Spain goes to the polls to decide its next government on Sunday, and a hard-right coalition is looking likely.

The most likely government to emerge - most analysts predict - will be a coalition including a hard-right nationalist party for the first time in Spain since the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

More left-leaning Spaniards are frantically texting contacts, urging them to make sure to vote - despite the heat and it being holiday time for many - to “stop the fascists” in their tracks.The rhetoric this election season has been toxic, with voters becoming increasingly polarised.

It’s a fight over values, traditions and about what being Spanish should mean in 2023.

This kind of heated identity debate isn’t peculiar to Spain. Think of Italy, France, Brazil or the post-Trumpian debate in the US.

At EU HQ in Brussels, there are huge concerns about a resurgence of hard-right nationalist parties across Europe.

  • lildictator@feddit.nlEnglish
    29·
    1 year ago

    When the middle class struggles, they eventually embrace anybody who promises a break from the status quo.

    Moderate parties need to ask themselves what have they done so poorly that these extremists are now becoming popular. We’ve seen these sort of authoritarian far-right movements across the globe and I’m not seeing moderates offer a great answer.

    Personally, I would rather see a shift towards a sustainable future where the necessities of life, such as food, housing, education, health care and public transit were enshrined.

    • timicin@kbin.social
      20·
      1 year ago

      moderates are the reason why the extremist right groups exist per martin luther king’s explanation: https://letterfromjail.com/

      tldr: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

      • lildictator@feddit.nl
        11·
        1 year ago

        I understand Martin Luther King’s quote in its context, but I fail to see the parallel to the situation at hand. Can you elaborate?

        How are “white moderates” who tolerated racial injustice similar to moderate parties who suffer electoral losses to far right populist parties? I’m honestly not seeing how the situation is analogous.

    • Hellsadvocate@lemmy.worldEnglish
      135·
      1 year ago

      Middle class suffers slightly: “let’s start blaming minorities, immigrants, gay people, and start removing human rights for them.”

    • iByteABit [he/him]@lemm.eeEnglish
      22·
      1 year ago

      I don’t fully agree with absolving the blame on the people for this because the middle class struggles. It takes a real idiot to fall for the same traps that people fell for back in the two world wars, how fucking hard is it to connect the dots?

      If the world comes to shit again, I’ll feel no sympathy for them, because despite their obviously poor education, they are bad at being humans as well. The one thing that the far-right loves more than anything is dividing people and creating “bad guys” in order to redirect the hatred and pain of the people, but when all the other “bad guys” are killed off / locked up/ slaved, then only they will remain to take up the role.

      • Piers@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        There will always be people who fall for these traps. Of course they are individually to blame for being duped however just blaming them doesn’t solve anything. The solution is to try to reduce how many do by providing great education (formally and culturally), minimising the ability for fascists to find platforms to spread their messaging and offering real solutions to the problems that those people have so they don’t feel they need to latch onto anyone offering to do so for them.

        As such, anyone who should be expected to understand this and who is in a position to achieve those goals. Is to blame for the inevitable consequences of not doing so (ie, neo-liberal political entities.)

      • lildictator@feddit.nlEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I am not absolving people. I am describing a behavioral pattern that has remained for decades, if not longer. If anything, it’s a cautionary tale.