Money is pouring into Europe from ultraconservative US foundations. One of the biggest spenders is the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian right wing organization that has played a prominent part in rolling back gender, abortion, and LGBTQIA+ rights on both sides of the Atlantic. Its latest tax filing shows it has doubled its spending in Europe since 2018.
This unfolds in a context where we could see a new right wing majority in the European Parliament after the European elections on 9 June, that includes the far right, and in parallel we may see Donald Trump retake the US Presidency. Considering the work done by the Trump camp to unite the European far right – including by forging a close alliance with the Hungarian President Viktor Orbán – this is a dangerous prospect. A strengthened European far right also bolsters the Trump camp.
This goes beyond party politics. Groups such as the ADF have been working on the ground in member states to network and build up power to overturn rights won through decades of struggle. Currently, the foundations that support the ADF and similar organisations, are increasing their spending dramatically. That is likely to strengthen their impact.
I imagine the fact that all nationalists around the West suddenly felt that hating each other on nationalist grounds and instead just attacking the liberal democracy and the welfare states that created the societies that are worth living in is just a coincidence. It has certainly nothing to do with the Russian and Chinese spy networks constantly being unearthed and linked to these groups.
beyond parody. an article outlining how the US supports fascists, but you gotta somehow make it about russia/china bad.
but yeah, it’s gotta be external funding from somewhere, because 1) europeans do not think at all so all ideas are just suggested to them from outside and 2) the complete failure of neoliberalism, combined with decades of anticommunist brainwashing certainly cant explain why people dissatisfied with the failing system are choosing fascism.
Russia is and has been funding Trump, and has and is using proxies to influence other nations as well. Tell me otherwise, why the everloving fuck is Hungary standing up a military intelligence base in Chad for example? Or who is Deutsche Bank getting their money back from if not Trump? Or what was GOP leadership doing in Moscow on the 4th of July?
By the way, it’s not “Russia/China bad”, it’s authoritarian Russian Putin supports authoritarian American Trump supports authoritarian Slovakian Fico supports authoritarian Hungarian Orbán supports authoritarian Chinese Xi. No problem with the Russian or Chinese or the American people at large. It’s just the psychopathic swindlers “leading” the world.
yeah, definitely nothing to do with living standards falling in the west due decades of psychopatic neoliberal policies. deffo not what’s making mask off fascism popular again. the always thriving domestic fascist industry also has nothing to do with it.
hungary is doing its own weird shit as usual, being fascist and trying to ride two horses at once. this isnt because of russian funding, it’s because hungary is predisposed to this type of idiocy. and also the failure of post-counterrevolution neoliberal politics.
as for authoritarianism, that’s a funny thing to say in the middle mass arrests of people who protest a genocide that biden is actively supporting and running interference for. but i guess that’s not authoritarianism to you. out of interest, what do you think authoritarianism is?
There is nuance and there are more than two sides. Biden being a corporate-beholden asshat does not mean Trump is not a wannabe American dictator funded by a Russian dictator.
What counterrevolution? Hungary’s Minister of Interior, widely regarded to be one of the most powerful people in current Hungarian politics, is the ex-communist head of Budapest Police. Orbán was a highly placed Young Communist. And don’t even get me started on the other parties that were founded before 2010. Every government since 1990 had strong ties to the original Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party.
Hungary didn’t change one bit, it’s just the “vanguard” realized they can steal more from European coffers.
If anything, the last real revolution in Hungary since 1848 was in 1956, when the Russian imperialist conquerors didn’t like that Hungary wanted to be an independent communist country not submitting to Russian imperialism, and Russian soldiers came in to massacre the communist revolutionaries. I heard that happened in other places as well. But of course Nagy Imre was a Western plant, at least according to the Russians.
are you familiar with the concept of time? all our so called democratic opposition grew out of communist families. what else would they be? the country was communist. doesnt change the fact that they did a counterrevolution.
also, orban a highly placed young communist? what? he was part of the “democratic” (read counterrevolutionary, liberal) opposition from early on, kept in contact with polish anticommunists, etc. or do you mean that he joined the young communist league at his high school when he was 14? highly placed indeed.
and yes, because it was a counterrevolution at a special time in history, it wasnt visibly violent and so many of our politicians got to keep their jobs in the new system. all they had to do was betray the people, which they did. some happily, some because they believed western propaganda.
1956 was a much more complex affair than you paint it here. some of the revolt wanted independent communism (how they imagined that’d work with the west coming for them, i have no idea). some were rabid fascists out for blood. either way, the soviets didnt trust them, likely because this is a country that was enthusiastically supporting the nazis just a few short years before. having seen where the country’s gone since the counterrevolution, i dont blame them.
Orbán was the local secretary (eg. head) of his chapter of the KISZ in his high school. Young Communists are schoolkids, and he was a local leader. He always sucked up where he could. He went to Soros when he paid, then the EU when that paid, then Putin when he needed a local bitch for money, and we got Xi’s “wisdom” broadcasting on national television right now, with Chinese policemen patrolling in Budapest’s streets, and Chinese battery factories poisoning the countryside.
The big lie of Russia and China is that they are some “underdogs” and not oppressed countries whose leadership is solely in it for the money and power. No, the Western system is not perfect, it has big, glaring issues, especially in the US. But Biden does not own a superyacht that is worth more than the largest ship in the US fleet. Putin’s yacht was more expensive than the Moskva, late flagship of the Black Sea fleet. Point is, it is true that some things our elected leaders are doing are a fucking travesty. But Putin and Xi are not going to save us from them, as they are just the same as our worst, except with more power and less accountability.
Just ask yourself, why is a supposed communist country led by a billionaire? And why is it funding fascists?
what on earth are you talking about, every high school had a KISZ secretary, this doesnt make orban a highly placed young communist. but, yes, he was always an ambitious man who believed in nothing. i dont know why you’re telling me this, i know.
the western system has committed the most genocides of any power in history. it’s not even close, it’s like an order of magnitude more at least. this is the system you’re calling flawed but ultimately good.
and bringing up china (which lifted hundreds of millions of out poverty in the last few decades alone, but sure, the leaders are only in it for money) in the same breath as modern russia… deeply unserious.
also, is xi jinping a billionaire? source?
Don’t you think that those influence and disinformation campaigns have always been around? In the past, they really only had to think about other nation-state agencies discovering them. These days, it seems as likely to be an academic conducting research or a hobbyist saying “Now that’s weird…”