This morning Paul Krugman warns once again about the rising of the right in Europe, the result of, ironically enough, conservative to right wing (in normal times) economic nostrums.
It’s hard to imagine war in today’s Europe, which has coalesced around democratic values and even taken its first steps toward political union. Indeed, as I write this, elections are being held all across Europe, not to choose national governments, but to select members of the European Parliament. To be sure, the Parliament has very limited powers, but its mere existence is a triumph for the European idea.
But here’s the thing: An alarmingly high fraction of the vote is expected to go to right-wing extremists hostile to the very values that made the election possible. Put it this way: Some of the biggest winners in Europe’s election will probably be people taking Vladimir Putin’s side in the Ukraine crisis.
It's not the first time Krugman has written to this effect, though you may have read similar warnings here first.
I suppose it's a measure of how topsy turvy the world has become that we have now reached a point where the European far right is supporting Russia, but a larger point might be that the terms “right” and “left” are losing their meanings, or perhaps, more accurately, are being transmogrified beyond recognition. After all, if rightists in Europe are taking sides with Putin, they are by extension siding against the Ukrainian government, which is dominated by the right itself. These political movements are the European equivalent of the Tea Party, with no coherent ideology except opposition to whatever the democratically elected present governments may want. If France is against Putin, then the Far Right is for him. They are the very model of the modern reactionary. As Krugman points out, and as I said in my own post several years ago, since the established parties have closed ranks around an orthodoxy that grinds the mass of people into the ground, they have created a political vacuum custom made for the extremists. They can actually promise an economic program that might very well be superior to that provided by the establishment, at the low low cost of human rights, tolerance and democracy. It's a price many a frustrated voter will be willing to pay.
It doesn't help that both our politicians and our press appear to want to ignore these warning signs. It's good versus evil, with Putin as the monster. He may in fact be one, but that doesn't change the fact that the Ukrainian government, which took office after overthrowing a corrupt, but democratically elected government, is riddled with Nazis.
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