I've heard plenty of times from such people that they've felt the government/establishment parties have made my bordering country less safe for women, gay people, etc and now numbers are also starting to show that. Pair that with those parties targeting those votes more and more and bringing in some more gays and women into the party and labels of mysoginist or homofobic that you used don't work to attack the far right anymore I've found gay people voting for the supposedly homofobic far right because they start to see their main talking points as a long term existential matter. Prisons that have a huge share of non nationals and are overfilled so prison strikes and shutdowns happen aren't helping either. The economical picture for non-eu migration has been abysmal too. The list goes on and on.
Even in france le pen who's father had some well known extreme views about gays she draws a lot of votes among gay men. Especially in Paris.
At that point you seriously, seriously fucked up.
How do I get folks that literally vote fascists to "my side"?
Does it involve changing "my side" to be a little fascistic?
What is to be done with the overlaps, e.g. people that are homosexuals but are racists, people from racial minorities that are homophobic, and so on?
Like, realistically, what do you think should happen to the left? Just tone it down?
I think we've realistically introduced a source of political hubris for generations to come and created a scenario where if we're not being too optimistic about the perfect path being taken there will be sharp edges whichever way you go.
The same happened here in the past with our flemish/wallonian sectarianism that should've never been started and inflamed. In fact over many decades migration seems to be the only thing that managed to overtake it.
Acknowledge issues and start doing stuff these parties have been calling for for the past 2 decades to stop influx and you legitimize their ideas and admit fault in some ways. Don't do anything, continue the status quo claiming everything smells of roses and you just build up more sectarian bullshit.
Ideally you slow migration down without too much noise about it imo. For example you adjust treaties so that people rejected in other european countries can be sent back and actually follow trough and employ european political power to actually facilitate this sending back and discourages staying in a way that was possible in the past. You start limiting family reunion schemes depending on the country, etc Additionally you invest hard in integration and not in the weird paternalistic shit that i hear about from germany now.
Here in Belgium in 2005 or so well over 70% had big concerns about migration. That was 2 decades ago well before the big influxes. Not losing many of them was easier than getting them back that's for sure but there's plenty more still on that edge. I'd also say we're doing way worse than Germany on these fronts. The only reason we haven't had an afd equivalent governing yet is how fractured our political landscape is when compared and the flemish/wallonian split.
To also answer one i didn't address : 'What is to be done with the overlaps, e.g. people that are homosexuals but are racists, people from racial minorities that are homophobic, and so on?'
The later if not a national you could in many cases not let/keep in your country or otherwise give citizenship. As for the later it just happens that i know a lesbian VB (our far right) advocate. She was a callbus driver that got attacked for her sexuality. It's not the average but someone you are unlikely to ever win back regardless of whether you typify her as racist or xenophobe or not because she sees "your side" as the origin of the former, the unintended champion of islamists and the like.
As soon as the topic is mentioned it becomes a discussion stopper. Thank you for your contribution into proving my point.
1. people that support some of: racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, anti-environmentalism, etc., i.e. authoritarianism for their group
2. people that have been pushed by extreme leftism because they can no longer discuss alternative points of view (but do not strictly belong to group 1)
exactly one person in first group - a genuine belief in efficiency of authoritarian system from someone on spectrum.
I also love how you neatly divided whole political spectrum into two, and bundled a lot of options into 'bad' category. Another example of political tribalism. while option "2" is clearly 'misguided' one.
For example anti-environmentalism can be seen from 'does not like Greens', through 'i think we should reevaluate our energy policy for feasibility of moving to renewables/nuclear and do a slow transition while persevering our beautiful nature' to 'we should only burn coal and gas forever'.
Same thing with xenophobia - it can be pure nationalism, or being anti illegal immigration while supporting legal one, or even just idea that government has responsibility for their own citizens first and foremost. Which one do you have in mind?
Where you draw the barriers between those arbitrary labels?
is there even anything i could say that would change your mind, or are you looking for validation of your views only?
I also think you misinterpreted "authoritarianism for their group", or I expressed it poorly. I don't mean "support of authoritarian governments", but rather "give more power to their group over others, or favor keeping such a status quo", in the context of race, sexuality, gender, culture, etc.
Yes, group 2 may be protest voters, and their rationale is that the best protest against some leftist policies and monologue is to vote the right - not blank, not abstention, and not some void middle-ground. Of course!
But these people are not complete idiots that forgot what the AfD obviously stands for. Thus, I cannot reasonably believe that they ALL fall under NONE of the categories of 1.
My most generous concession would be 20%, but realistically I would say there is maybe at most 5% that is purely protest and not at least one of: racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynist.
Simply put: If someone claims they are not racist, and not homophobic, and not misogynist, yet they still vote for AfD, then they are more likely to be some of that, or are okay with the current status of discriminations, and not some naive idiot.
What you could say to change my mind, is how someone votes/supports AfD purely based on e.g. strengthened immigration policies for purely economical reasons, or "do not like greens", or "just wants nuclear". I don't understand how someone could be so oblivious to the other standpoints, but maybe this is just my personal bias?
why you even do you bother to keep arguing in bad faith?
The real reason, to which they react, is that they can no longer covertly express and exercise their ideas.
In other words, it's a reaction to getting publicly called out about being racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic etc.