What should worry everybody is the big picture (trying to abstract from politics, ideologies and specific situation). In recent years we had:
- Europe is now at war with Russia (neighbor)
- Its relationship with the US is rapidly deteriorating (main partner, de facto protector)
- Its relationship with China is also rapidly deteriorating
- It is getting very antagonistic with it own citizen and some individual member countries (such as Hungaria or Romania recently)
So there are a lot of justifications in each case but the overall picture is worrisome. You can't be antagonistic with everyone.
There is a reason why the North Korean regime is still around, they never forgot they need to keep a good relationship with at least one powerful ally.
Isn't it interesting that if you remove the US from that list, it all aligns with US foreign policy? How fortuitous that EU interests just happen to coincide so well with our American friends.
Then you are not paying attention, he satisfied his Murica-First Cult like a circus clown. The US is the biggest arms dealer in the world, the Europeans are delivering weapons from their stockpile to Ukraine, then the US is filling those stockpiles up. Works like clockwork, just like under Biden, there is no actual change in policy towards Russia/Ukraine.
EU is doing some concerning moves but, looking at your points, Russia attacked Ukraine. EU is not at war with Russia, only supporting Ukraine.
Second, the relationship with US is deteriorating due to Trump. As a matter of fact all US relationships are deteriorating for the same reason. Where have you been the past years? Im not going to bother to respond to the following points because you mix some reality with propaganda and seem to live in a paralel reality.
Yeah US is threatening to invade and take over Canada, Greenland, I mean no wonder the alliance is no longer strong right?
And the internal struggles are indeed a problem, this is due to the extreme right which has completely taken over America (and is sponsored by Russia). It was good to see the Hungarians came to their senses but it's worrying that the EU doesn't have a mechanism to expel countries.
The problem is who do we ally with that we can trust now. Russia and America obviously not. Canada yes but they're not big. China just serves its own interests, they will never care about a partnership. They just want our money to buy their products, nothing else.
I think South America is another potential one and the EU is trying to connect there with eg Mercosur. But America is sponsoring the extreme right there too as you can see in Honduras and Colombia recently. And in Venezuela of course.
> The problem is who do we ally with that we can trust now.
"We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."
― Lord Palmerston
There are lots of possible allies, but no one single ally to depend on. India to counter balance China, Canada to have an ally in North America, etc.
> it's worrying that the EU doesn't have a mechanism to expel countries.
Well yes the US has wanted it but never actually threatened to invade it before.
And no I don't think it's a good idea for Europe to become a federated state. The US' current situation shows how bad that could turn if the wrong person is elected.
At least we have the national governments here as a safeguard and we can also leave the EU if needed.
And yeah I didn't name India as a possible partner because they're too close with Russia. The EU is trying to make some deals with them but it's a bad idea while Modi and the BJP in general is in power in my opinion. They're similarly bad to minorites as the Chinese.
Indeed, this happens when you sacrifice public dialog for short-term gains calling everyone who does not agree with your points "far-right", "nazi", "russian asset". There will be literal fascists and people will support them just because they promise(probably bait-and-switch, but does not matter) to address public problems instead of gaslighting that problems are non-existent.
We call them that because it's true. The far right parties don't want to solve problems. They thrive on anger and hate. If they actually would solve something people would stop voting for them. Because anger and hate are the only things they have to offer.
They don't care about solving problems around migrants. It really boils down to people just not wanting brown faces in 'their' streets.
> It really boils down to people just not wanting brown faces in 'their' streets.
Its similar to Trumpism in that sense, if you ask afd voters for example they will talk about migration and crime. Must all be racists. The mainstream discourse ends there.
From a leftist pov I think its the dissatisfaction in the cartel party that makes this scapegoating popular in the first place. There are many meaningful ways that peoples material conditions are worsening, which is ignored by the establishment, then a new party comes along and blames it all on migrants. The fact the afd calls itself "alternative" is telling perhaps, it directly challenges the neoliberal "there is no alternative" (Thatcher) / "alternativlos" (Merkel) doctrine.
Germany almost 4x its defense spending, they spend hundreds of billions on defense while cutting social and infrastructure spending. Germany has neolib austerity literally written into their constitution since 2009 (debt break), interestingly the afd voters believe the inverse, that the german government has been over-spending for decades and there is no austerity which they actually want. But they also believe the cdu are leftists so there is that, just shit in their brains at the end of the day so how do you really make sense of it?
- Europe is now at war with Russia (neighbor)
- Its relationship with the US is rapidly deteriorating (main partner, de facto protector)
- Its relationship with China is also rapidly deteriorating
- It is getting very antagonistic with it own citizen and some individual member countries (such as Hungaria or Romania recently)
So there are a lot of justifications in each case but the overall picture is worrisome. You can't be antagonistic with everyone.
There is a reason why the North Korean regime is still around, they never forgot they need to keep a good relationship with at least one powerful ally.