Nowadays very few people in this side of the pond think Europe is worst than the US, and I’m actually living in a country which is pretty much at the tail of the EU wealthwise and hearing that viewpoint from people who old enough and from humble enough origins to have lived in actual misery when this country was a Fascist shithole. As far as I can tell most people around think that at the moment EU is the safest and most prosperous place to live in the World.
People did use to look up to the US maybe 2 decades ago and before, but then the long-term results of Neoliberal Capitalism started to reveal themselves and shitstains like this guy and Trump got into the scene (gleefully followed by the rest of the Republican party and even the Democrat party leadership) and the perception of the US went from “Prosperous Land Of Opportunity” to “Dangerous and Decaying Country”.
The American Dream has been murdered and people like Musk are just plunging the knife a couple more times into its already cooling down corpse.
Orbán is falling tho. It’s going to be a fight, but he is consistently way behind in the polls and for the first time in 20 years, mainstream Hungarian public opinion is squarely against him.
It’s still a smaller problem than the US and even the Far Right around these parts won’t go down certain routes so popular in America (like the whole religious crap). Even the very overt association with the ultra rich you see in the US isn’t popular in Europe with the Far-Right - they’ll hapilly take their money, but only as long as it’s done quietly.
Absolutelly, there has been copying of American politics by first the European mainstream parties (which is how Neoliberalism came over) and of late the Far-Right who also got a lot of money from the likes of the Koch Brothers (Steve Bannon very overtly came to Europe some years ago with money from them to “Boost Far-Right parties”), but it’s done with very different twists and and that’s why I doubt a guy with the Societal-awareness of a pretty dumb doorknob, like Musk, can actually twist for his own benefit what are essentially local movements fit to local thinking and exist for local crooks to get rich.
I’ll give you a pretty interesting example of how these things are so adapted to local thinking: the Far-Right in The Netherlands, which predated the whole Steve Bannon thing by quite a lot - as far as I can tell it mainly got propelled to significance by the Theo van Gogh murder at the hands of an Islamist - was started by a guy - Pim Fortuyn - who from the start never hid that he was an homosexual. Even in most places in Europe this would be a big No-No for a Far-Right leader, worse so in the US, but in The Netherlands the mindset about sexual orientation is pretty much that it’s all normal and as relevant as one’s eye color, so for a Far-Right leader to have a sexual orientation other than the majority one was absolutelly fine because such things are irrelevant there.
This is the kind of differences of mindset that a guy like Musk faces if trying to influence politics in Europe. Sure, the Far-Right over here will take his money (they’re crooked crooks, so they’re fine with getting lots of money under the table) but any such party that actually followed his actual advices would end up overtaken by other Far-Right parties whose speech and politics were more adapted to the local thinking. Also being seen as associating with Musk would negativelly impact his vote, both because he is filthy rich and these parties capture a lot for vote from disenfranchised working class people and because he’s a foreigner so the Nationalists instinctivelly distrust him.
Nowadays very few people in this side of the pond think Europe is worst than the US, and I’m actually living in a country which is pretty much at the tail of the EU wealthwise and hearing that viewpoint from people who old enough and from humble enough origins to have lived in actual misery when this country was a Fascist shithole. As far as I can tell most people around think that at the moment EU is the safest and most prosperous place to live in the World.
People did use to look up to the US maybe 2 decades ago and before, but then the long-term results of Neoliberal Capitalism started to reveal themselves and shitstains like this guy and Trump got into the scene (gleefully followed by the rest of the Republican party and even the Democrat party leadership) and the perception of the US went from “Prosperous Land Of Opportunity” to “Dangerous and Decaying Country”.
The American Dream has been murdered and people like Musk are just plunging the knife a couple more times into its already cooling down corpse.
There is quite a massive problem of europans increasingly choosing similary shitty politicians ( so far hungary and slovakia are the worst cases ).
Orbán is falling tho. It’s going to be a fight, but he is consistently way behind in the polls and for the first time in 20 years, mainstream Hungarian public opinion is squarely against him.
2026 might be it. Hope I didn’t jinx it.
True.
It’s still a smaller problem than the US and even the Far Right around these parts won’t go down certain routes so popular in America (like the whole religious crap). Even the very overt association with the ultra rich you see in the US isn’t popular in Europe with the Far-Right - they’ll hapilly take their money, but only as long as it’s done quietly.
Absolutelly, there has been copying of American politics by first the European mainstream parties (which is how Neoliberalism came over) and of late the Far-Right who also got a lot of money from the likes of the Koch Brothers (Steve Bannon very overtly came to Europe some years ago with money from them to “Boost Far-Right parties”), but it’s done with very different twists and and that’s why I doubt a guy with the Societal-awareness of a pretty dumb doorknob, like Musk, can actually twist for his own benefit what are essentially local movements fit to local thinking and exist for local crooks to get rich.
I’ll give you a pretty interesting example of how these things are so adapted to local thinking: the Far-Right in The Netherlands, which predated the whole Steve Bannon thing by quite a lot - as far as I can tell it mainly got propelled to significance by the Theo van Gogh murder at the hands of an Islamist - was started by a guy - Pim Fortuyn - who from the start never hid that he was an homosexual. Even in most places in Europe this would be a big No-No for a Far-Right leader, worse so in the US, but in The Netherlands the mindset about sexual orientation is pretty much that it’s all normal and as relevant as one’s eye color, so for a Far-Right leader to have a sexual orientation other than the majority one was absolutelly fine because such things are irrelevant there.
This is the kind of differences of mindset that a guy like Musk faces if trying to influence politics in Europe. Sure, the Far-Right over here will take his money (they’re crooked crooks, so they’re fine with getting lots of money under the table) but any such party that actually followed his actual advices would end up overtaken by other Far-Right parties whose speech and politics were more adapted to the local thinking. Also being seen as associating with Musk would negativelly impact his vote, both because he is filthy rich and these parties capture a lot for vote from disenfranchised working class people and because he’s a foreigner so the Nationalists instinctivelly distrust him.