And through pure boredom/decadence, they were radicalised through years of negative messaging from the populist press into 'caring' about things like Brexit, immigration, welfare claimants, etc.

These are people that have most of their needs met and are comfortable, yet their emotional buttons were pushed over the course of years into making them foam at the mouth about things they largely don't fully grasp and that definitely don't have an impact on their lives.

I'm glad you added "(to generalise)" in there, because I'd class myself as 'lower middle' and most of my family/friends in a similar bracket absolutely cannot function without both partners working, and a majority are renting rather than buying their home. I'd argue that what you've described is only true of those OLDER lower middle class folks (like my parents) who struck it lucky before the housing market lost its mind.

The only reason I personally fit into your description (well, I only have one car) is that I was lucky to find my way into the software industry which pays a heck of a lot better than most...

Someone is really hurting. Either production is collapsing and people are losing good jobs, or it is directly going to result in household pain.

I suppose it would surprise me if 20% of a country's electricity can disappear, almost half its primary energy production is gone, the population grows by 10% and everyone is cheerful. It looks like a situation ripe for rage, tension and people asking angry questions.

This is basically the pigeonhole principle at work. If energy availability is going down and population is rising, someone is going to be developing some profoundly anti-migrant views.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom

If there are less Joules and more people, some people must - by mathematical necessity - be consuming less of them. If your family can still afford to consume the same amount then maybe someone else on the margins is really being pushed.

That is a pretty decent reason for why a large number of people might be getting desperate for political change. It is a stronger explanation than some variant of the more common "maybe they are just really confused and/or hateful and/or unexpectedly stupid". People don't read economic stats but they'll notice if 20% of their electricity goes away.

If you want to point to something, I'd look towards massively inflated house prices (almost 10x over 30 years in some places), and stagnating real wages.

For energy efficiency to cover the change + population growth with no winding back of lifestyles it would need to be something like a 30% increase in efficiency over 10 years, affecting all electrical devices in the country. There is reason to be sceptical that it is a major factor here.

Add to that there is an argument/observation (Jevons's Paradox) that increasing efficiency of using a commodity generally doesn't lead to reduced usage. If it made sense to procure X commodity when it generated Y, it makes it even more sensibly to procure X when it gets you (Y+something).

As for decreasing industrial use ... the default position when a country jettisons its industry is "gee, that might reasonable upset a lot of people and/or cause social problems!". The changes are rather large. Deindustrialising might foreseeable lead to such things as stagnating real wages, as the country can't produce as many goods, or massively inflated house prices as it becomes more difficult to secure useful work/build new houses.

The UK temporarily outlawed older-generation lightbulbs, as well as putting in place a number of measures to reduce energy use. Even Conservatives, historically the party of industry, are now heavily committed towards energy-efficiency measures of all sorts (sometimes excessively so, like the push for those terrible heat pumps).

A decline in energy consumption is a good thing and is absolutely not impacting standards of living in any way in UK society. The reasons for discontent are many, for sure, but not related to energy use in any way. The main issue really is wage stagnation (and hence, availability of time) for the working classes.

The default position when a country's electricity use drops 20% is to be concerned. If they do the same thing 4 more times they will have returned to the stone age.

If you look at trends, the main driver is the fall in industrial use, which has been consistent since the '70s. This country has effectively abandoned industry with Thatcher, and, unlike others, it has never looked back. British industry is in (un)managed decline, the economy is now entirely driven by services and finance.

Domestic trends are flat or falling softly, driven by those efficiency measures I mentioned. The UK used to have very cheap electricity coming from nuclear reactors that are slowly being decommissioned, which (combined with a typically-botched privatisation of the sector) has driven up domestic prices very significantly, pushing people towards alternatives. For example, there used to be a lot of electric heaters in British homes, which are now invariably replaced with gas-powered ones. That has not meant a significant fall in living standards.

There are many issues with the UK system, particularly a wealth distribution heavily skewed towards one or two metropolitan areas (the centres of services and finance), but falling energy use is not really one of them.

Every other topic that has emotional potential can serve as a scapegoat for distraction ("we have to fight the common enemy first, then we can care about the poor"): immigrants, the EU, Jewish/Marxist conspiracies, homosexuals etc. It does not _necessarily_ mean that there are no problems related to other topics (e.g. EU bureaucracy etc.), but that is hardly relevant in these cases. You see this playbook in many countries inside and outside of Europe (e.g. Brazil, USA, UK, Russia, Poland, Slovenia, Turkey, ...).

https://www.alcohol.org/guides/global-drinking-demographics/

8/10 top parody comment. You could have strengthened it by suggesting they turn to brioche if they don't have enough bread to eat though.

It's not just the UK. It's the US and every other place. Trump wins 46% of the popular vote in 2016 and suddenly there's a deluge of think pieces about how people are hurting and what not. Yeah maybe. But there's a lot of folks out there who love voting for a guy who "triggers libs" and normalizes pussy grabbing. And we're not allowed to say this, because again, it's heresy in a democracy to imply that a large segment of voters could be ignorant or stupid or racist.

Another example, this time with vaccines. One person decides not to get a life saving vaccine because he was duped by misinformation online - he's an idiot. 30% of the population swallow the same bullshit - they have valid concerns that we need to empathise with and assuage. If they choose not to get vaccinated, we have to accept their choice. We shouldn't require vaccine passports because it would hurt their feelings and their ability to transmit diseases to their fellow citizens.

I posit to you that 'people hurting and what not' are not merely think pieces ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Elegy ). I remember driving through PA months before Trump's election and recall seeing some of the sadder signs you can read including "Save us Trump". It is not "triggering the libs"; it is genuine despair of no options other than triggering the libs. It is important to understand where it comes from, if one is to have a hope to counter it in any meaningful way. Just using that slogan is a mental shortcut that undermines our discourse.

I do not see that understanding. What I see is more targeted messaged intended to inflame pre-existing passions. I do not see discussion. I see bumper stickers.

As for democracy, there is an argument to be made that it relies on educated and engaged populace. I am not the biggest fan, because US has neither and a lot of ways to manipulate public opinion are well understood now. And yet, it is still a better option than benevolent dictator, monarchy or some sort of theocracy.

Now, we can quibble over whether US is a democracy, which in itself is a discussion for a couple of pages.

I do think you have a point with vaccines, but I want you to consider the question of choice, mandates and so on in regards to government imposing choices upon you. What is the lesser evil here?

The government isn't imposing these requirements arbitrarily, it's your fellow citizens imposing it through the mechanism of government. For example, Big Government will outlaw and penalise littering not for the sake of it, but because that's what citizens want from their democratically elected government.

And as a citizen who fully supports restrictions in response to a pandemic - IMO the government can't require you to get vaccinated. But you can't demand to be allowed into nightclubs and cruise ships while unvaccinated. Fair?

> And yet, it is still a better option than benevolent dictator, monarchy or some sort of theocracy.

I didn't argue against democracy. I argued against putting the population on a pedestal. It's ok to criticise people's beliefs. And it continues to be ok even if those beliefs are held by a large group of people. If a large group of people think that vaccines cause 5G ... I don't think we should coddle them and think about it from their perspective and accommodate their idiocy just because they have plenty of company. Let's create rules so the damage they do is minimized.

Please note that democracy literally is the rule of the people. You simply cannot state that you are not arguing against democracy and in next breath say that people should not be on its pedestal, because, theoretically, people are its ruling class. If it is a democracy, people are on its pedestal. That is the main weakness of democracy. People, as a whole, are idiots.

Your issue appears to be with commonly held beliefs that are not your beliefs. But that is a very different discussion.

> And as a citizen who fully supports restrictions in response to a pandemic - IMO the government can't require you to get vaccinated. But you can't demand to be allowed into nightclubs and cruise ships while unvaccinated. Fair?

I have zero problem with that statement.

I see a fair bit of attempts at understanding. Liberals love to write books like "The Righteous Mind" and "What's The Matter With Kansas?", attempting to understand conservatives from a liberal point of view. I can't think of anything comparable on the right. Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives, and it feels like the only thing conservatives want is to make my life harder.

It could very well be that I'm just not listening hard enough. That seems to be the response every time liberals lose elections: "understand harder", because the problem is with me. But I'm starting to think that maybe I do understand: they don't want anything from me except someone to be angry at, and whatever despair they're undergoing is more about the deliberate induction of that despair than anything I actually do.

Just top of my head:

Well, there is an argument to be made from purely economical perspective, avg. earner did see some improvement. Regardless of whether you think tax cuts were a good idea, Trump tax cuts did have intended effects ( even though they also added to an ever increasing deficit ).

He did pull out of JCPOA, which some of his electorate actually wanted for various reasons.

I maintain that listening is important. I would argue that understanding is more than important. You want an absolution and an easy answer of 'they are just assholes so I can be an asshole back', but it is not that easy. The people you dismiss have rationale for what they do. And now that you know this, you have no excuse but to act on that knowledge. Or, at least, use it to your advantage.

How's that worked out for them? People in Appalachia feeling pleased about the pain inflicted on the Iranian people? Or are they pleased that Iran stopped adhering to the deal and have resumed uranium enrichment? Or are they pleased about Iran's expanding influence in the Middle East?

It doesn't take much to to give people what they want. Pulling out of the JCPOA took only a couple of days. But it was not a good decision, and the fallout wasn't felt by the people who pushed for it.

You are correct to point out that people of Appallachia did not get anything of value out of that exchange.

Since that is the case, would you accept Keystone Pipeline ( https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/trump-administration-app... ), which was approved and, arguably, allowed for a lowering of energy cost across US?

< It doesn't take much to to give people what they want.

I do disagree with that statement. This is the hardest thing in politics.

One possible way to look at 2016 is that the left wing of the Democratic party felt taken advantage of. The party put forth a centrist candidate (after 8 years of a President who wasn't nearly as progressive as they'd hoped). There was little enthusiasm, while the people you've asked me to understand voted for a candidate who was obviously awful in many ways.

So the political calculus can say, "It doesn't matter what they want. You can't reach them, as evidenced by their willingness to vote for such a terrible candidate. I need instead to lean in the exact opposite direction, doing things that they hate vocally, because they can't vote against me any harder than they already do."

That's my excuse to not act on that knowledge. I have only so many actions I can take, and I will spend them in the way that does the most good.

Note that I'm not committed to that, merely explaining the view as being something other than "they're assholes so I can be an asshole back". But I do believe that the time has come to consider making them chase me rather than the other way around.

Conservatives every time liberals win elections: "let's make voting harder", because the problem is still with liberals.

Huh? Do you have any examples of this?

I think you might be generalizing too much what it means to be liberal and don't really understand who is or isn't progressive, even in the context of the US.

It sounds like by liberals, you are referring to the Democratic party at large. You have to understand, the Democratic party at large is barely liberal and nowhere near progressive. Outside of a small number of progressive politicians, they're perfectly fine to waste a majority in DC doing very little because the same corporate interests that back conservatives also back them. They behave like controlled opposition. You can do your part to vote for someone who truly is progressive in a primary election.

As for "examples", take a look at those two books I mentioned. There are many more books, and many op-ed pieces every time Democrats lose elections.

It's only relatively recently that the more progressive wing of the party has said, "Hey, rather than try to bend over backwards to attract moderate conservatives, how about you garner more enthusiasm from your left wing?" Or at least, they've been saying it for a while, but were generally dismissed. I think 2016 made the proposition more thinkable: if they will vote for the Republican candidate even if he's obviously insane, maybe a new approach is needed.

Yes, but is the thing they're upset about and the thing they're directing their anger towards actually linked?

It's often hugely successful in politics to say "all your problems are the fault of this external bad actor" rather than "we have a problem and it's going to take a lot of hard work to fix it". It's very easy to blame external Jewish financiers (George Soros always gets a namecheck) and gay people for all your problems. The last time people did that en masse in Eastern Europe it ended up with extermination camps and millions dead.

Arguably Hungary's problems are due to the international finance industry, but there's nothing especially Jewish about it, just good old mis-selling. See e.g. https://www.ft.com/content/6c27cfbc-f50b-11e2-94e9-00144feab... - Orban took on the banks, which has to have been a big help to his popularity.

The EU is not blameless in this: https://www.escp.eu/news/eu-convergence-narrative-played-key...

Is Germany in Eastern Europe now?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omarska_camp

You thought you would score a point by embarrassing a stranger on the internet, but it didn't work out because you read something that OP didn't say. Pedantry is rarely a good look.

Plus, it's not pedantic. Saying that the holocaust was a eastern-european thing (or that the polish were largely responsible) is a common way the far right in germany try to diffuse and deflect responsibility.

I don't think OP is doing that, but I still think it's an important thing to remember - that the holocaust was the project of western europeans, i.e. it's not somebody else's problem.

I did

> Plus, it's not pedantic. Saying that the holocaust was a eastern-european thing (or that the polish were largely responsible) is a common way the far right in germany try to diffuse and deflect responsibility.

>I don't think OP is doing that, but I still think it's an important thing to remember - that the holocaust was the project of western europeans, i.e. it's not somebody else's problem.

In Hungary (which is after all the country in focus here), saying the holocaust was forced upon us by the Germans is similarly a common way the far right try to diffuse and deflect.

'the holocaust was the project of western europeans, i.e. it's not somebody else's problem' is only true if you are a Western European yourself. If you say that the holocaust was the project of western europeans in Hungary, it means the opposite of what you're trying to say.

Still, it's just a fact that the holocaust was a German policy, organized and largely staffed by Germans. I think that while much of eastern europe was and still is profoundly antisemetic, the Germans would have absolutely carried out the holocaust even if the opposite was the case. That many people took part in the process is obviously shameful in every instance, but the OP comment makes it out as if it was like some plebiscite of eastern europe - which it obviously was not.

For me, I see OP's mention of Eastern Europe as a link to Hungary, which is the focus of the article, rather than as a general, out-of-context attempt to shift the blame from Germany to Eastern Europe.

I guess we've now both made our points, and it's come down to a question of what OP meant rather than the words on the screen. I don't think either of us have managed to convince the other, so without more input from OP, we're at an impasse.

Mmm, I was actually just pushing back against the words on the screen. I don't doubt the OP means it the way you read it. I guess I don't generally see a rejoinder as a way of embarrassing the person I'm replying too - rather as a way of contesting the point, refining it, or clarifying it. I actually quite rarely notice who I'm talking to online.

Brazil experienced 12 years of prosperity from 2003 to 2015, with some trouble starting in 2012, but still with solid numbers in unemployment, for instance. Still a hate-based disinformation campaign managed to overthrow a re-elected president for accusations later proved unfounded, paving the way to the election of a far-right president who is ripping apart the fragile fabric of Brazil's still young democracy.

This is why we need to deal harshly with such hatred/disinfo campaigns, ruthlessly deplatforming fringe elements and denying them the chance to drag the Overton window their way.

In the past century Europe saw the construction of facilities used exclusively to commit murder at an industrial scale, designed to be the cheapest way to kill whole populations.

It's people like Orbán, the Le Pens, Jörg Meuthen, Nigel Farage, among many, many others, that took this continent there and, if we don't act, they'll do it again.

First, sometimes the wrong people come to power anyway. If they can't do it by blatant misinformation and propaganda, they'll do it by "wolf in sheep's clothing" tactics. Once they get power, the machinery is there, just waiting for them to use it to enforce their narrative. Sure, by protecting the narratives that are allowed, you might make it more difficult for such a one to come to power, and therefore less probable. You can't make it impossible, though. And if the thought of such machinery in Orban's hands (or Trump's) doesn't terrify you, you're not thinking.

Second, power changes people. You might be a perfectly fine, democracy-loving person. Give you that kind of power and you might not be the same person forever. As Elrond said, "I fear to take the ring to guard it. I will not take the ring to wield it" - and for very good reason. Too much power is a danger even to the good.

I can't help but to smile the smile of mild horror that calls to overreaching and overzealous censorship of wrongthink ( hate is sufficiently innocuous and broad to cover just about any kind of wrongthink - just the fact that it has been accepted by mainstream as a good enough reason is horrifying ) is so common that is used with adjectives like ruthlessly without any feel for the irony.

I can certainly feel the hate.

You are right in the sense that eradicating poverty will probably have a stabilizing effect on many societies, but, in Brazil at least, it wasn't the poorest who supported the rise of fascism - this was driven mostly by the middle class.

In Germany it was the hate speech, the scapegoating, the xenophobia of the nazi discourse, the framing of other people as sub-human, evil and unworthy of living. This led to seemingly normal people inflicting unspeakable evil upon others. And it's frighteningly easy to make a human do that.

That's quite literally Nazi propaganda, although the narrative was born in the US with Keynes as Americans were oddly keen on washing the Germans of their sins, shifting the blame everywhere else and go back to business as usual.

The Treaty of Versailles was nothing particularly odious, Germany could have coped with it fine if it stuck to the terms. It didn't, it broke its economy on purpose to avoid honoring the treaty.

And many people rightly saw that the prosperity that happened during Lula's time was because of booming commodities market and exports booming, not because anything he did in particular.

Brazillians voted for Bolsonaro not because he is right wing, but because he promised he would end corruption, and the workers party IS corrupt.

Now that Bolsonaro has proven that he won't end corruption either (starting with him protecting his son), I doubt he will be re-elected, instead whoever else promises to end corruption and is not corrupted that has a good shot.

Ah, the familiar sound of facts being twisted and turned to conform to what you wish reality had been. We’ve been hearing this same rhetoric of denial since before their government ended. Somehow we should believe that a country of 200 million people was just “going through its motions” for over a decade and the figures in power were just spectators. I guess that leaves room to say the same about the current government - the ongoing destruction of the economy is “not their fault” either.

There are a thousand different policies implemented in those years that helped the country achieve growth. A huge number of them already reversed in the past 5-6 years. Hand waving all of it as “the commodities market boomed” is of such a despicable, willful ignorance.

EDIT: on why I find this so aggravating: to have a decent government you need people to vote based on proposals, political stance on specific issues, policies, not empty promises (like ending corruption). This kind of discourse just continues to poison the well by taking focus away from real economic/political issues and into a red vs blue team mentality.

You are talking about Lula, who was jailed after massive procedural "errors", mishandling of evidence, witness intimidation (bordering on torture), evidence inflation and many, many others, conducted by a partisan judge who would be named by the election winner (a win Moro helped him secure by preventing Lula from running) to head the ministry of justice.

Dilma's maneuver was later considered legal and not grounds for an impeachment.

(1) If you believe that hate-based disinformation campaigns routinely unseat good people ... I might suggest that normalising ruthless deplatforming of "fringe elements" is a strategic blunder?

There is a stereotype of ye goode olde Nazi/Communist regimes. It involves tropes of ruthlessness and deplatforming of fringe elements.

(2) I'm not sure dismissing political opponents as "far right" and "fringe" when they are winning elections is rhetorically feasible. It is hard to get away from the fact that winning an election involves convincing swing voters that a plan is acceptable. It is worth asking some what? and why? style questions. Then getting to answers that don't involve the public becoming suddenly and unexpectedly susceptible to hypnosis.

Orban is seen as hateful or radicalising because he is against illegal immigration. He has made a big marketing point about this.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate concerns about illegal immigration that Hungarians might have. Just because Western european nations have decided they don't mind if they add 1-2% yearly to their populations of a culturally totally different type of person, doesn't mean that that is normal or "good".

Orban is using these emotions for his own purposes. That's true. But it's not Orban that is creating these issues, or the concerns about them.

I'm not going to go into the topic of migration and the "legality" of it. But the reason Orban is considered "radical" by many is not because of his stance on immigration first and foremost but because he's been dismantling democratic institutions left and right, starting with NGOs, the media, academia and to some extend even the judiciary. The fact that his rhetoric is hung up on blaming everything on George Soros does also not help.

So I do not see the solution in fighting populist rhetoric, but in adressing the cause of the fear of the people.

If you address it they won't have a reason to vote for you next time. This problem plagues many US cities.

This is precisely where I claim you've gone wrong.

> NGOs

NGOs are not democratic institutions per se. NGOs can be incredibly detrimental to societies, whether intentionally or through incompetence, and can be used by billionaires to social engineer societies as they see fit.

> the media

The media are not democratic institutions per se, even if they can in principle be used to communicate information needed to make sound political decisions. In practice, they've owned by someone with a view that's inseparable from the writing. So far I've seen corporate media banned and very often, in that part of the world, the corporate media are owned by powerful foreign interests, thus often becoming instruments for social engineering and propaganda.

> academia

A healthy academia can, again and in principle, be very important for the maintenance of an informed society, but here, too, they are not democratic institutions per se, and they have demonstrated enormous susceptibility to ideology (which is quite a charitable claim; they are, in fact, the breeding grounds of many of the ideologies that later enter the political sphere). Through funding (gov't and private foundations often backed by billionaires) and biased hiring, ideologues can be promoted and concentrated within the ranks of the university.

So I have to say I am a bit frustrated by the pervasive myopia about the reality of these kinds of political issues. What I see is often a credulous attitude toward the false narratives that corporate media have published.

Whether Orban is using appropriate means to achieve certain ends is the subject of another discussion, but that Hungary and other countries are the subject of foreign imperialist ideological bullying is not an open question as far as I am concerned. Whatever flaws Orban might have, realistically, I do not see any other forces that can mount a serious enough defense against these threats. (Mass immigration is only one thing Orban takes issue with, btw.)

It is also very ironic that in Hungary these independent (i.e. from state) institutions are replaced with ones who's mandate last longer than 2 terms of election - fairly obvious that public control is not the goal, but the exact opposite.

When one calls these institutions Democratic it's because they do represent opposition and thus a control mechanism. This does not mean that they're infallible or act for the good of society by definition but if they do not exist the government operates - de facto - in a completely uncontrolled framework. Unsurprisingly this is why many governments do try to dismantle these institutions in the first place.

>[..] but that Hungary and other countries are the subject of foreign imperialist ideological bullying is not an open question as far as I am concerned.

I agree that this is worthy of a discussion however I don't think this is the topic in question at all.

What is it that makes non-government organizations so democratic? Do they let the general public vote for their leaders?

I think you're being willfully naive here, I'm afraid.

Most migrants weren't Syrians, btw. But more importantly, I wish to remind you that when this mass migration was inflicted on Europe, the Left was very much in favor of this shitshow. There was no "dealing with the Syrian crisis" then (whatever anyone means by that). Nor was there any acknowledgement that the majority of migrants weren't fleeing Syrians. Syrians should have been helped on the ground in Syria, but only a few states seemed to promote that approach (Poland comes to mind).

All of this should suggest that the mass migration was weaponized.

Which migrants? Where are they from in Hungary, then?

> should suggest that the mass migration was weaponized

By whom? For what purpose?

> the Left was very much in favor of this shitshow

The left (such as this can be described as a homogenous bloc!) was not in favour of the collapse of Syria, although they generally were against just repeating the mistakes of Iraq there. Without the attack on Iraq the collapse of Syria might not have happened, after all - it released a huge amount of arms stockpiles into the region which were taken up by ISIS.

> The left (such as this can be described as a homogenous bloc!) was not in favour of the collapse of Syria, although they generally were against just repeating the mistakes of Iraq there. Without the attack on Iraq the collapse of Syria might not have happened, after all - it released a huge amount of arms stockpiles into the region which were taken up by ISIS.

Obama authorized the CIA in 2013 to supply the Syrian rebels with money, weapons, and training [0]. A lot of those weapons ended up falling into the hands of extremist groups like AQ and ISIL, either by "vetted" militia groups getting absorbed into larger ones or weapons getting resold on the black market. That may not have ignited the conflict, but it certainly prolonged it and contributed to the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrians_in_Turkey > The number of Syrians in Turkey is estimated at over 3.6 million people as of March 2020,[3] and consists mainly of refugees of the Syrian Civil War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_involvement_in_the_Syr...

So you think supporting islamist militias is helping stabilize said neighbor state?

People can 'call' for whatever they like. In this case the demand was related to the refererendum being on a nebulous idea without any clear idea on how to implement it. No-one would ever seriously suggest having a referendum on a Trade deal or Treaty before the negotiations had even started. The idea of having a referendum on the final deal was hardly a crazy one.

This sounds like comments to the effect of "If you don't like how America does X, then leave X." It also frames things in a relativistic sense, as if consent is unconditionally binding and nothing but consent has any moral weight.

Anyway, this isn't as simple as it sounds. First, joining did not give the EU license to make all sorts of weird impositions and to demand these countries cooperate against their own good. Second, countries aren't people. Politicians in those countries at the time put a great deal of energy into promoting entry into the EU among the populace, and referenda results reflected a wish to deal with frustration caused by domestic political realities, and feelings of inferiority, more than some kind of reasoned and responsible decision (I recall speaking with political analysts at the time who felt that entry into the EU was a bad decision, at the very least a premature one).

> I think Brexit showed the way

This may be the only option. But this is politics. The EU is unjust (put aside the propaganda please) and so the moral high ground is not to be found in Brussels. For now, tolerating and resisting bullying from the EU is likely better than exiting. But I don't expect the EU is last another 25 years at this rate, so it might be a matter of waiting out the storm.

There is also a difference when you get immigrants of somehow similar culture vs large amount of immigrants from one that is completely different (and it being the same as ISIS, doesn't help, how one can differentiate infiltrator from legitimate refugee?).

It is all good if amount of immigrants is not large influx.

But what most Hungarians (and Poles) didn't take into account is that most of those immigrants prefer to get to western Europe, so blocking them was pointless. They would quickly go West.

I’m genuinely asking because looking at the map, neither Hungary nor Poland are the first stop for a middle eastern refugee, and I have no idea where the statement of infiltrator from ISIS comes from because I haven’t heard of an uptick of terrorism in either country.

People are more reluctant to let immigrants from too foreign culture in, e.g. Poland let in > 1M of Ukrainian immigrants (they are from similar culture as Poland) during last few years. Those assimilate easily.

Also, people are afraid of the unknown. You force that on them, they will object -> vote for those that will block that. There is no way around that.

This happens more in places that are more religious and for example Poland is, if you let in people from different (also religious) culture you create a clash.

I think it would be easier for Czech, where there are few religious citizens.

As for terrorists. People watch TV -> see that ISIS is cutting heads -> EU wants to import people from exact same region into your country. Many people objected to that, even those less nationalist.

Which European nations did this and how? Did Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, etc. do this? If you're talking about colonialism, then if Western Europe has a guilty conscience, let them pay the price. Don't punish nations that had nothing to do with any of that and who themselves were oppressed under foreign imperialism during that time. (Though two wrongs don't make a right, so I would avoid the insane rhetoric of "reparative cultural and national self-destruction".)

Besides, the idea that the world is poor because of European nations is a simplistic claim and the sum benefits and injustices. These weren't typically wealthy nations that those European devils colonized, even if they later took part in exploiting or mistreating those peoples. Odd that only the West receives that attention and no one else.

> Allowing free movement of goods and services without free movement of people entrenches inequality and makes the problem worse

Inequality is not the problem. Poverty and unjust treatment are.

Also, free migration actually does actually make the world worse. It leads to the destruction of the host nation by flooding it with people of a different culture beyond a rate at which they can be absorbed, but also the draining of the origin nations of labor, expertise, etc. It's bad for everyone. Maybe corporations benefit in some myopic way. They're the one who will print the bleeding heart op eds that tug at sentimentalist moralizers.

I've travelled a lot in Eastern Europe and I think I know where this is coming from.

When communism fell, people rejoiced in joining the EU and getting all the benefits of a free society. However what really happened was that those spoils went to the people who were desirable employees. Meaning mainly the young (and those happy few with money or connections). Meanwhile the old communist cronies stayed in power and simply became capitalist oligarchs.

On the other side, older people's built up state pensions were cut or removed due to their jobs being privatised to shady agencies owned by these ex-government oligarchs. An easy way to cheat them out of their benefits they worked for. For all its failures, communism did provide them with a sense of continuity and job security that is now lost.

As a result there is now a strong separation between those with opportunities and those without. The haves and have nots. The older people have been abandoned. Of course these people tend to have traditional values and this is what people like Orban target.

I don't think Orban will really make things better for them, he is just a populist seeing a niche to take advantage of. But the disillusionment is real and very clear to me. I've spoken to some well educated poor people that were just too old to be of interest to capitalist companies. And thus ending up living in an apartment with plastic bags for windows (in -20 degrees C). I spoke to a very well educated school teacher who was begging on the street to pay for her husband's cancer treatment. She wasn't one to fall for these populists as she was way too sharp. But I was shocked how society has let an entire class of hard-working people just drop away into insignificance. In Western Europe we have built a balance between capitalism and welfare, but in Eastern Europe they moved straight to a caricature of hard neoliberalism. It caused a big culture shock and left a whole class of people behind.

We (as the EU) have let this happen by letting these states change their industries to capitalism overnight without setting up a proper welfare system. This will not go away until we find a way to give everyone a decent life in these countries. For some people the EU has been nothing but broken promises. Of course that's a breeding ground for dissent and populism.

Please don't generalise. Have you been to Czech Republic or Poland? There are no such neoliberalisms (I would say same about Hungary, but considering Orban, I'm not sure, I haven't been there)

We have good welfare and educated people don't beg on streets, not to mention plastic bags on windows.

Your description looks more like one for Ukraine.

The plastic bags on windows were really common though. There was a really poor apartment block just beside the office and I always felt so guilty looking at it. From the well heated office with free coffee.

As for neoliberalism: in Poland the usual way of employment, called "umowa o dzieło", gives the employee pretty much no rights whatsoever. It's almost as bad as in the US in that matter, and not comparable at all to Western Europe.

In both countries the governments are trying to make it quite hard to have people with Umowa o dzielo, which are de-facto employees, but do not pay the appropriate taxes nor are corrrectly protected. The employers also have some reason to do this, the protections offered to the employees often make it a very big risk to hire somebody. Regardless, i believe the southern European countries got it much worse on that front. (Note, the Polish social security model was heavily influenced by the spanish one).

What you describe is used by firms that you can smell a mile away and don't even try to work there.

I'm sure western Europe has similar companies that abuse employer rights.

Also, note that this is not an abuse of employer's rights: that's precisely how "umowa o dzieło" is supposed to work. That's one example of prevalent neoliberalism.

Yes, that's not a good proof, but you also did not present any sources.

It's not just that we (the EU, or even the West) let them switch to capitalism without a proper welfare system. We let them without giving them a government that knew how to run a capitalist country (because we didn't give them a government at all). But we let them have the expectations of a functioning Western government, instead of the expectations of a transitioning country that didn't really know how to do either democracy or capitalism.

It worked out pretty well for Germany and Japan to be conquered, and have the US spend a decade showing them how to do both democracy and capitalism. Just saying "Welcome to capitalism and democracy! Glad you're here!" turns out not so well. (The problem, of course, is that when you aren't a conqueror, the country doesn't want you to run it. And when you're fighting against the "evil colonialists" meme anyway, taking over is a really bad look, whether or not the results would be better in the long run.)

The world would be a better place if we did that more often.

However, win-lose deals can indeed happen, although they're rather rare. Consider the example of diminsmished agency, e.g a fentanyl addict "choosing" to buy more fentanyl. Or consider agency conflicts of interests or information asymmetries as examples where deals can turn out to be win-lose.

And one of the lessons other people refuse to see is that appeasement of hate generally just leads to more hate. This is what we're seeing in the US right now, where what seems to be a majority fraction of one of the major parties is captured by an escalating rhetoric of hate. The angrier they get, the more votes they get. You can't placate that, because at the end of the day it's feeding on ITSELF, not a fundamental injustice.

You really think that American voters are so outraged about vaccines or masks because of a genuine concern for good modern medical practice? No, they hate that stuff because it's pushed by the people they already hate. So now they hate them more.