Why are so many advanced, progressive nations leaning convservative these days?

Politics & Elections
21

[QUOTE=doorhinge ]

Generally-speaking, this is occurring in countries where voters are still free to vote for the candidates of their choice. It seems that the voters have once again grown tired of the SSDD politics of the usual suspects/party in power. Time to try something new. The political pendulum swings left/right/left/right.

If elected politicians actually respond to what a majority of their constituents are demanding, they get to keep their jobs/power. If they can’t, or won’t, the voters will try someone who might be able to. Out with the old and busted. In with the new hotness. Again.

[/quote]

So most constituents are demanding a repealing of environmental laws, loss of health care, worker protections and other Republican legislation that only seems to benefit corporations and the very wealthy?

I call bullshit.
The Republican party largely caters to interest of big business like the Koch Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and ExxonMobile. Through propaganda media channels such as Fox News and Breitbart, this top 1% of 1% has convinced Middle America to vote against their interests by constantly bombarding them with their narrative of fear.

22

There is no power. Free movement between member states is one of the four core principles. Again, there is no control; the highest immigration to the UK is currently from Romania and Bulgaria.

23

How did you get to “banning” from “concern for”. Pretty pointless post.

24

I get “banning” from what the present administration, representing the values you appear to be promoting, has actually done. Or tried to do, before the courts very sensibly stopped them.

If you’re not referring to that kind of alt-right extremism, maybe you could explain specifically what you do mean that isn’t already covered by the normal border security that’s been in place for years. Unless your idea is to just sit around being concerned. Now that would be pointless!

25

(post shortened)

Did you read the OP? Did you notice where it mentioned “this multi-nation conservative tilt”? Or where it mentioned “so many advanced, progressive nations” part?

26

I can’t speak for “most nations”. Just the one I currently live in. Are the conservative policies of other nations very different from our own?

27

You’re standing in the middle of the street shouting at traffic.

28

Isn’t that a question you should have asked the OP?

29

You sound like you live in 1995 or 2005. It’s clear from the events of the last decade or so that individualistic, atomistic neoliberal capitalism also have no solutions to problems such as widening income inequality, deindustrialization, disappearance of well-paying blue-collar jobs, and so on. Universal social insurance programs remain enormously popular while free trade and immigration aren’t. Look at the rightist parties rising to power-they aren’t libertarian, free market parties but rather nativist and nationalist speaking in terms of identity and social cohesion.

30

No, and I’m not sure why your question is even relevant.

The forces that are driving conservatism in the US are probably similar to the ones driving it in Europe. At the end of the day, conservatism is about a combination of identity with a certain group living within a certain area and having a deeply rooted belief that group is more deserving and entitled to be there than other people. I believe that holds true if for "Real Americans, Real Brits, Real Germans, Real Greeks and pretty much anyone else who considers themselves the true heirs to any particular nation.

And what happens whenever there are economic or social problems, these conservatives blame “Liberalism” for distributing wealth and resources from Real Citizens to the poor, immigrants, and other fringe groups (who probably shouldn’t be there in the first place).

31

Far right is a valid political science term for parties to the right of the center right. Just like far left is a valid term for parties to the left of the center left.

Granted European standards are different, in Europe Bernie Sanders is considered center left and communist parties are considered far left. But these are not controversial terms. In european nations, the far left are communist and proto-communist parties while the far right are authoritarian and proto-fascist parties.

32

They sure do. Have you ever looked into the reality of such regulations? IME every time there turns out to be a sensible rule behind the sensationalism.
On the bananas thing, fruit and vegetables have always been graded for quality by individual countries, the EU just tried to come up with consistent grading rules to facilitate trade. And importantly, no grade is “banned”.
For vacuums, the rule is just about the maximum amount of power they can use; it was supported within the industry, and the UK was free to veto the rule – but instead were big proponents of it.

For me, the fact that these are the most “loony” rules anti-EU guys could find, speaks well of how common-sense the regulations generally are.

But whatever; these myths served their purpose of boosting the brexit vote, what does the reality matter?

33

Government regulations aren’t just created to give bureaucrats busy work, so they all have reasonable explanations, but a well functioning regulatory apparatus needs more than just “a decent reason” to raise costs for businesses and consumers. Cost/benefit analysis is essential.

Plus there’s the small matter of democracy, which has become a big issue in Europe. It’s one thing for the government you voted for to regulate you. It’s another thing entirely for a transnational government to do the same. I get the reasoning behind it(a free trade zone needs rules that apply to all), but it seems that the elites did not get sufficient permission from voters to pursue these goals.

The worldwide lesson seems to be, “Don’t denigrate your median voter”. The median voter does not have a college degree, he or she works for a living and pays taxes and loves his or her country and prioritizes it over neighboring countries. The median voter is pro-immigration, but also pro-law and order and believes that nations have a fundamental right to set limits on immigration in the interest of the citizens of that nation, which are more important than the interests of those outside wanting to get in.

Elites in most countries sniffed at such backward thinking and weren’t too reluctant to consider those who held such retrograde views and less education to be their inferiors.

34

Qin Shi Huangdi haas it right.

A number of advanced nations have in fact abandoned conservatism. What Mme Le Pen, Geert Wilders et al. represent is ethno-nationalist populism. They pretty much all support a fully featured social welfare state (and higher taxes to pay for it), the just don’t want outsiders horning in on the action.

Trump isn’t as far in the pro-social welfare state as his European counterparts, but that’s because he has to triangulate between the remnants of the actual conservatives in the Republican party, and his white, populist base.

35

Right, it’s really a rise in nationalist populism in reaction to the feeling that globalization is about privileging some transnational economic ecosystem over Hometown Mainstreet. In Latin America, absent an INmigration issue, the “outsiders moving in and interfering with us doing things our way” role was provided by the entity that has played that role in the region with gusto for the past century and a half: the USA as Hemispheric Hegemon. So of course the thing to do was to align in the direction of opposing what the “Heavy” stood for, meaning to the self-proclaimed “left”.

36

[QUOTE=msmith537]
I don’t think that’s correct. Sure, that’s the Conservative party line, echoed endlessly on Fox News. But from what I can tell from the actual data, Liberal policies haven’t “failed” in any meaningful sense.
[/QUOTE]

This thread started with the fact that the right appears to be doing fairly well across most of the USA and Europe, driven by the collapse of the center-left. And indeed, the Democrats now totally control only 4 state governments, while the collapse of the center-left parties in much of Europe is equally easy to see. 4 also happens to be the approval rating for Francois Hollande. Given those facts, it seems worth asking why voters are fleeing these parties.

Do you really think it’s a good answer for those within the parties to keep telling their shrinking circles of friends, “Yup, we’re doing just right on all the issue”? Wouldn’t it make a little bit of sense to actually listen to some of the people who have kissed those parties goodbye, and ask why they did so? If they want to win elections again, shouldn’t the center-left be open to making changes?

But hey, if you want to give voters the message of “Hey guys, we’re offering more of the same policies that drove you away,” feel free.

37

I suggest you answer my points.

38

I can’t speak for elsewhere, but here in the UK, the liberal left have largely won. UHC, state pensions, welfare state, pollution controls, environmental controls, etc, etc. So much so that the centre line has shifted and many Tories would be classed as Democrats in the US. So the Left have had to shift even more to the left. But they need to prevent the loss of what they’ve gained. I think it is a mistake to class Brexit as a liberal vs conservative issue.

39

Ok, sure. You say “It’s clear from the events of the last decade or so that individualistic, atomistic neoliberal capitalism also have no solutions to problems such as widening income inequality, deindustrialization, disappearance of well-paying blue-collar jobs, and so on.” Big-government liberalism is partially the cause of widening income inequality, deindustrialization, and the disappearance of well-paying blue-collar jobs. Even when trying to rebrand as “neoliberal”, the fact doesn’t vanish.

Globalization does occur. It does mean factories shutting down in the USA, and England and France and other first world countries, while new factories open up in China and Mexico and Bangladesh that make the same stuff. This leads to fewer high-paying blue collar jobs in the USA and western Europe, and thus widening economic inequality. But few people understand why it happens. The reason is explained in this blog post: China doesn’t kill American jobs, politicians do.

A company wants to sell computers in the USA, let’s say. They are choosing whether to build their factory in the USA or China. In the USA they’ll have to pay employees more, because of the higher standard of living, but that’s not the whole story. If the factory is in China, it costs more to ship the product to America, and there’s the cost of bribing local officials, and other expenses. So it’s a question of whether total costs are higher in the USA or in China. By piling on a massive amount of regulation, risk, and uncertainty on employers in the USA, the government helps tip the question in favor of China. For example, forcing the company to buy health care for every employee in the USA increases the cost of an American factory. Extremely complex and expensive and ever-changing environmental regulations in the USA increase the cost of an American factory. The possibility of lawsuits by employees in the USA charging sexual harassment or racial harassment or any other kind of harassment increase the cost of an American factory. Not all the laws that help drive jobs to China are passed by liberals, but most are.

Here you can find a table showing the ratio of income for the top 1% vs. bottom 99% for all the states and regions of the country. The highest ratio for any region is in the (liberal) northeast (34.4), the lowest is in the midwest (23.4). The big, intrusive liberal governments like New York, Connecticut, and California drive up income inequality.

So while it’s certainly true that Trump is no libertarian, he did at least say that he understands how regulations kill business, and he promised to fight against regulation and thereby help business. Hillary promised tons of new regulations. This would lead to more closures and jobs losses, and more concentration of wealth in the hands of the super-rich, a class which happens to include Hillary herself and those who have given her tons of money. Business owners and working-class laborers heavily favored Trump.

But hey, if you remain convinced that even more promises of regulation will bring those voters back into the Democratic fold, go for it. Don’t let me stop you.

40

Then why was it that the Great Compression occurred precisely at the times and places when the government stepped into the economy to raise income taxes on the wealthy and institute a universal welfare state? Why has it increased since wide-ranging tax cuts, free trade, and so on were implemented

First of all you seem to be discounting the role automation has played in eliminating a lot of factory-related jobs. Second certain specific trade policies such as trade normalization with China have indeed contributing eliminating blue-collar jobs. All that said, the logical conclusion of your arguments are that we should have virtually no regulations protecting the health of workers, from sexual harassment, and so forth given that they are uncompetitive. But a look at the rest of the developed world suggests otherwise. If your reasoning was correct, the United States would still have the robust manufacturing sector in the developed world given that she has far weaker labor protections and the like compared to Europe or Japan. Yet, instead it is countries such as Germany or Japan which have tripartite social corporatist regimes based on State, Business, and Labour cooperation that give a far stronger array of benefits and protections to workers as well as policies designed to promote exports that have the strongest manufacturing sectors among First World countries. Your healthcare example is very telling. I agree that forcing employers to provide healthcare puts them at an disadvantage which is why we need to move on to some form of universal healthcare that makes healthcare coverage independent of employment.

Yet if you look at countries by income equality you get a totally different story with the social democracies of Scandinavia and the social market economies of continental Europe being vastly more equal than that of the United States. America’s income disparities have multiple reasons including the fact that living costs are more expensive in blue states such as California and the Northeast. Of course, if you look at state-level inequality you find plenty of Red states especially in the Deep South that are highly unequal.

Certain, specific regulations such as those restricting coal usage are unpopular among specific demographics who are affected by them. Of course, Trump also openly advocated using the power of government to intervene in trade policy to America’s favour as well which seems to have been one of the decisive factors in shifting key areas in the Upper Midwest to the Republican Party. Also you are inaccurate in that “the workign-class laborers heavily favoured Trump”-white workers shifted Republican but Clinton still won overwhelmingly with black and Hispanic workers in the major urban centres.

Yes, I’m sure your agenda of gutting Social Security, paring back health insurance programs, and eliminating the minimum wage will be far more popular among the electorate.