Right wing populism is on the rise in europe and has been since 2010 at least. The populist party’s of continental Europe seem to be enjoying much more support than the BNP. I have been told that mass immigration is a little bit out of hand in both countries and people are resorting to extreme solutions, but is the success of le Front National due to the french being more bigoted than the british, or are there fundamental differences in policy. I’m confused because the Front National (wich surely translates to National Front in english) seems to be trying to court the vote of north africans and they have a single black woman amongst a sea of white faces in their inner circle.

The main difference I have seen is that Front National are good at promoting an image that ’seems’ respectable and has charismatic folky type leadership, while the BNP seem to be trying to scare away votes with the most horribly pitched and misguided promotional campaigns possible that make them sound like they want to ruin the country. As for policy, I’m not aware of the main differences. I’m sure the answer is long and complicated and involves in depth cultural analysis, on a national and international level. Please don’t be afraid to give such an answer.
The Front National may not have seats, but public opinion is gearing towards the right in France while the BNP continues to decline. Why is this?

"I’m sure the answer is long and complicated and involves in depth cultural analysis, on a national and international level."

Sorry to dissappoint you then, I’m both not capable and not bothered to give such an answer. All I can say is that the NF in France seem much more slick, they’re much more professional and much more capable of portraying a positive image. The BNP are a shambles, one night you’ll have Nick Griffin insisting it’s not a racist party then the next day all some journo has to do is poke their head in at a BNP meeting and they’re all telling racist jokes and making a mockery of this claim.

The BNP need somebody to revolutionise the party and drastically improve their image. They need to become much much better at pretending they’re not racist because at the moment they’re not fooling anyone.

What were some political, economic, and social affects of populism, progressivism, women’s suffrage on society in general, blacks, and immmigrants. Thanks! really appreciate it!

guessing lot worse then the one we’ve today

Prof David Greenberg of Rutgers said the following:

The Clinton years were unquestionably a time of progress, especially on the economy [...] Clinton’s 1992 slogan, ‘Putting people first,’ and his stress on ‘the economy, stupid,’ pitched an optimistic if still gritty populism at a middle class that had suffered under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. [...] By the end of the Clinton presidency, the numbers were uniformly impressive. Besides the record-high surpluses and the record-low poverty rates, the economy could boast the longest economic expansion in history; the lowest unemployment since the early 1970s; and the lowest poverty rates for single mothers, black Americans, and the aged.[55]

Also

1. The economy grew at 4%/year while under GHW Bush it was a mere 2.8%

2. Created more than 22.5 million jobs

3. Unemployment dropped from 7% under GHW Bush to less than 4% under Clinton

4. Low Inflation: average was 2.5% which fell from 4.7% of prev admin.

5. Surplus in year 2000 was 237 Billion dollars

6. Welfare dropped 7.5 million (53% decline)

Can we learn something from this?

Yes I do. Great president.

I wanted Hillary in 2008, but NOOOO my stupid party had to vote for the cool guy promising hope and change.

31. T F By the mid-1930s Louisiana’s illiteracy rate was three times the national average.

32. T F In the 1971 Election New Orleans attorney Sam Bell was the first serious African-American candidate for Governor since Reconstruction.

33. T F From 1948 until the 1970s, black representation in the state legislature was blocked by a
process of gerrymandering- that is, drawing and maintaining the boundaries of
legislative districts to ensure that a white majority exists in each district.

34. T F The Longites were dedicated to denying black citizens of Louisiana their voting
rights.

35. T F Plaquemines Parish under the leadership of Leander Perez was a veritable basket-case of a mess: government corruption, high unemployment, poor roads, poor schools, very few public facilities for recreation.

36. T F New Orleans politics was dominated during the mayorship of Chep Morrison by the Big
Easy Democratic Association, or B.E.D.A..

37. T F LSUNO opened in 1958 as a fully integrated university.

38. T F The Crescent City Democratic Association, or C.C.D.A., was a political machine built
by the Longite Mayor of New Orleans Robert Maestri.

39. T F Louisiana’s growing oil and natural gas industries in the post-WW II era failed to benefit from the nation’s transportation boom in airlines and automobile sales due to excessive state regulation of those industries.

40. T F The local culture of New Orleans is Creole, not Cajun.

41. T F During Robert F. Kennon’s administration, he was able to cut taxes, increase business
and industry in Louisiana, reduce state debt, resurrect a Civil Service meritocracy, and
fight organized crime in Louisiana.

42. T F Populism is political philosophy emphasizing the needs & concerns of the
common people.

43. T F John McKeithen was the last Longite Governor of Louisiana.

44. T F John McKeithen was elected governor in 1963 as an independent Democrat.

45. T F The New Orleans Times-Picayune is the modern descendant of four different past
newspapers.

46. T F While former Earl Long portage John McKeithen won the governor’s election in 1963,
the Long family’s own candidate, Gillis Long, made a poor showing in the campaign
that year.

47. T F Forever embittered by the unmaterialized threat of Huey Long for the Democratic nomination to the US Presidency, President Franklin Roosevelt spurned Longite
overtures for political deals that would have directed considerable WPA projects and other New Deal funds to Louisiana.

48. T F Longite Governor Richard Leche was forced to resign in 1939 following a wave of
scandals that were brought to light that year by a series of newspaper reports.

49. T F Governor Sam Jones delayed the promulgation of his new state employee tenure laws in 1941 so that he could purge state bureaucracy of Long employees. But Earl Long later on never used the same tactic himself to fire the appointees of Governors Jones and Jimmie
Davis.

50. T F The Treen Administration was a resounding success for Louisiana; as the first Republican
governor since Reconstruction substantially reduced the budget deficit, cut taxes, boosted
business and industry, and plowed his gains in these areas into the highly beneficial
investment of the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans.

You need to do your own research and the Internet makes it easy.

For example, search "USA literacy rate 1935" and "Louisiana literacy rate 1935". Then compare the results.

Hint: In questions with multiple parts if even one of the parts is false the answer is False.

There’s been quite a lot of William Walton on Classic FM over the past few days, and suspect there will be others who composed tunes concerning wars (or – er…’conflicts’, as they’re known as nowadays, for whatever reason) pumping out of radios in the near future, but will the usual sections of the press be eager to orchestrate a sort of populism that Qadhafi himself has taken on. If he (and his army) are difficult to ‘crush’, will the black/red tops call up the usual faces (Vera Lynn et al) to tell us what it was like in 1942…once the punters’ favourite, and true/false ‘crime’ stories become tiresome?
Will have to agree with you, Marcus…but it’s not the so-called ‘left-wing’ BBC who are doing the job. Had a look at the papers from Wednesday onward, and the usual suspects act almost like they want (no, n-e-e-d) to make their readers feel good.
Qadhafi is a first rate bastard…who has acted like a moody partner to us for the last thirty years, being ‘assisted’ one decade, and shooting it back into our face…that is a proof that can’t be squashed – but fear of reading 1945 (or even 1982-style) ‘Gotcha’ front pages – with papers like the Sun getting so scary it becomes satire

A lot later than the libyans…..

They have already started the propaganda ….aka lies….fake forage of ‘injured’ etc

And now the Arab league is back pedalling.

Better if the west leave this lot to stew in their own juices.

It really is not worth getting involved….damned if you do damned if you don’t.

I think there should be a Bill passed defining parties, with part constitutions;

The Republican Party will be Split into the fallowing

National Republican Party;
Color: Purple
Ideologies: Nationalism, Classic Liberalism

Conservative Republican Party;
Color: Blue
Ideologies: Conservatism

Libertarian Republican Party;
Color: Gold
Ideology: Classic Liberalism

The Democratic Party will be split into the fallowing

Liberal Democratic Party;
Color: orange
Ideologies: Social Justice, Classic Liberalism

Social Democratic Party;
Color: Red
Ideologies: Democratic socialism,

National Democratic Party;
Color: Black
Ideologies: Nationalism, Populism

Then if you don’t fall under one of these categories there is always the Independent party

By law you can not run for political office under a party that does not match your ideologies, or you face impeachment, and the parties can not switch their ideologies.

Hoe ever new parties can be added to the list.

Each party will have a constitution, outlining their party’s ideologies, so it can not change it’s ideologies on us,

It also outlines how it will reach their goals according to our constitutional laws.
For example the Social Democrats would have to amend the constitution, so they would have that as part of their explanation of how they will reach their goals legally.

This will be so it enforces the idea of the constitution’s restrictions on government, and politicians will try to amend the constitution instead of breaking it all the time.

Also this prevents people from hiding in other parties, like Marxists hiding in the Democratic Party
and Social Liberals Hiding in the Republican Party

This also draws a more distinct line between various divisions within the Party’s ideologies, so some Republican and Democrats are not grouped together with members of their party who hold different ideologies. Such as McCain and Bush, or Kennedy and Reid
Fiscally responsible would be Libertarianism, otherwise known as Classic Liberalism, which is much different from Social Liberalism, which is the Modern Liberal

I did not say they can’t compromise with other parties, I said they must hold their party’s beliefs, and push for their party’s beliefs. One could do this and still compromise, so both sides are happy.

And this is not true, most people fall neatly into a political party, but because so many parties are grouped up and packed into just 2 parties, they often conflict with their own parties on issues.

For example liberal democrats and social democrats disagree on the economy, and liberal democrats may agree with Libertarian Republicans on lowering taxes on corporations, but Social Democrats would be completely against it
In today’s society Classical Liberalism is considered far right. Look up the Definitions, before you comment, because I will not choose ignorant answers.

libertarians want a very small government. so that won’t work. you forgot those that are fiscally responsible.

so i don’t agree with you. sorry. -… ….

Switch German nationalism with White American populism;

The Nazi party with the GOP and Tea Party;

German Jews and Gypsies with American Latinos , Muslims and Blacks;

Concentration camps with Guantanamo Prsinons;

The German Secret Police [Black shirts] with the American paramilitary group [Black Water;].

the passage of the German Enabling act with the passage of the American patriot act

The US government now even compiles lists of "terrorists" that include college Professors like Richard Dawkins, to CNN anchors like Nick Griffin

WAKE THE FCK UP PPL, you live in a police state and Obama is just continuing Bush policies, he’s nothing but a figure head for the corporate eugenicist elite

Yet another lib breaks Godwin’s Law, yet another lib fails…

Well, we were due, it has been a whole 15-20 minutes since another weak-minded lib compared Republicans to Nazis.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." – Sinclair Lewis

I’m a Canadian, not an American. But when I look at what’s going on in the US, it’s pretty bleak. You have the Tea Party movement (which is a right-wing populist movement) gaining evermore momentum. The Republican party has been catering to these people, and many of the 2010 Republican nominees are right-wing populists themselves.

Watch that video. It was an anti-Muslim rally. The crowd was so riled up with hate, that when a black man who’s just trying to pass through the crowd (who’s christian and a carpenter who works at ground zero) suddenly gets attacked by the crowd for no reason.

I’m worried for the US.
Canada has much tougher immigration laws than the US, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.

I think what we are seeing in this country is un-satisfcation with the entire political party system. There used to be more moderate’s on the right who governed from the middle. After the last election cycle most of these were voted out and we were left with a lot more people on the fringe. But this happens with every election cycle of a party going out of power. You wind up losing moderates in swing states and keeping those on the fringe of the party where states lean that way. The Tea Party existed long before this election cycle. They used to come to DC annually to protest taxes. The GOP basically showed up at the function and high-jacked it. I think it is gaining more ground as people are looking for an independent choice as they are tired of both republican and democrats. But if you look at the Tea Party it’s full of the GOP; so really an independent vote becomes a vote for the GOP. There ideologue appears to lean more towards the libertarian or fringe of the right of the only function of government is to provide defense. But there is a downstream effect to every ideologue which is why the pendulum swings after a couple of election cycles. If anyone found the perfect way to govern that appeases nearly everyone in the US I guess we wouldn’t have these tough questions to answer.

The revelation that McCain/Palin campaign volunteer Ashley Todd mutilated herself in an apparent race-baiting attempt to draw white voters away from Barack Obama again raises troubling questions about the McCain/Palin campaign and many of its most zealous supporters. By her own admission to Pittsburgh police, the 20-year-old Texan chose to submit a fictional report that she was attacked and robbed at an ATM the night of Oct. 22 by a tall black man who became enraged, beat her, and carved a "B" into her cheek after seeing a McCain-Palin bumper sticker on her car. Todd said the man told her that he was going to teach her a lesson for supporting McCain, and that now she was going to be a "Barack supporter." To support her claim she apparently blackened her own eye and carved a backward "B" on her own face in a mirror (see AP, KDKA, Huffington Post).

Unfortunately, I am not the least bit surprised by Ms. Todd’s actions. I would never suggest that all McCain/Palin supporters are crazy, but a significant number particularly of Sarah Palin’s most zealous supporters have exhibited behavior sufficiently extreme to suggest that some form of social pathology is indeed taking root in the grotesque traveling circus the McCain/Palin campaign has become. McCain/Palin rallies, and particularly Palin rallies, have turned into festivals of hate as attendees shout "Terrorist!" and "Kill Him!" at each mention of Obama’s name and vent their rage at the media by attacking reporters. Numerous written accounts and video clips now circulating online attest to the rabidly hateful behavior of many supporters at McCain/Palin rallies, as well as to their insistence on believing that Obama is a secret Muslim, a terrorist, and perhaps even the Antichrist, even though such rumors have been denounced as lies by Republicans as well as Democrats. Presented with the facts of Obama’s American roots and Christian faith, these zealots prefer to hide behind paranoid theories of an unholy, foreign Obama no rational person would take seriously.

Comparisons with Nazis and other historical extremes are all too often facile and gross overstatements of one’s case, and are usually best avoided. It is worth noting, however, that the rise of the Nazis in Germany and other examples of extreme demagoguery from history such as the Cultural Revolution in China under Mao Zedong and the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia contained elements common to many such movements, if in less extreme forms. The Nazis, Mao’s Red Guards, and the Khmer Rouge all made use of xenophobia and anti-cosmopolitanism, hatred of intellectuals, disdain for cities and the people who inhabit them, and other forms of divisive populism and "anti-elitism" to build working-class and peasant support and to fashion scapegoats at which popular anger might usefully be directed. Infamously in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, even possessing the soft hands of an educated urbanite was enough to get one executed; and at Chinese universities during the Cultural Revolution professors were thrown from their classroom windows to their deaths on the pavement below. Hitler’s Nazis are known not only for the death camps they operated, but also for the persecution of artists and intellectuals as well as for festive book-burnings before cheering mobs of working-class Nazi supporters.

John McCain, Sarah Palin, and other Republicans today are cynically making use of these same forms of demagoguery in their attempt to frighten voters away from Barack Obama and the Democrats. Cultural buttons are pushed in ads and speeches inflaming fear and hatred of the "Other." Attendees at McCain/Palin rallies are told that they are the only "real Americans," and that liberals and other enemies are out to subvert their values and destroy their way of life. They are invited to spew hate at Democratic politicians and news reporters. They are whipped into a frenzy and then sent out to spread the McCain/Palin message of irrational fear and hatred among their fellow Americans. Just as these methods produced extreme results in Nazi Germany, Mao’s China, and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, so they are producing extreme results today across Sarah Palin’s America, if not so very extreme.

American writer Sinclair Lewis wrote, "When fascism comes to America, it’ll be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." A McCain/Palin rally today is not quite the same as those at Nuremberg in the 1930s or on Tiananmen Square in the 1960s, and most McCain/Palin supporters aren’t exactly Brownshirts or Red Guards. A significant number particularly of Sarah Palin’s most zealous supporters do, however, seem to have drifted into comparable forms of thinking and behavior, convinced that as the last bastion of "the real America" they are surrounded not only by foreign enemies but by domestic enemies as well: liberals, big-city news editors, university professors and their students, arugula-eaters, latte-drinkers, immigrants, "uppity" blacks, so
], "uppity" blacks, socialists, gays, secret Muslims. Sarah Palin seems to have awakened something in certain members of the Republican base that John McCain has not, and this is something far darker than mere "enthusiasm." Palin has lit a xenophobic fuse among her most ardent fans, has drawn out all the ugliest hatreds and fears that can take root among people in hard times, and has convi
This article appears at TPM. You can read the whole article and commnets there.
I feel it is very eyopening and also scary.

Thanks for posting this question. The hatred displayed at Palin’s rallies, with her encouragement, is nothing short of Nazism and I’ll leave it at that.
I doubt Themis even took the time to read this.

Demagogue – a person, esp. an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.

A key word in the above definition is “prejudices”; are ‘populist’ demagogues changing Africa for the better?

Duration : 0:9:43

Continue »

Technorati Tags: africa, ANC, demagogue, Julius Malema, MDC, Mugabe, Populism, south africa, Tsvangirai, Zanu PF, zimbabwe