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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 19-Sep-2024 11:48:25 JST Paul Cantrell

   in reply to

   • shonin
   • Writing Slowly
   • GeofCox
   • Alexander Karn
   • Chris Ammerman

   @writingslowly @GeofCox @shonin @xankarn @cammerman
   There’s a lot to this, although it easily wanders into the territory where “economic anxiety” becomes a euphemism for racism. Yes, economic concerns matter — but they’re also not the whole picture, and we paper over bigotry, xenophobia, and supremacism at our peril.

   • Embed this notice
     Writing Slowly (writingslowly@aus.social)'s status on Thursday, 19-Sep-2024 11:48:26 JST Writing Slowly

     • shonin
     • GeofCox
     • Alexander Karn
     • Chris Ammerman

     @GeofCox @inthehands @shonin @xankarn @cammerman this is a really important point. The left needs to connect economic concerns with all its other concerns in a compelling package. The demographer Simon kuestenmacher observes that the rise of the AfD in Thuringia actively feeds off economic and demographic decline, using scapegoating to avoid the real issues, which are basically intractable. It’s a flywheel: the worse the economy gets, the more disaffected this makes the electorate, and the more willing to blame marginal groups. The far right is strongly incentivised to make the economy worse, and to thrive on the crisis. This presents a dilemma for the left. They think politics is about improving things, but the demographic decline is very hard to fix. Meanwhile the right blames them for their failure. The left needs strong economic wins or it’s in serious trouble.

     https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/2024/09/13/the-stats-guy-far-right-australia