Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "Austria’s Election Explained: Another Far Right Victory in Europe" video.
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The thing I have been seeing the most in recent videos on politics is far-right people denying that a party is far right.
I think it'd be useful for news networks to give a clear definition to stop this charade. I know for most of us the definition is pretty clear, but perhaps TLDR and some other news networks should really define it better so that we don't have this discussion every single f*ing time.
Just so people questioning the nomenclature knows.
Parties with conservative, neo-liberal, traditional and defensive of status quo are generally right.
Far right is when you pick those stances and takes it to extremes. It's in the name.
Now, for things that may or may not show in far right parties, but usually have a good combination of these:
- party with former associations with nazis, neo-nazis, violent separatist groups, violent sectarian groups, authoritarianism or fascists. Whenever politicians fails to condemn, or even have and give support of extreme ideologies, be it because they agree with it, or because their political project is about power alone and doesn't care about extreme viewpoints of it's electorate, it tends towards the extremes;
- parties that uses populism, historical revisionism, nationalism, jingoism, disguised or direct racism, general alarmism, FUD, general prejudice, conspiracy theories, fake news, lies, psychological warfare, among other types of strategies to defend their own ideology and attack that of others, always trying to paint every single issue as a black and white issue - you are either with us, or against us - there is no middleground;
- parties that overpromise and underdeliver, particularly on sensitive complex topics that they say they are worried or even paint it a country ending thing, but treat it as superficially as possible, and than proceed to blame it for everything that is wrong in a given nation, promising shortcut solutions that are either not viable, not permitted by law or constitution - which of course never gets done because it was only meant to incense their base;
- parties that ignore or even attack what scientific data, consensus, or statistics shows, just to inflame their base against a government or opposition, or minority groups, for the sole purpose of gaining power and traction among the electorate;
- parties that constantly attack several pillars of democracy as if this was part of the democratic process itself, like attacking elections as a whole or portions of it, attacking the separation of church and state, trying to impose religious precepts as rule, using the state to impose personal opinions and will, attacking regulatory bodies particularly when it comes to decisions regarding public safety and health, attacking minority groups or persecuted groups as cause of all the problems of the country;
- parties with a ton of criminals, figures that have been constantly accused of or even condemned for crimes regarding hate crimes and corruption crimes, with a base that constantly ignore those, looking less like a political party and more like a radical cult of brainwashed people;
- parties that appeal to violence, hatred, that indirectly or directly calls for attacks and violence against opposition, minority groups, persecuted groups, and whatnot. They also tend to be pro hard on crime stances - that is, when it's about poor people drug addicts and whatnot. When it's about themselves, it's all "political persecution" or "fake news" accusations;
- parties that constantly try to label the opposition, or even anyone who disagrees with their ideas, in simplistic terms that even they don't know how to define, but that tries to pass a sort of "evil" labeling to it's followers - such as "woke", "communists", "far left", "woke left", "socialists" etc. Red scare tactics and demonization is a pretty common strategy, but they themselves don't wanna be labeled for actions that defines themselves;
- conspiracy theorists galore. They are coming for us, the billionaire figures of families, big something something, shadow government, new world order, globalists, vaccine mongers, lizard people, blood drinking pedophile cabal, yadda yadda yadda;
- project for power that usually ignores everything in a democratic regime, with plans that includes finding breaches in democracy, law, and government structures to attack it to gain more power. This is just another aspect of fascism, but I think it's worth pointing out in isolation. So stuff like Project 2025 is a clear sign of a far right strategy in a project for power;
- much like nazis, fascist governments in the past, military dictatorships, among other radical groups, they want to label themselves as a "superior race" of sorts, creating divides in the population, trying to dehumanize minority groups, using terms like it being "unnatural" or stuff like against God's will, sinners, aberrations, criminals, pedophiles, child abusers, and stuff like that broadly applied, while they call themselves good Samaritans, traditional families, real **insert nationality here**, honest hard working people, and other terms you might've seen or heard out there;
Is there a far left that uses similar tactics like those for power? Yes, there is. But it has been so muted and small these days that it just doesn't show up in politics anymore. Eco terrorists could be considered far left, where and if they have a political party. People willing to break laws and persecute others to advance their will. There used to be more people in this group in the past, but it usually doesn't work well in politics because far left is generally anti-government in most capitalist nations. So you are more likely to find far-left people just going away to live in isolation from the rest of society because it's capitalist democratic societies that ruined everything in their opinion, there is no point in joining politics when politics is part of the problem.
The major far left experiment failed a long time ago, you just know it by other names. Communes. Hippies. etc.
Yes, it is confusing. Yes, there are left and center parties that uses some or has some of the characteristics I listed. And yes, you can disagree all you want.
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