That group of authoritarian believers has won the USA, and are now very focused on the EU. This is very similar to how the CCP views Taiwan. The EU and Taiwan are examples of the other possibility, and the authoritarians just can't have that.
See Musk's comments [0] and very obious regarding German politics, the CPAC gathering in Hungary, the ownership of euronews.com, the recent creation of r/europe_sub... We need to stop being passive about all of this, or democracy will become a historical note, and not something that we all enjoy on a day-to-day basis.
We have all taken democracy for granted, like breathable air. We can no longer do that.
edit:
[0] I am sorry if it makes anyone comfortable, but the richest man in the world clearly gave 2 nazi salutes live to the world, with far too few repercussions. This is the reality which we need understand, and fight vigorously.
I understand the sentiment, I really do. I also acknowledge that what you offer is more immediately actionable than what I have, but I really hope we can be a little more thoughtful than that.
I happen to believe that the success we've seen has been, in large part at least, due to being able to take democracy for granted. We haven't had to fight for basic rights or the privilege of survival, so we've been able to fight much more ideological fights. We have rightfully had the assumption that even as we all fight bitterly over politics, you won't send your navy to attack my ports. We were safe in our disagreements being intellectual.
I fear that while defending our stable democratic institutions we end up supplanting those very same institutions with the enemy. You cannot fight lawlessness with lawlessness, you must chose to be soft and level headed, even it feels most hobbling. Else we risk becoming Trump in the name of warding him off.
This is not true, and worse, this attitude is self-defeating when you have no control over the law nor its application (as is arguably the case right now in the USA). True, you cannot rebuild on top of lawlessness, but you need to reach the rebuilding stage first. And the further you let the current regime entrench itself, the more lawlessness will be required to destroy it.
The term "lawlessness" in the way I use it isn't narrowly scoped to the specific set of laws a government has arrived at. I'm not saying you must follow the laws of the system to break the system, that will never happen. When I say "lawlessness" I'm thinking of a broad idea of a person who will succumb to no law.
I agree that there must be turmoil to institute a new order, that is true no matter which dominant system you seek to replace, but at the end of the turmoil you must establish new rules, new law, which the winners of the struggle must then themselves adhere to. In this way they are not lawless, merely in disagreement with what the laws are.
I am not sure what exactly gp was referring to, but the authoritarians are currently winning by simply, and peacefully, "flooding the zone." Well, they also own the majority of the media. However, they are not yet all powerful.
We need a grassroots pro-EU, pro-democracy, NAFO-type movement. For now, we need to just fight with posts, comments, and podcasts, across all social media. As sad and boring as it might be, that's exactly how elections are won and lost these days.
We need more than that. We need a hybrid warfare style approach. Flooding social media with pro-EU propaganda LLMs, sponsoring opposition politicians in authoritarian states and inciting protests against authoritarian governments.
Our adversaries are all doing it. It's time we stop tying our own hands.
I am honestly not sure what I am proposing myself, exactly. However, if we read each other correctly, I think I agree with your concerns.
Might we both be touching on/dancing around the concept of the "paradox of tolerance?" [0]
As a practical example, one of the most European things in modern history was this beheading of the monarch live music video [1], which was broadcast to the world as part of the Olympic opening ceremonies in Paris. I remember seeing how uncomfortable it made the broadcasters in various countries. It was glorious. Revolution can happen, and this was a reminder.
We should never shy away from discussion of our history. I am not a huge metal fan, but this tiny part of the opening ceremonies event makes me very emotional and proud to my deepest core. I still cannot believe it happened. We should be reminding everyone of the French revolution, its non-ideal near term outcomes, and other uncomfortable European history very regularly. As you stated in your original reply, it is easy to forget how we got here.
> You cannot fight lawlessness with lawlessness, you must chose to be soft and level headed, even it feels most hobbling. Else we risk becoming Trump in the name of warding him off.
I am with you my friend! In the interest of open discussion and understanding, I made this separate comment to ask you, or anyone, to please share what your concerns were here. If you don't mind, could you please give an example of how you see it possibly going wrong?
>See Musk's comments [0] and very obious regarding German politics, the CPAC gathering in Hungary, the ownership of euronews.com, the recent creation of r/europe_sub... We need to stop being passive about all of this, or democracy will become a historical note, and not something that we all enjoy on a day-to-day basis.
What exactly are the actual issues and the solutions you propose other than speech censorship to ban the right wing opinions you dislike? Your post is just reddit style left wing virtue signaling, while not talking about any actual issues the people are having that make them vote right: cost of living, stagnating wages, illegal immigrations, wealth inequality etc. People in EU don't care if a US billionaire Elon makes the Nazi salute in the US, where it's not illegal, when they can't afford to pay rent. It's a non-issue in EU outside the terminally online redditors left wing bubble.
>We have all taken democracy for granted, like breathable air.
We don't have a democracy when the EU representative, Ursula v.d. Leyen is not democratically elected by the people and whenever the people try to vote for a right wing candidate those candidates get banned/excluded form elections to "protect democracy" which is ironic and is what's causing the disdain of the voters and right wing shift, away from the status quo: people don't feel represented by their leaders and dislike the censorship masquerading as "protection of democracy" happening in Europe.
The comment above embodies everything we need be aware of, and fight against.
10% something factual, 90% repetition of provably disconnected from reality, yet appealing sounding soundbites/memes sent from on high. Zero policy recommendations, one-hundred percent vibes.
And since the facts are lacking in the argument, the ad hominem style attack is included for good measure.
If that's the way you put it, I can say the exact same for your comments. Your pervasive attitude against open discourse, advocating only for "fight against" without having a discussion, is what leads to the animosity of people making them vote right. People are tired of not having a voice and just being censored by liberal keyboard warriors who think they're protecting democracy by implementing speech censorship laws the Nazis and Soviets would dream of, but of course in the name of good.
My argument, if you cared to read it, were that EU voters care more about having a well paying job and affording rent than what hand gestures a billionaire does in his own country outside the EU. If you think Elon is bad, you have no idea on what other wealthy and powerful people are like.
What arguments did you bring other than advocating towards violence because you didn't like my PoV?
> People are tired of not having a voice and just being censored left and right by liberal keyboard warriors
You are free to speak your mind! If it's not fit for this forum, for whatever reason, please email me at username @ gmail. However, I am sure you could provide us at least some hint about the speech that is being censored by the evil liberals, right?
If you chose not to disclose your censored speech, please tell me your policy positions. So far, you have mentioned one that probably everyone agrees with 100%, illegal immigration is bad. However, how do you propose to solve the issue? Masked men coming to courts and schools, like in the USA in 2025, or something different?
Next one please, let's get specific.
1. How exactly do you propose to solve the issues in your previously stated problems, for example, wealth inequality?
2. Which political party in the EU country of your choice has a real policy to address that as part of their platform?
> What exactly are the actual issues and the solutions you propose other than speech censorship to ban the right wing opinions you dislike?
Why is it other than? That'd be a start for one, hate speech shouldn't have a place in our society.
> People in EU don't care if a US billionaire Elon makes the Nazi salute in the US, where it's not illegal
It's not about the salute itself. It's about what it says about his views.
> We don't have a democracy when the EU representative, Ursula v.d. Leyen is not democratically elected by the people
That's a bullshit talking point. The EU commission is appointed by our democratically elected governments, the same way the US president is appointed by electors. It's one level of indirection in both cases, they are the same amount of democratic.
Furthermore, vdL is the right wing candidate. The EU has been under right wing control for as long as I can remember.
>Why is it other than? That'd be a start for one, hate speech shouldn't have a place in our society.
You do realize that by ignoring and suppressing the opinions and voices of people you dislike, you're advocating for censorship and basically implementing the same politics of fascism and tyranny that you claim to be against, right?
"Hate speech" is such a vague, broad and misused term that it's at the core abused of EU censorship actions. "You're against illegal migration? HATE SPEECH! BAN! CENSOR!"
This abuse of hate speech laws obviously doesn't work well with the voters and leads to more animosity, and feelings that the system is rigged against democracy by those in power, which causes voters to lash out by choosing the most extreme candidate that's against the status quo in order to flip the monopoly board. And the EU powers instead of admitting this and backtracking on it and making room for open conversations, simply ignores, bans, censors all contrarian options and candidates that go against the status quo, leading to a negative political feedback loop we see in the last 5-10 years: Brexit, Trump, LePenn, Georgescu, etc.
>The EU commission is appointed by our democratically elected governments
Yes, emphasis on appointed, appointed is not the same as elected. Hence, not democratically elected. How many EU taxpayers support and would vote for VdL if given the vote?
>Furthermore, VdL is the right wing candidate. The EU has been under right wing control for as long as I can remember.
Sorry to break it to you, but then your definition of right wing is super skewed.
"fascism" isn't a vague term meaning "government does things I don't like". It's a specific right wing ideology not at all related to what I was talking about.
> Yes, emphasis on appointed, appointed is not the same as elected. Hence, not democratically elected.
Appointed just like the US president or any minister in any democratic government ever. Are those not democratic?
> Sorry to break it to you, but then your definition of right wing is super skewed.
"She is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its affiliated European political party, the European People's Party."
See Musk's comments [0] and very obious regarding German politics, the CPAC gathering in Hungary, the ownership of euronews.com, the recent creation of r/europe_sub... We need to stop being passive about all of this, or democracy will become a historical note, and not something that we all enjoy on a day-to-day basis.
We have all taken democracy for granted, like breathable air. We can no longer do that.
edit:
[0] I am sorry if it makes anyone comfortable, but the richest man in the world clearly gave 2 nazi salutes live to the world, with far too few repercussions. This is the reality which we need understand, and fight vigorously.