Why is the whole world getting shittier?
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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Because a lot of people feel like the world is getting shittier, and so they're voting for the parties that tell them "the world is shitty and we have the solution. It's simple and straightforward and someone other than you will bear the brunt of it."
If the left wants the far-right to stop gaining then it has to defuse this argument. They should be working to make people feel like the world is less shitty, convincing people that they have solutions for the world's shittyness, and ensuring that those solutions are simple and straightforward and put the brunt of the effort on someone else.
This is the downside of democracy, you have to do what the people want. Sometimes that's kind of annoying and difficult.
The left constantly tries to defuse it... the problem is that the ultra-wealthy do everything they can to control governing opposition... they run social media conglomerates that tilt people's highly tailored "feeds" toward a media diet that consequently most benefits them, they donate to all major parties and contests to ensure they most likely get friendly figures into positions, regardless of their supposed political leaning, and they then lobby them heavily. This is worst in the U.S. but people like Mr. X are working hard to do it everywhere else, too.
This means "the left" has so much harder of a time getting a foot-hold in power... and we're not even really talking about "the left" - we're talking mildly off-center social democrats. "The left" is nowhere in power outside of a few popular Twitch and YT streaming personas.
The ultra-wealthy are so narcissistic that they think they can rule better than governments, and in their hubris, they are breaking the world and inviting chaos that no one - including them - should want.
"Mario bros. events," military coups, market instability, outright corruption, and disregarding of agreed-upon societal norms are a direct result of their refusal to just pay taxes, their attempting to tilt scales in their favor, and tin-pot dictatorships will harm ALL of us (including them as well) tangibly. A dragon sitting on a pile of gold being merc'd out of the blue is not a result of a "loss of moral values" or "respect for life" - it's a result of dragons making people both inconsolably angry and legislatively powerless, and thereby hopeless for anything other than "revenge." They don't care they might be burned in "dragon fire."
Still... besides all major parties being lobbied heavily and infiltrated by the ultra-rich, the world's almost universal neo-liberal response to COVID has had a major backlash swing - because people suffered, and demagogues swept in to blame scapegoats when in reality, they and their opposition party counter-parts all pushed policies that resulted in everyone else but those at the top suffering far more than they ever should have.
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Because propaganda works.
And the only antidote is to understand media, the main driving force of so many things in the world. The media ownership will not be doing that. Governments, under control of the media ownership, will not be doing that.
Therefore: shittier.
I know right. The only issue is instead of a world at war with countries fighting each other, it’s going to be like 20 separate civil wars.
We'll see, hopefully world wars are a thing of the past but history tends to rhyme.
It’s pretty complicated to explain but humans in general are pretty shit at this whole civilization thing. Above all we’re selfish, greedy, and envious. The only systems we’ve ever built were based on exploitation and suffering of the populace so that the „elite” can fuck around in wealth and luxury. When these stop working because the „elite” is more and more idiotic we just go to war because instead of identifying and beheading the problem we let them convince us it’s somehow the other unfortunate to blame.
It’s pretty grim but that’s what we are, rabid fucking animals who can sometimes say something intelligent.
And to add what the others said, things are getting more expensive. Raw material prices keep going up, price of energy is rising but wages aren't. Growth of the western countries went way down but the elite still insist on their usual cut even if they means taking a cut from the general population to make up the difference.
Then comes climate change making insurances more expensive or impossible, what makes things more difficult for housing. After that the climate also messes with food production. Not to mention how modern industrial animal husbandry is a pandemic generator what's going to make it worse.
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This hits extra hard given Tim Allen's MAGAness.
O good, it's not just us in the US
Maybe we'll avert WW3, since every country is just going full Axis. World harmony achieved, I guess?
If the axis won they would've ended up fighting amongst themselves. Their ideology requires scapegoats, and they will always find them. The ideology itself is counter to peace. We had 80 years of peace because we pushed it to the fringes, but now that it's resurging I feel like I'm surrounded by people who grew up in a different world with a different history.
Don't forget what eventually becomes necessary to retain domestic control.
They're not liberals, they don't stomach the idea that the populace could choose something else if they prove themselves unable to deliver on their promises. Liberals get around this by embracing change, giving people the option to change the status quo if they wish. Even to the point of discarding liberalism itself.
Authoritarians don't believe in that option though.
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The entire world including lots of Europe has been shifting significantly right despite what leftist US haters often say about the US left being a European right. That hasn't been true for a decade or more.
Regarding important economic issues such as healthcare, welfare, taxes, consumer protection & industry regulation this is certainly the case.
The part where the European right mainly differs from the US left is on more recent additions to leftist ideology - such as identity politics & intersectionalism.
First, I find it kind of irritating when someone attributes opinions to an undefined "they". Was this a thing Bernie Sanders said? Was this something started in a press release by the DSA? If you're talking about Twitter, might as well say 'I heard from the propaganda machine...'
I'm left as heck, and I'm very aware that countries are moving right all over the world. It seems to be especially driven by migration. And I think folks need an affirmative message besides either 'we're ignoring your concerns and letting folks in' or 'fine, we'll lock the gates and kill the migrants. Please like us.'
It seems to be especially driven by migration.
No, that's just the scapegoat. Neither the number of immigrants, nor the number of illegal immigrants, nor the crime rate among immigrants are especially high right now.
All of these numbers are currently lower (in Germany) than 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
I think maybe I was unclear. I believe that much of the shift rightward is because migrants are an ideal boogyman. They're a natural target for nationalists, and liberals are largely apathetic.
As late stage capitalism, automation, and outsourcing create greater and greater economic precarity, the far right has a perfect opportunity to enter the mainstream by giving voice to two of the biggest unspoken concerns that many politically disengaged voters relate to but often feel pressured not to talk about.
The fascists say, 'your life is worse! And your neighborhood has changed ethnically! And we have a whole explanation for all your problems that the people in charge are trying to suppress! Lol at how aggressively they try and prevent us from saying these things!'
And the dominant liberal order can't say 'It's not what it looks like! The rich are actually just taking advantage of you, and those migrants are just the earliest victims of climate change and greed!'
The truth is that migrants don't drive down wages: criminalizing migrants does. And given enough time, you could be a migrant too. That's the thing I'd like more folks to know.
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