Trump Is Worse Than Any Of Europe's Modern Day Fascist Leaders

Also: Are The Lib-Dems A Credible Alternative To Corporate New Labour?

As we saw over the weekend, the French neo-fascist party, National Rally, took 31.4% of the EU Parliament vote and 30 seats, while Macron’s Renaissance (or whatever it’s called now) took just 14.6% and 13 seats (same number of seats as the left-of-center Socialists). Macron immediately announced he’s dissolving France’s Parliament and calling snap elections. But rather than thinking that France is headed down thread towards’s fascism the way Germany and Italy are, there’s another way of looking at Macron’s huge defeat. He and his neo-Con, Austerity agenda have been a real disappointment to woking class voters. His overhaul of the pension system is unbelievably unpopular since it would force people to retire much later while shredding the social safety net. He has also instituted unpopular rules making it easier for employers to hire and fire workers. His tax policies have favored the rich (reducing the wealth tax) while fueling inequality (increasing taxes on gasoline and other everyday necessities). And while he was doing all that, he was reducing funding for public services, including hospitals and schools nand gutting housing subsidies. A former investment banker, he’s also widely viewed as an arrogant asshole, out of touch with ordinary people and the nickname président des riches has stuck. So I’m guessing that the vote had more to do with the French public not liking Macron than sudden nostalgia for Vichy France.

And that bring us to the other side of the Channel, where the British are eager to kick out their own conservatives, The Conservatives. But instead of heading off towards the fascist-oriented, Farange-led Reform UK, they’ve been gravitating towards Labour, although a Labour Party that is a far cry from anything that smacks of socialism. Sir Keir Starmer has attacked his own left wing and dragged the party ever rightward. Yesterday’s YouGov poll, for Sky News showed some surprising results. Both the Conservatives and Labour tumbled while the Lib Dems and Reform increased their support significantly:

• Labour- 38%, which all other polls show in the mid-40s

• Conservatives- 18%, which most other polls show in the low 20s

• Reform- 17%, their highest showing yet, as voters say goodbye to the Conservatives

• LibDems- 15%, also their highest showing yet

And these polling numbers don’t reflect the inauthentic and instantly unpopular Tory manifesto released yesterday as Sunak tried defending his right flank at the expense of moderate voters. More tax cuts, less action on Climate… that sort of thing.

The reason I’m bring up the UK election again, though, is because of the Lib-Dems trying to rebrand themselves as progressive. Might as well, since Labour seems uninterested in that position. Max von Thun noted that they’re going after the disenchanted Labour voters from the left. “With the Conservatives in self-destruct mode,” he wrote, “Labour is expected to win a sweeping majority in the upcoming general election. Yet, despite the Tories’ implosion, Labour has insisted on sticking to an increasingly conservative economic script, notwithstanding the huge challenges facing the country— from rising inequality and crumbling public services to low investment and stagnating productivity. This raises the worrying prospect that, once in government, the party will fail to seize a rare opportunity to steer the UK’s economy towards a more prosperous and equitable future. Robust opposition in parliament will be key to ensuring that Labour does not end up stuck in a bland centrism that is unable or unwilling to grapple with the root causes of the UK’s malaise. The Tories, consumed by infighting and the prospect of a takeover by the far right, will certainly not provide this. But the Liberal Democrats, who according to recent polls may win more than 60 seats, could.” Currently the Lib Dems hold 15 seats.

The party’s manifesto, published earlier today, brings to the fore several areas where it is moving to seize the progressive mantle from Labour. Arguably the most important of these is taxation, where the Lib Dems are proposing a set of targeted tax increases on the wealthy and big business to fund the UK’s starved public services. These include taxing capital gains at rates much closer to those applied to income, increasing the existing levy paid by large banks, tripling the existing digital services tax on big tech firms, taxing unproductive share buybacks by publicly listed companies, and imposing a windfall tax on the super-profits made by oil and gas companies during a cost of living crisis.

…These fair and reasonable tax increases would be used to give a much needed funding boost to underfunded public services, especially the care system, schools and the NHS. But given the Lib Dems are unlikely to be in government, the real relevance of the plans is what they say about the party’s willingness— in contrast to Labour— to confront the concentrated wealth and corporate power that drain the UK’s potential.

Naturally, it’s easier to be bold when you aren’t on the verge of power— although it should be noted that the Lib Dems are largely contesting prosperous Conservative-held seats not known for their radical instincts. Nevertheless, the party’s manifesto draws attention to several areas where Labour is lacking in ambition, even in comparison with its own plans just a year or two ago.

Unlike the Lib Dems, Labour has insisted on tying its own hands when it comes to raising taxes. This applies not just to income tax, national insurance and VAT— which working people bear the brunt of— but also, inexplicably, to taxes paid by large corporations and the wealthy. Labour has also dropped its own plans to tax big tech after being courted aggressively by the tech giants. Even worse, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, recently argued that Labour sees no “route towards having more money for public services that is through taxing,” despite taxes being the main way such services are funded. Labour’s reluctance to adequately fund public services even extends to the most punitive aspects of the welfare system, such as the cruel two child benefits cap which Labour— unlike the Lib Dems— has said it will maintain. 

The Lib Dems are taking bolder and more progressive positions than Labour on other critical issues too. Most importantly, that includes easing the single biggest strain on the UK economy— Brexit— by setting out a long-term path towards rejoining the EU’s single market, which a majority of the British population now supports. It also includes challenging the increasingly negative debate on immigration by promising to cancel the Rwanda scheme, expanding legal routes for refugees to come to the UK and clipping the wings of the notoriously draconian Home Office.

The Lib-Dems formed in 1988 and positioned themselves as a slightly left of center party focused on more of civil liberties and social justice than on working class economics, positioning themselves between Labour and the Conservatives. They joined a Conservative-led coalition government in 2010, destroying their credibility by supporting the Conservatives’ unpopular and extreme austerity agenda, like, for example, going back on their pledge to oppose increases in university tuition. The voters destroyed them in 2015 when they lost 49 of their 57 seats (leaving them with 8). They now have 15 seats and the same untrustworthy reputation.

So what about Trump? Huh? Sure, people are wondering if the U.S. electorate is going to go down the same fascistic rat hole Europeans just did. Anne Applebaum reminded her readers that we beat them to it. As bad as European politicians like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, France’s Le Pen, Holland’s Wilders, even Hungary's Orbán are, Trump, points out Applebaum, is far worse. “[A]lmost every day he sounds more extreme, more unhinged, and more dangerous. Meloni has not inspired her followers to block the results of an election. Le Pen does not rant about retribution and revenge. Wilders has agreed to be part of a coalition government, meaning that he can compromise with other political leaders, and has promised to put his notorious hostility to Muslims ‘on ice.’ Even Orbán, who has gone the furthest in destroying his country’s institutions and who has rewritten Hungary’s constitution to benefit himself, doesn’t brag openly about wanting to be an autocrat. Trump does. People around him speak openly about wanting to destroy American democracy too. None of this seems to hurt him with voters, who appear to welcome this destructive, radical extremism, or at least not to mind it. American media clichés about Europe are wrong. In fact, the European far right is rising in some places, but falling in others. And we aren’t ‘in danger’ of following European voters in an extremist direction, because we are already well past them. If Trump wins in November, America could radicalize Europe, not the other way around.”