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In Germany there's a word for the strategy you're proposing: in der Regierung "entzaubern" - "demystifying" them in government.
As someone has said, the Nazis were lifted into a coalition government which was the last step before their takeover of the country. I agree that this was bad, but it's a bit simple to compare this to the current situation.
A better comparison is Austria. Austria did exactly what you proposed - the establishment conservatives went into coalition with the extremist right, and after one election, they were able to ditch them. Cool. But the effect of this was permanently legitimizing the right. In the last election the FPร, a party founded by actual old nazis, won a plurality of votes. It took a grand coalition of three parties to keep them out of government.
What else is there to do? In Germany and Austria, the right is much more extreme than in Finland. Germany is also a lynchpin in european politics, which the right wants to destroy. In Finland, even the right is anti-russia. In Germany, it's the conservatives who traditionally dominate. When they compete with the extremist right, they're not on the other side of the political spectrum, just a little to the center. In Finland, when the social democrats point out the mistakes of the right, they're more believable and persuasive, because they're actually markedly different from the party they're criticizing.
There is another way to combat the right. When the center holds, and is able to agree on certain principles, they can "quarantine" the right. If they don't, they'll be unable to compete with other democratic parties, and have to compete only with the right. If they do quarantine, they can ignore the right, while focusing on their actual bread-and-butter issues while avoiding being pulled into a bullshit spiral. This is the current strategy of the german democratic parties (CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens, Linke). It remains to be seen if the strategy will survive the next four years. If it doesn't, I prophesy dark trouble for germany.
The Austrians did elect the FPO back. Did they forget about their incompetency?
I think something more is at play here. Maybe tiktok? Russian interference? Not sure.
I also think it may be because the root problem is not being solved. Late stage capitalism - housing crisis, unemployment and such.
The far right point to immigrants and blames them for it, but the establishment parties also do very little, too late, to solve the issues well either. Then the election cycle comes and people want a reset. A vicious cycle.
I feel like this calls for radical shift in how society operates, doesn't it (just openly balling)?
I am not saying communist revolution. But I also think we've spent too much time kissing rich asses in the name of "we are benefiting from this, keep doing it". Now that economies don't grow as fast anymore, the "trickle down" effect isn't working and people are getting poorer and angrier.
The rich don't care as long as they can make short term profit, so they keep supporting whoever will help them with that.
There needs to be a change. Or at least the greens, the left need to get some balls, strong leaders and implement some kind of FDResque or clement atleesque policies.
What we need is to give the rich incentives to be happy with what they have and have a stronger government approach to handling things. Avoiding bloodshed is important, don't want to end up like USSR. Maybe until we figure out unlimited energy we can let the rich be dicks but not let them be too much of dicks.
This was a weird rant...
all i can say is i agree
In Sweden we've been quarantining the Nazis for a long time, but eventually the right wingers lost enough voters to them which made it impossible for them to win without some sort of cooperation.
At that point they started campaigning for the Nazis, saying how much they've grown and changed. This of course led to the right losing even more to the Nazis and gave the Nazis a strong bargaining position when they won the election together.
Not saying that the strategy is wrong, but it requires morally fit conservatives or voters.
I think the best line is via rule of law, but it has to be law passed when there isn't a threat from such a party. If it's in response to a particular group rising, then it's seen as an attack on that group and not defence of the country.