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Unhappy lives linked to recent rise of right-wing populism in Europe (www.psypost.org)

submitted 4 months ago by CAVOK@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.org

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[-] mettwurstkaninchen@feddit.org 71 points 4 months ago

Additionally, the researchers found that life dissatisfaction indirectly influenced right-wing populist voting through two key attitudes: political distrust and anti-immigration sentiment. Dissatisfied individuals were more likely to distrust political institutions and view immigration negatively, which in turn increased their likelihood of voting for right-wing populist parties. Notably, anti-immigration sentiment emerged as the stronger of the two mediators.

And this is the key point of right-wing propaganda. Destroy trust into organizations, sow sentiments against immigrants, spread fear by overhyping individual crimes, produce anxiety. Basically "make people angry and fearful".

[-] P1r4nha@feddit.de 19 points 4 months ago

Yeah, duh: making immigrants and politicians the scapegoat works best when people are unhappy with life.

To me it's extremely transparent however that neoliberals and conservatives have defunded and weakened our institutions so they can no longer fulfill their responsibilities. This leads to dissatisfaction which the extreme right blames on immigrants and correctly on neoliberal politicians.

That this leads to women voting for patriarchs, Jewish people for descendants of Nazis and second generation immigrants for racists, is so frustrating.

[-] Schmerzbold@feddit.org 3 points 4 months ago

And since the media - especially social media - is trapped in an attention economy where mainly bad news drive engagement it's no wonder people have a skewed and negative view of reality.

[-] sunzu@kbin.run 0 points 4 months ago

anti-immigration sentiment.

I wonder why indiginous wage slaves would feel this way... Like there is no way to tell why they would feel like this.

CBO estimated that net immigration was 2.67 million immigrants in 2022, and 3.3 million immigrants in 2023, the highest in its data going back to 2000, and about triple the average rate between 2000 and 2021 (1.05 million immigrants per year).

I wonder what happened in 2022 that made daddy bringing all these additional slaves.

[-] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 months ago

Immigrants don’t need to be “brought.” This is right-wing rhetoric, but most ironic of all is that these “wage slaves” are literally better off with more immigration, not less.

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[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 45 points 4 months ago

Shit's fucked, yo. So let's vote for the kind of people that make everything worse. I will never understand this kind of mindset.

[-] CAVOK@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

Especially since the populists thrive on it which gives them exactly zero incentive to improve things.

[-] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

Some people need an answer that's easy and quick. That answer is also always wrong but by then they stopped thinking anyway and are hooked on easy and quick.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

"The rich stole all your money" is also an easy answer and much closer to reality. People who fall for right wing bullshit do so because it panders to their hate and resentment.

[-] noobdoomguy8658@feddit.org 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

People voting for populists are much more likely to see the scapegoats their electees talk about in their life than an actual billionaire that exploited them, though. And there's the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" narrative we've been forced upon, too.

[-] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 4 months ago

similarly, conspiracy cranks get all up in arms about some shady group of "elites" that somehow aren't just.. billionaires and top-level politicians..

they have an actual legitimate conspiracy in front of them, presented on a fucking silver platter, and yet they completely ignore that and instead make shit up that makes no fucking sense.

[-] sunzu@kbin.run 0 points 4 months ago

Its called for voting for change...

Regular peeson doesn't care about ideology. They vote for the guy who hasn't fucked them recently.

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[-] Peter_Arbeitslos@feddit.org 23 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Unhappiness and fear linked to fascism? Unbelievable! But yeah, I think that's something you more or less directly learn as German if you look back on our democracy, the Weimarer Republik, before rise of national socialism. Many people didn't believed in democracy at the first place, but the bad economic situation made it even worse. If you are unhappy or even fear about your future that's a great attack point for right wing propaganda.

[-] ClassifiedPancake@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 months ago

All this learning what has it accomplished? The fascists are on the rise again.

[-] Peter_Arbeitslos@feddit.org 4 points 3 months ago

The contemporary witnesses are dying. I wouldn't say it's because of them not being able to tell their stories anymore, but a human life is enough time for a society to forget. And if I say society, I really mean the majority of people forget, nowadays just many have forgotten, too many, but not the majority. There always have been a few people who couldn't forget because they never knew, never wanted to know, we call them neo-nazis. They are on the rise again, all the crises of the last years have helped them and still do so, but I don't think people who haven't forgotten would follow them.

[-] Maeve@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

I was thinking about this before scrolling comments. It seems many on the right support/vote for policies that actively make their quality of life seemingly better in the short term, and are surprised and disappointed when the long-term consequences of their decisions begin happening to become noticeable (usually more for me, less for thee?). When they discover the policies affect them, personally, they become angry and belligerent, looking to place blame on external factors. The left (I don't mean neoliberal) seem to go within, asking things like, "how did my voting choices affect this? What have I learned? How can I calibrate my choices for better results, going forward?" then try to make better decisions, even if it hurts them more, personally, in the short term, hoping for better across-the-board results long term?

I've just begun milling this, so I've no idea if this is correct or not. I'd love to see some research on it.

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[-] carl_dungeon@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago

“I’m unhappy, let’s put people in camps and start a secret police force!! That’ll make me SO happy!”

[-] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 4 months ago

"As long as someone else is getting hurt more than me!"

every conservative

[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 13 points 4 months ago

So, less left politics lead to more right politics? Checks out in Germany. 16 years of Merkel and before that 16 years of Kohl have lead to crumbling infrastructure, an erosion of social welfare and tax breaks for the rich. And even our supposedly center left party hasn't done much to change that when they were in power.

[-] sunzu@kbin.run 0 points 4 months ago

Damn we got a German using critical thinking...

Online they are always frothing at the mouth at negative mention of Merkel and her shiti economic and geopolitical policy

Has the public opinion turned on her within Germany yet or we still calling her auntie?

[-] federalreverse@feddit.org 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Online they are always frothing at the mouth at negative mention of Merkel and her shiti economic and geopolitical policy

You sound like you're doing wild stereotyping. But no, not every single German thinks the same way.

And you may not want to hear it, but while Merkel's policies often did a disservice to Germany and the EU, she did have strengths. Just compare her to the utter non-presence that is Olaf Scholz, who somehow snagged the chancellor's seat.

Has the public opinion turned on her within Germany yet or we still calling her auntie?

We called her "Mutti", i.e. "mommy". There isn't even a German word for "auntie" in German afaik. And I should k because growing up, I had a very motherly neighbor. We never had a special term for her.

[-] sunzu@kbin.run 2 points 4 months ago

You sound like you're doing wild stereotyping.

I deff am but I am going off my shitposting experiences dealing with German topics.

she did have strengths

Nobody is all bad but her leadership put Germany in some weird spots especially in light of ukraine invasion. She and scholz like many of our dear leaders is just another neo liberal maxi pad between the elites and the people.

Useless when it comes to policy setting and driving but always around to give big business a handy.

[-] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 1 points 4 months ago

There isn't even a German word for "auntie" in German afaik.

Wouldn't auntie literally be Tantchen? However, I've never heard somebody using it except perhaps in translated US TV.

[-] federalreverse@feddit.org 0 points 4 months ago

Hmm. According to Collins you're right. That makes me a lot less sure about the definitions I had in my head:

Tantchen, either a) your favorite aunt or a b) random short and/or middle-aged woman that you're being condescending towards.
auntie, a woman that you may or may not be related to but who you look up to for advice etc. and who may fill the role of a parent at times.

Maybe someone wants to comment on the veracity of these. :)

[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I mean, generally I liked her. But I think she would have been better in the social party. She was an expert at making absolutely everything sound good and deflected any and all criticism. But under her government absolutely nothing got done. And now the new government is slowly trying to fix stuff and it's getting more and more apparent what is broken so they get the blame.

In general I think the left hate her because she's too right and the (far) right hate her because she's too left. "Danke Merkel" has become a meme similar to "thanks Obama".

[-] HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 months ago

The papier doesn't go as far as exploring the reasons for personal life dissatisfaction. My theory is that much of it comes from the frustration created by advertising and consumerism. I can't buy the same nice car/house/vacation as my neighbors/friends/relatives and so I get frustrated. People are constantly exposed to advertisement: in the morning when they check their phone or listen to the radio, during their commute with the radio again, billboards, bus stops, during the day every time they go on the Internet, during their commute back home, TV of course and again their phone at night. The influx of frustrating stimuli is constant throughout our lives, hence the dissatisfaction.

[-] mean_bean279@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

India, Brazil and Argentina all pretty much throw this idea out the window. They’re low GDP/income countries where the average person is trying to scrape by and just afford food. Those countries have all turned to right wing populism as well (Brazil is on my to watch list as I don’t believe we’ve seen the last of Bolsanaro or his political friends). It’s not really an advertising/consumerism thing.

[-] HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 months ago

Agreed, my take is more about rich Western countries

[-] msage@programming.dev 6 points 4 months ago

... not this shit again ...

I feel very sad that the ruling class is actually pushing this. Because this future sucks.

[-] DieguiTux8623@feddit.it 5 points 4 months ago

If we need a behavioral science paper to understand such an elementary thing, really we have lost as a society.

[-] Bertuccio@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Don't get to excited guys. It's psypost....

[-] CAVOK@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago

Bad source?

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 months ago

Nothing learned from last time, huh?

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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024

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