goatsarah
World press: Far right surges on Portugal elections!
I mean, yes, as someone who lives in Portugal, it's scary as hell, but in the ongoing love affair that the western press has with fascists, let's not lose sight of the fact that this "surge" is actually them coming third, and not a particularly close third either.
What's worrying is that there's no stable coalition without either them, or the centre right and centre left joining forces.
Hopefully this will be their high water mark.
goatsarah
Mark Asser
@goatsarah Also, didn't Portugal have an actual revolution to get rid of the fascists?
Mark Asser
@goatsarah Ah, well, that makes all the difference.
goatsarah
@arroz They’re a receptacle for angry people to project anything they want onto. They can do well as a perpetual party of opposition, but they are, ultimately, bullshit merchants with nothing to offer beyond that piece of shit, Ventura, ranting about “gypsies” and nebulous “corruption” (presumably he’s angry that any potential backhanders aren’t coming to him).
Thing is, while parties of protest can do well when people are disillusioned with mainstream politics, if they do well enough to get any kind of power (say as a junior coalition partner), it’s … difficult to maintain that vote when people can no longer believe that you can be whatever they want you to be.
I was a member of the Liberal Democrats in the UK. In 2010, we picked up 22% of the vote as a party of protest, although unlike Chega we were coming at it from the centre left.
And it got us into coalition.
And ever since, the party has been stuck on about 7%.
If PSD and PS form a grand coalition, then Chega can keep their status as “the plutonic opposition party” and will probably go higher.
It will be uncomfortable as fuck if they end up in some sort of power sharing arrangement with PSD though. As you so rightly note, they are fuckers.
But I think it will basically end them. Trump and Johnson managed to pull off the “plucky outsider” con while still being in power, but I don’t think Ventura has that in him. I don’t think he can survive his fans seeing him become everything he claimed to hate.
Or at least I hope so. The alternative is scary as fuck, and I already had to flee one country where these arseholes got unchallenged levels of power (although even in their case, it’s about to destroy them. Still, the damage is done)
Miguel Arroz
@goatsarah Every election so far people have been saying it’s their high water mark and then they triple or quadruple their voting. I’m not optimistic. 1.1M people voting for these fuckers… I’m still in disbelief. And some of the regions I love the most and the worst. The world is really turning to shit.
Miguel Arroz
@goatsarah I’m not sure if PS and PSD will form any sort of coalition. The history on that isn’t great. I’m not sure how long the next government will last but my guess is, not much. I’m still hoping the emigration ridings will repeat the result of last election, causing a tie in MPs and (hopefully) more votes for PS, forcing the president to invite the left-wing “majority” to power.
goatsarah
@chrispackham watching the TV news last night, they’re still doing the latter.
Chega, by the way, is probably to the left of the Tories.
Chris Packham
@goatsarah honestly, I’d rather have news media freaking out and overreacting about fascists than their usual normalization and hagiography of extreme right politicians
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