly, all this shit was whitewashed after the Revolution that overthrew the dictator, a few years after the revolutionaries confiscated, the wealth of those 7 Fascist families - which was indeed their loot from pillaging both the "colonies" and the "mainland" itself - was soon returned to them by the mainstream parties and a propagandistic slant on all that kept going on since (even more recently, when past pillaging is recognized, the claims from politicians of "national shame" are really all about difusing the blame of the choices of the elites onto the entire population of the nation and at times just meant to indirectly get money in the wallets of those very same politicians and their friends).

"Europe" (as in, its elites) did pillage all over the World the riches of others and still does if less so (nowadays mainly by helping foreign dictators stay in power, pillage the wealth of their countrymen and then share some of the loot with wealthy European interests) and all that shit has been whitewashed for the masses in various ways, but now just like in that shameful past there was and there is no meaningful trickle-down of the wealth the elites pillage.

[-] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 63 points 2 months ago

Fucking Nazis

[-] Zero22xx 38 points 2 months ago

I knew this kind of shit would happen. This is why it's important to keep an eye on US politics and why US news always kinda fits in 'world' news. Because like it or not, we all seem to be under the spell of the USA's influence.

Take these European variety ass flies following the waft of stink coming from Donald Trump's backside for example. "Make Europe Great Again"? Apparently Europe is joining China in the game of making cheap knockoffs of famous American brands. Or maybe it's just going full circle, considering that MAGA is just a knockoff brand of Nazism. Which was long ago but not long ago enough for everyone involved in it or brainwashed by it to have shuffled off this mortal coil yet.

[-] MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago

You can't just say the US are nazis. If they were Nazis they would shut down all gender study, homosexual study and remove all attempts to reduce social divisions. If they were Nazis they would be building concentration camps. If they were Nazis they would have weird forms of Christianity that justify enslavement, the concentration of wealth, and the spread of hate. Finally if they were Nazis they would be doing something super fucked up like resettling White South Africans who were "victims of racist policies"

Wait...we are doing or have done all of these? Looks like I was wrong about which flavor of fascist we elected.

[-] tiefling 6 points 2 months ago

If they were Nazis they would be marching down the street holding swastikas

...wait, fuck

[-] witty_username@feddit.nl 29 points 2 months ago

Lol europe was never great. Would be more apt to say make Europe a fractured waring kolonialist mess again

[-] andallthat@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yes it's a particularly dumb slogan when most of their common "plan" is about destroying Europe. They are basically saying "can we go back to hating and periodically invading each other?".

These guys are united by their dislike of each other. Which is fair enough, because I really dislike every single one of them too. I just wish instead of all this talking they mounted on their horses and jousted, like back then when Europe was, you know... great?

[-] lurch@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 months ago

Actually, Europe has been, and still is, great. Of course, there's always room for improvement, but not with the nazis. They are super backwards.

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago

MEAFWKMA.

Nah. Not going to work.

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 18 points 2 months ago

MEGA? Really? Who the fuck looks at what Trump does and says "Yes, more of this please?"

I mean besides the voting public in 2024 after getting amnesia about Covid

[-] Obi@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 month ago

At the end of the day, Trump won the election, they see that his shit-peddling style brought results, and they're hoping the same thing will happen here. I'd like to think the vast majority of Europeans are too smart to fall for this kinda shit but unfortunately I keep being proven more and more wrong...

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Europeans, take a hint from the Canadians: being patriotic by making a big deal about not bending the knee to Trump undermines the far right and exposes them to public scorn. Make fascists be the traitors again.

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

As if breaking up the EU would somehow make individual countries in it (even the mid-sized ones in a global sense like France or Germany) be better capable of defending their interests against the likes of the US, China or even India and Russia.

By their own criteria, these people are traitors to their countries and I'm pretty certain that's because they sold themselves to foreign interests (for example the Portuguese one has had his party subsidized by Brazilian Christian sects).

[-] LordWiggle@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

Wait. What? We're finally great, struggling to hold on, now MEGA wants to destroy it because they think world War 2 Germany was nice? We need more asylums.

[-] P1nkman@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Luigi would suffice. Quicker and cheaper.

[-] madjo@feddit.nl 11 points 1 month ago

Everytime I see the word Patriot, in my head it gets autoreplaced with the word Nazi. I don't know why.

[-] khaleer@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 month ago

In mine, it's corrected to "Idiot". Rhymes better, but meaning is simillar

[-] Krompus@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago
[-] mumblerfish@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Is there a way to get a list of all parties and their representatives who participated in this event?

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 months ago

Yeah, look in the Kremlin.

[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Obviously this sucks, those asshole fascists can fall off a cliff but holy crap MEGA is a much better acronym than MAGA.

[-] Dorkyd68@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Look at the MEGA morons. Can't believe it's cone to this

[-] rowanthorpe@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

Although I think Patriot is such a loaded, dangerous word and would usually doubt there is ever an appropriate time for actual grown-ups to use it, I think I have found one use-case: it would be interesting to form a pan-European collective of actually sane, grown-up, people-before-money leaning Europeans (i.e. not the emotionally stunted, tribalism-fuelled morons obsessed with the accumulation of trinkets and perpetuation of endless persecution sprees in service of their hate/anger/stress-based adrenaline & cortisol addictions), and call that new collective "Actual Patriots for Actual Europe". Then just sit back with popcorn and watch the pompous outrage chain-reaction from the PfE kiddies unfold in realtime.

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago
[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

“Fascism used to be really disliked, but now the people who suffered under it have mostly died, and the others seem to have forgotten what was so awful about it. And that’s great for us.

[-] spiritsong@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

This is ironic. Most far wingers are xenophobic. That is because the very fundamental of these right wingers is "my race, my tribe, my group is better / deserves better than the other groups." This is so ironic on so many levels. The extreme and the far right will forever be the heretics and outcast of today, modern and future world of humanity.

this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
253 points (100.0% liked)

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