US election:Rise of the right; Election results mirror conservative gains in Europe throughout 2010

[pampango]

Source: Global Post


A woman joins in the singing of the national anthem at the Tea Party Election Day party
at the Hyatt Regency Washington, Nov. 2, 2010. (Rod Lamkey/Getty Images)

The election results rolling in Tuesday night held little surprise: strong gains for Republicans mean that in the United States, as in several European countries, the right is on the rise.

It is not unusual for the president’s party to lose seats in U.S. midterm elections. What is unusual about Tuesday’s contest is that the surge on the right mirrors gains by right-wing parties in Europe earlier this year. As ordinary voters wait for the economic recovery promised by their leaders, what unites them — from Tea Party rallies in the United States to anti-immigration marches in Europe — is a yearning for financial security.

Europe has seen gains by far-right, anti-immigration parties in Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden. Their reaction mirror hand-wringing here over the influence of the Tea Party, a conservative grassroots movement whose adherents say the federal government has overstepped the bounds of the U.S. Constitution, spent recklessly and grown too large. In both places, the result is the same: shifting power to those who plan to shrink the size of government, which voters interpret as a step toward financial security.

Conservative politicians who have held the reins of power this year have taken steps to safeguard their economies hand in hand with measures that cater to the far-right. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy spent this year fighting to ban burqas in public, and to reform his country’s pricey pension guarantees. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the retirement age and announced that “multiculturalism has failed.”

Read more: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/europe/101102/us-election-rise-the-right

[pasto76]

1. Oh jesus christ, this already?

yeah, if right wing extremism is "the right" - then yes there is a mirror.

IN Europe, THE RIGHT attacks the Left for NOT DOING ENOUGH TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING. Right "in europe" does not equate to the right over here.

[bongbong]

2. No idea

I have no idea why this is such a big deal. repigs replaced a lot of Blue Dogs, so no real big change there. The Senate was held. Off year elections two years after a new president almost always have change in leadership.

The only good thing to come out of this will be watching the reaction of America as the "fiscal conservatives" stop being conservative in record speed to give their bosses, the billionaires, more tax cuts.

[yellowcanine]

3. Of course "the Right" in Europe is almost equivalent to "mainstream Democrat" here.

[mwooldri]

4. Right and Left, Conservative & Liberal... don't translate across the pond.

People at work still boggle when I tell them the UK has a Liberal Conservative or Conservative Liberal government. They also sorted it out so they have 5 years to put house into order, rather than the 2 years that US politicians get.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. This isn't the European Right like Merkel, Sarkozy etc.; it's the far right, more like Tancredo

or even David Duke (some of them associate with him). Yeah, Cameron, Merkel and Sarkozy do play to the far right gallery occasionally, but their raison d'etre isn't anti-immigration. Berlusconi is probably on the borderline of being far right.

[Diclotican]

7. muriel_volestrangler

muriel_volestrangler

Compared to US, I would say Merkel, Sarkozy and many of the other "right" is mainstream democrat, maybe traditional conservatives in the US. Mostly becouse they for the most part are not playing to the far right, Germany specailly have learned THEIR leason playing with the fair right. a leason still clearly given by the bullet holes in many german City's, from the time when they was overrun by the allied forces.. 60+ year, it is still there, the damage from that war..

Berlusconi is a clown, who is a laughing stock in the rest of Europe.. The only reason he is in charge there, is becouse they for the moment have no better politicans, and becouse he have more money than the Lord.. If he haven't been that rich, and Italy had have som decent politicans he would get out faster than an moskito is been flattend in the summer...

Diclotican

[LeftishBrit]

8. Not this sort of Right.

They are not talking about mainstream conservatives. Some of the mainstream conservatives could be described as similar to American Democrats, though they vary between and even within countries (e.g. it's arguable that, though Chirac and Sarkozy are both French Conservatives, the former is more like a Democrat and the latter more like a Republican).

But the far-right parties in question here are small but influential ultra-nationalist parties, with a particular hatred for immigrants and often for other minority groups. Jan Brewer and Tom Tancredo, for instance, would fit quite well into such a party.

The one good thing about Britain's otherwise quite disappointing election this year is that our equivalent party, the British National Party, was utterly *trounced*: its leader got 14% of the vote in a Parliamentary seat that he'd thought he might win; and almost all the party's local councillors lost their seats.

[Diclotican]

6. pampango

pampango

The RIGHT in Europe, is far to the left compared to the RIGHT in US Context.. Mostly becouse the RIGHT in Europe is for many things, that the RIGHT in US is deadly against.. Like a public healt care system, a welfare system to make a few points. No RIGHT WING party's in Europe would even dear to sugest that we should close down the welfare system, and privatize the Healt Care Sytem who are in place in most of Europe, even in parts of Europe it is not that good... But still, the Government are still paying for a public founded system....

In scandinavia I belive the traditional RIGHT and conservative parties would be seen as liberale parties. Parties as SD on Sweden are not the common right, they are far right, and are shunned by the rest. And would posible be shunned for a long time becouse of their extreme views..

The EUropean RIGHT are not by far the same as the US Right, as the two "right's" have over the last couple of decades have made a gulf between them, the cize of the Pacific.. The Tea Party's would never been elected to anything in most of Europe.. And even SD is far different from the nutcases in the Tea Party movement...

The only parts of the political spectrum, who are anything near the US EXTREME RIGHT, in Europe, is maybe the few, lonely NAZI-partys who is still active in some places, but who are not any near political power anytime soon.. The nazis blow it in 1945....

Diclotican

[JohnWxy]

9. does anyone know of site which shows the national tally of votes, not state by state but total over

the whole country?