As a UK citizen, it's interesting to think back to Barack Obama's attempt to convince the country not to vote for Brexit (saying the UK would "go to the back of the line" for future trade deal negotiations).
I think the real difference now, isn't so much that the US is applying more pressure on european politics, but that it's politics is so much further away from most european countries than even five years ago.
The importance of trading blocks (as in Obama's example) is a pretty standard view. The support for antidemocratic strongmen (with Vance's support of Orban) is a lot less, even now.
Vance's support of Orbán; Musk's support of Reform, AfD, and other far-right parties across Europe; Thiel's shadow interference through his "gatherings" with other countries' elites while being explicitly anti-democracy. Many other oligarchs are likely involved with different levels of visibility and effort for this push, I wouldn't be surprised if Zuck is part of it by providing the machinery of social media while keeping a safe distance from the more overt acts.
It's a whole concerted effort by many figures in the US political landscape (in this I include moneyed elites) to tear down democratic pillars of European countries.
The USA already had massive issues with corporate power in politics, the Trump admin just made the merge of state and corporate interests even deeper and more overt. The pressure has only been building up the past 10 years, the Biden years were a short respite of a movement ongoing for longer.
Unfortunately we will only see how this ship continues to sail after the US's midterms, it will be the defining moment to see if American society can find ways to right the ship or if it's going to be cement the plunge into the abyss...
> I think the real difference now, isn't so much that the US is applying more pressure on european politics, but that it's politics is so much further away from most european countries than even five years ago.
No,the difference is not in mere political misalignments.
You have both US governments and US oligarchs openly pushing and directly promoting fascist and extremist political parties, while at the same time threatening with annexation and military interventions.
> You have both US governments and US oligarchs openly pushing and directly promoting fascist and extremist political parties, while at the same time threatening with annexation and military interventions.
I think the first part of this is political alignment right? What are "fascist and extremist political parties" is not politics with a very different alignment?
I think your second point is a really good one though, the Barack Obama and J D Vance examples are both soft power usage. But in the case of Vance, it comes alongside a state using military force to bully its way through issues, that's a very significant context difference I didn't really acknowledge earlier.
From a technical voter fraud perspective, paper ballots remain the answer.
From a propaganda perspective, things are probably more complicated. I imagine some European democracies are more easily influenced than others. And when the EU itself is on an authoritarian bender, it's hard to see how foreign meddling could make things much worse.
More transparency into party funding might be a good place to start. That's something that seems pretty vague at least here in BE. More direct representation would also be pretty sweet, but that might be asking for too much...
> This is business as usual. It's just now they are shilling different political parties than before.
A fascist US transitioning to a full dictatorship is not business as usual. Europe lived through something similar, and learned some lessons that so far hasn't forgotten.
This is one of those topics that annoys me, because the reporting on it is always “how dare they!” and never a realpolitik explanation of how states attempt to interfere with each other’s power-selection mechanisms.
It seems pretty obvious that every great power attempts to influence other states. The more interesting question is: when is this acceptable? To what degree?
Is a leader commenting on an election fine, but actually committing funds toward NGOs too much? Is it completely acceptable for certain political ideologies but not for others, i.e., it’s okay for me to interfere with you, but not for you to interfere with me. Is it acceptable against adversaries but not amongst allies?
(This last one is probably the real question RE: the US and EU.)
It’s a complex geopolitical question. And no matter which answer you give, there will be examples that make you uncomfortable and willing to break your own rule.
Every major power dislikes election interference until it's strategically useful. The surprise isn't that countries try to influence each other. The surprise is that anyone still treats it as exceptional.
So, business as usual? The mighty have always influenced the less powerful. The US has just as much incentive to influence European elections, as do Russia or China. It's not surprising that they act on these incentives.
Yeah, if this is the effect that attempted US influence has, then have at it!
Having said that, it is frustratingly amusing seeing the US going overt with its extra-territorial electoral interference with their recent history of being incredibly sensitive and defensive about other countries attempts at influencing US elections.
> with their recent history of being incredibly sensitive and defensive about other countries attempts at influencing US elections.
That was always the play. You say the things you would do if you were in your political opponents shoes, you talk about how bad it is, how horrible and wrong. And then, if you can manage to get enough political or monied support, you do the thing you said they were doing! After all, they did the thing first, right? It's just fair play, you say.
That definitely seemed to be the case in Australia, but where it's possibly started moving the other way is that a smaller, more conservative (I don't like these political terms, it's not exactly correct but it gets the point across, I think) party than the main conservative party, appears to have taken the main 'conservative party' crown.
There was a good couple of months of mainstream media even touting that they're a threat to the left/progressive/less-conservative party currently in power who won the last election in no uncertain terms (maybe possibly a landslide...?).
It's hard to get a real gauge on it, but there's a very vocal minority that has been emboldened by Trump's anti-immigration, easy answers, point at 'other' as the cause of all the problems plaguing society rhetoric and actions, such that the 'more conservative' are at least getting more airtime, which makes it seem as if they're a "growing base". I know some people who have started talking a bit more openly in this direction.
> After all, Elon Musk, the American tycoon who owns X and Tesla and is a former adviser to President Trump on public spending, personally campaigned to support the far-right AfD party in the German elections.
The USA is supporting the same parties that they had to fight in WWII. I would think that repeating the same mistakes from the past and expecting different results is not a sane approach to politics.
A lot of people are fed up with uncontrolled migration and are drifting to parties that promise this to stop or be reverted. No need of US interference to explain it. And they choose democratic way to try and reverse it
This is such a lazy comment. How is the EU changing? How is it changing to be closer to which part of South America? South America is changing so do you mean how it was or are they converging? The EU has expanded in the last 40 years but I don't imagine that's what you mean.
I think the real difference now, isn't so much that the US is applying more pressure on european politics, but that it's politics is so much further away from most european countries than even five years ago.
The importance of trading blocks (as in Obama's example) is a pretty standard view. The support for antidemocratic strongmen (with Vance's support of Orban) is a lot less, even now.
Tbh, if that always plays out like it did in this case I'm all for US interference in EU elections ;)
It's a whole concerted effort by many figures in the US political landscape (in this I include moneyed elites) to tear down democratic pillars of European countries.
The USA already had massive issues with corporate power in politics, the Trump admin just made the merge of state and corporate interests even deeper and more overt. The pressure has only been building up the past 10 years, the Biden years were a short respite of a movement ongoing for longer.
Unfortunately we will only see how this ship continues to sail after the US's midterms, it will be the defining moment to see if American society can find ways to right the ship or if it's going to be cement the plunge into the abyss...
No,the difference is not in mere political misalignments.
You have both US governments and US oligarchs openly pushing and directly promoting fascist and extremist political parties, while at the same time threatening with annexation and military interventions.
I think the first part of this is political alignment right? What are "fascist and extremist political parties" is not politics with a very different alignment?
I think your second point is a really good one though, the Barack Obama and J D Vance examples are both soft power usage. But in the case of Vance, it comes alongside a state using military force to bully its way through issues, that's a very significant context difference I didn't really acknowledge earlier.
From a propaganda perspective, things are probably more complicated. I imagine some European democracies are more easily influenced than others. And when the EU itself is on an authoritarian bender, it's hard to see how foreign meddling could make things much worse.
More transparency into party funding might be a good place to start. That's something that seems pretty vague at least here in BE. More direct representation would also be pretty sweet, but that might be asking for too much...
A fascist US transitioning to a full dictatorship is not business as usual. Europe lived through something similar, and learned some lessons that so far hasn't forgotten.
It seems pretty obvious that every great power attempts to influence other states. The more interesting question is: when is this acceptable? To what degree?
Is a leader commenting on an election fine, but actually committing funds toward NGOs too much? Is it completely acceptable for certain political ideologies but not for others, i.e., it’s okay for me to interfere with you, but not for you to interfere with me. Is it acceptable against adversaries but not amongst allies?
(This last one is probably the real question RE: the US and EU.)
It’s a complex geopolitical question. And no matter which answer you give, there will be examples that make you uncomfortable and willing to break your own rule.
Hungarians voted Orbán in, but they also voted him out even with Vance influence.
Having said that, it is frustratingly amusing seeing the US going overt with its extra-territorial electoral interference with their recent history of being incredibly sensitive and defensive about other countries attempts at influencing US elections.
That was always the play. You say the things you would do if you were in your political opponents shoes, you talk about how bad it is, how horrible and wrong. And then, if you can manage to get enough political or monied support, you do the thing you said they were doing! After all, they did the thing first, right? It's just fair play, you say.
There was a good couple of months of mainstream media even touting that they're a threat to the left/progressive/less-conservative party currently in power who won the last election in no uncertain terms (maybe possibly a landslide...?).
It's hard to get a real gauge on it, but there's a very vocal minority that has been emboldened by Trump's anti-immigration, easy answers, point at 'other' as the cause of all the problems plaguing society rhetoric and actions, such that the 'more conservative' are at least getting more airtime, which makes it seem as if they're a "growing base". I know some people who have started talking a bit more openly in this direction.
The only real way to judge is an actual election.
The USA is supporting the same parties that they had to fight in WWII. I would think that repeating the same mistakes from the past and expecting different results is not a sane approach to politics.
Of course the outcome would be something we don't like, they don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts or because they want the best for us.
Completely unserious continent.
What do you mean?