Why is Fascism Making a Comeback in Europe?
Eighty years after countless people gave their lives liberating Europe, fascism makes a comeback in the recent European elections.
In this week’s Gaslit Nation, Terrell Starr of the essential Black Diplomats Podcast and Substack joins Andrea to discuss the recent European elections and what they mean for the global democratic alliance, including our own elections in the U.S. Reporting from L’viv, Terrell shares what life is like in Ukraine after MAGA Mike Johnson deliberately delayed Ukraine aid for six critical months. Andrea updates Terrell on the latest in the Trump trial, and they discuss what it means for Ukrainians watching a reality TV horror show of an election in the U.S. that their very democracy depends on.
This week’s bonus show out Saturday morning, exclusive to subscribers at the Truth-teller ($5/month) and higher on Patreon, is a discussion of why the Democrats don’t have their own Project 2025. So Gaslit Nation makes one, with a little help from Elizabeth Warren’s plans! We also discuss the toxic industrial complex of far-right funded fake progressives who are paid trolls of foreign enemies/dictatorships like Russia and Iran and anti-democracy American oligarchs like Peter Thiel, bought off to divide and conquer the Left.
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Show Notes:
Black Diplomats on Substack https://terrellstarr.substack.com/
Opening Clip: Breaking down the far-right wins in European elections, Macron's call for election https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khC9zAyNdZI
Closing Clip: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared an emotional moment with an American D-Day veteran during a ceremony in Normandy, France, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the historic landing. https://x.com/Newsweek/status/1798831270480552322
CBS Correspondent: Anne-Marie Green:
In Europe. Voters in 27 countries have elected more far right members to the European Parliament. That body has limited power, but the vote is having a significant impact. The results have prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to call for a snap parliamentary election in his country after suffering a major defeat at the hands of Marine Le Pen's right wing party. Our Ramy Inocencio explains
CBS Correspondent: Ramy Inocencio:
I give back to you the choice for the future of our parliament said French President Emmanuel Macron dissolving the Republic's legislature in a political earthquake after France's far right parties for the first time won more seats than the parties he supported in Europe-wide elections for the blocks 720 seat parliament in Brussels. Macron's call for a snap election starting June 30th comes days after he and President Biden met to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day. If Macron loses further support, that raises a chance. Maureen Lap Pen's Far-right National Party will gain. With talk of telegenic. 28-year-old Jordan Darella, president of France's National Rally party becoming premier and Lapin possibly becoming president in 2027. Voters in Germany, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands also sent more far right candidates, some in Germany campaign using Nazi overtones to the European Parliament. They include candidates who campaigned against immigrants against support for Ukraine, against climate change policies, and against dependence on trade with China.
Ursula von der Leyen:
Thank you so much.
CBS Correspondent: Ramy Inocencio:
But despite the right word shift, Europe Center is still holding.
Ursula von der Leyen:
There remains a majority in the Center for strong Europe
CBS Correspondent: Ramy Inocencio:
In Paris, Macron warned that the rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger to France, Europe, and the world. His gamble that this sudden election will shock French voters and keep them from shifting even further to the right.
Andrea Chalupa:
Hey everyone, welcome to Gaslit Nation. I am your host, Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine. The film that Kremlin does not want you to see, so be sure to watch it to piss them off because fuck the Kremlin. And here to talk about all that is my dear friend Terrell Starr of the essential Black Diplomats podcast and Substack. But before we jump to Terrell, I want to share some big exciting news. The Gaslit Nation phone bank that we are doing with Indivisible. The third Thursday of June, which is June 27th, we got such a huge response for that, that we have to extend the hours. So we're now starting at 7:00 PM Eastern, 7:00 PM Eastern phone banking with Indivisible into Ohio and other Midwestern states for the Senate. And the big old national family of Indivisible will be joining us because the Gaslit Nation community showed up in big numbers for this phone bank and so they want to expand it thanks to us because we are not just listeners and supporters of this podcast.
We are on the front lines fighting like hell to stop the growing tide to fascism. Thank you for everyone who signed up for the Indivisible Gaslit Nation phone bank on June 27th, now 7:00 PM Eastern. I will be there. I'll share some silly stories with you at the end of our phone bank to thank you all for coming and thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for being amazing, amazing human beings and staying human in this time of growing machinery and in humanity. That's how we stay grounded in our fight for our shared humanity. Alright, Terrell, my dear, the wind beneath my wings, one of the most extraordinary human beings who ever graced this planet. I keep you in my prayers every single day. You are coming to us from Kiev, no Lviv, you're in Aviv now Western Ukraine. Thank God. And so tell us what is your trip like so far there? And my big burning question is what have you witnessed so far in these weeks? You've been in Ukraine in terms of MAGA Mike Johnson deliberately slowing down aid because you've been to Ukraine a ton of times. So do you see any impact from what MAGA Congress did deliberately to block aid for six critical months?
Terrell Starr:
So definitely what's happening right now are blackouts. So Russia has been attacking Ukraine's critical infrastructure. And so what that means for us is that there have been scheduled blackouts across the country, namely in central and eastern Ukraine. And so there are some places you may get 12 hours electricity, 18 hours electricity just depends on where you are. So from a practical level, if you went to buy groceries the day before and you experience eight hours or so, perhaps longer of a blackout, your food is spoiled or that can also mean that there are people whose phones may not have been charged and you can go hours without being able to contact people and not being able to work remotely because you don't have a generator or you don't have an eco flow, which is basically a little mobile generator that you can use in your home that you can plug in things like your wifi connection or your small devices like your telephone to charge or to keep your refrigerator on so that food doesn't spoil from a very practical level, it just makes your life a pain in the butt.
So you talk about what you see on the streets, there are some areas around the country where the lights don't work or just some of the main streets, it's just in darkness. And so you don't see a lot actually. And I took a hostile environment training course a few weeks ago, so that trains journalists to go to the frontline or the zero line. And you learn a lot about how to apply a tourniquet in case you're injured and you learn how to apply certain types of medical essentials that will plug up injuries that could save your life. So that's the reality of living in a country that's being invaded and occupied by Russia. In regards to your question about Mike Johnson in the slow pace that's taking to get here, there are a lot of concerns that the west or reports that the West may be slowing it down in order to pressure Ukraine to concede to concessions.
And that's not something that's been particularly verified yet, but those are the thoughts. What's happening here from a practical level is that people are definitely getting tired of this war. It's definitely a war of attrition, one that Russia and Ukraine neither can sustain. Russia can for a little bit more for a wide range of reasons. But what's happening now is that the recruitment efforts to get men to enlist have been challenging because the government can't outright call out for a mass mobilization because there's not a lot of political support. But then also you have people resorting to trying to catch men out in public who have not gone up to the recruiting offices to register. I know this because several friends of mine have confided in me to talk about their own challenges and their own personal, I would say fears of joining the military because of the very devastating images that they see coming from the front of people being main people being killed.
That plays into the psyche of the public and it has a direct connection to the dirt of Western aid that's going to the front because a lot of people are thinking, why am I going to fight if I know I don't have the tools that I need in order to have a fighting chance to win? And so this lack of aid or the slow pace of it is definitely influencing society because they feel like they don't have all the tools that they need in order to adequately fight and be a soldier fighting against one of the most powerful militaries in the world. There are times when it's really challenging to even call a Uber or another service, a taxi style service because a lot of these guys don't want to be caught on the street or risk being held by a cop who would then ask them about their registration. So this is a country that's very resilient, but there are a cornucopia of challenges that are really impacting this society on a day-to-day basis that are not really being reported nearly enough.
Andrea Chalupa:
And how do you feel? Do you feel Safe?
Terrell Starr:
If I wanted to feel safe, I wouldn't be in Ukraine. That's the first thing. So for me, I love this country. I'm devoted to seeing it all the way through. You know that I've been coming to Ukraine since 2008 and I earned my Fulbright Fellowship here from 2009 to 2010. So I've been in love with this country for a very long time and I am here on my own dime. I am recording stories that are not commonly told, human interest stories about life here that are going to be coming out later in the summer. I love this place and I have friends here and I really can't stand to spend that much time around them. So the conversation about safety as far as I'm concerned, and people who are devoted to this country who are westerners who have an option not to come, it's really about you adjusting and defining what safety means for you, which basically means not doing anything stupid.
If there is a missile attack, for example, which is not something that's happening often where you see missiles literally coming down on you, not like it is in the east or dealing with mortar fire, but if you're in that event, obviously you go to a shelter. There are missile strikes that happen here all the time. They happen more in the east where you have to be a bit more vigilant and in the south as well. But I feel safe in the fact that I'm in Kiev, which is the most, well, well-protected city in Ukraine even though there are not enough patriot systems to adequately defend this country. This is a city where the priority on air defense is optimal, but I feel as safe as anybody who is diligent in not being stupid and diligent in understanding where I am and taking all the safety precautions that I possibly can.
Andrea Chalupa:
Well, the big news we had here in the US that I want to tell you about because I got an update from my listeners and for you is obviously the Trump trial. I want to get your viewpoint on that, especially anything you've been hearing from Ukrainians about it because it was the huge big story here. And I caught up with a friend who was covering the Trump trial for weeks and I want to just share some of her incredible impressions. One thing that she pointed out was how a ton of foreign journalists were camped out inside the courtroom, alongside the American press covering this trial, especially a large number of journalists from Germany and with the German journalists that she met, many of them were saying that their parents and grandparents remember the rise of Hitler. So covering Trump was especially important to Germany and the Trump trial stories, Trump stories in general do really well in Germany because of the warning signs of Maga Nazi-ism, Maga fascism being exactly what took over Germany, turning it into a dictatorship in only six months.
So I thought that was really interesting. She shared her impressions of Trump, the human being, the physical presence. She said that he's surprisingly small and ordinary looking. And I said back to her like Hitler. Hitler, the journalist like Dorothy Thompson that encountered Hitler were always so shocked by what a blob of a man he was just like Gareth Jones, the historical hero of my film. Mr. Jones described seeing Hitler at a rally that his physicality was a middle-aged grocer, just what an ordinary individual he was. But then when the cameras came in, when a scrum of media cameras were allowed into the courtroom to snap a bunch of photos of Trump, he suddenly puffs his chest up and pierces his lips for the camera, puffs out his lips and tries to make broaden himself. And he holds that WWF wrestler fake wrestling pose for the cameras to grab that moment.
But the rest of the time in court, he's just an ordinary, small, average, pathetic looking man. And I thought, yeah, that's our Hitler. When it was time to have the verdict read every single juror, all 12 of them, they had to go down the line and each juror had to confirm one by one that they voted guilty on all counts. And when the jurors were done, they had to walk past Trump and none of them looked at him. They just all looked down straight ahead. And the prosecutor in the closing arguments that nailed the case, made clear to these 12 jurors, many of them selected with the firm influence of Trump and his lawyers and their jury selection consultants. The prosecutor made clear in the closing arguments that the whole point of this trial was that Trump and his goon squad kept valuable information out of the public good, out of the public arena to deliberately influenced the outcome of the 2016 election.
The prosecutor nailed the case home that Trump and his goon squad denied their right to know, denied their right for information that would've made a big impact on the 2016 race, and that's what they agreed with. But also has to be noted that Trump's only female lawyer was doing the cross-examination of porn star Stormy Daniels and tried to slut shame her and also poor shame her. She tried to basically make Stormy Daniels come across as white trash, which is just disgusting and dehumanizing and plays into Trump being a tool of the elite, just like Jeffrey Epstein and his elite clientele feel like they can just use and abuse and dehumanize people, objectify them. And that's what Trump's only female lawyer did in aggressively going after Stormy Daniels when she was on the stand. And then the final impression I wanted to share was that Judge Juan Merchan, he carried himself like a biblical figure in court.
He was fair and firm like a kindly father, and he ratcheted up the consequences for Trump carefully. He initially started with fines, with the gag order and then finally threatened jail time, and that's when Trump shut up. But my journalist friend who witnessed all this just said that Judge Merchan was extraordinary and that he needs to go down in history overseeing such a circus of a case with a mob boss, defendant with such firm fairness that when he finally did draw a boundary and enforce a boundary, the whole courtroom, everybody's spine stiffened and you could just feel his quiet power in the courtroom, she said, and obviously you don't get that impression of him watching Fox News, you think he some corrupt leftist socialist brown person who's out to get all white people. So those were her impressions and I wanted to share them for the historical record here on the show because it's important. What did you think of the Trump trial and what have you been hearing in Ukraine about it?
Terrell Starr:
Hear in Ukraine, people are not really generally following all these multiple trials with Trump right now simply because it's so many of them. And people are still a bit shocked that this is happening in the United States. And to this day, they question how the American people can elect someone like Trump. And so many of the conversations that I have, whether it be with my friends or whether it be with elected officials or folks who are in the government who actually do understand global politics, I talk with them about how fragile democracy is in the United States and that this beacon of freedom and liberty that they've grown to think America is isn't as cemented as an institution as they think it's, and they still have not gotten over that yet. And I think that they are devoted to the virtues and the selling points that they've grown up to believe more so than accepting what America is.
So they can't even get into the nuances of this case that you're talking about because they haven't gotten over that part yet. And particularly being a black American, I have to tell them that a lot of the democracy that they really respect America for, and despite all of our faults, our democracy is better than most. However, they don't have a really nuanced understanding of voter suppression and the fact that black people and people of color, poor people, people who have disabilities, are constantly targeted for in voter suppression. And the people who are the most targeted tend to elect people to office that support Ukraine, even though they may not understand Ukrainian politics or our country's relationship with this country, those very people who are the most targeted by these very anti-democratic practices coming out of MAGA land and the GOP at writ large, those are the people who are indirectly Ukrainian's biggest supporters. And so I spend a great deal of my time telling them some uncomfortable truths about America. And once they get to that point, then they can get into these conversations about the many cases, the many trials that are taking place in United States. And to their credit, many Americans have a hard time keeping up with the number of cases that are against Trump because a man has roughly what 90 or so charges against him or have had 90 or so charges against him.
Andrea Chalupa:
Do Ukrainians understand by and large that Trump is an asset of Putin?
Terrell Starr:
Yeah, they know that, right? They know assets. So that part, they get what they have a struggle with is why Americans would elect someone like him into office. And what I talk to them about is race. I am one of the few people that Ukrainians of any stripe can have a conversation with about when it comes to race. Most Ukrainians and most people around the world have a severe misunderstanding of how race impacts American politics. If you don't understand race, you don't understand America. And so a lot of Ukrainians that go to United States, be they immigrants or be they students that will study for a master's degree from one year to two years, or they enter PhD programs and they eventually return back to Ukraine, or it could be any group of people that come from Eastern Europe or elsewhere, or I would just speak with Eastern Europeans or people from Central Europe, et cetera, because that's where I have most of my professional experience and my lived experience is that when they go to the United States, they leave a very particular part of Europe where as Eastern Europeans juxtapose against the Russian Imperial Project, they don't operate in the same level of whiteness that we understand in the United States, but once they come to the United States, they integrate into whiteness.
And the challenge with that is that they tend not to go and understand black Americans, Latinx Americans, Asian Americans, to get a view of how unequal this country is. And that lack of experience does not prepare them for the type of, quite frankly fuckery that we're experiencing with Donald Trump, which has everything to do with race and sexism and the subjugation of other people, which is a centerpiece of the MAGA doctrine. And so they understand that he's an asset, but that's something that's very specific to the Ukrainian experience because they know what it means to have, we call it sellouts, right? They know what it means to have people who allied with Russia because there are many people who have infiltrated the Ukrainian government, even at the beginning stages of the war, who could have signaled the alarm about Russia intrusions, but they decided to decide with Russia.
The Ukrainians know that very well, but what they don't know, they think, okay, Trump is a Republican and we all know that Trump isn't anything but a person with his own interests. We know that, but they think, well, there are enough Republicans overall that will support Ukraine. And there are many people in the Republican party who by and large do, but they don't understand how cancerous the MAGA contingency is and how even with the rest of the Republican party that is supporting Ukraine, they're highly influenced and fearful of this MAGA contingency because they have so much sway with the overall populace that elects them into office. And so that deals a lot with American culture that has a lot to deal with the evolution of the Republican party, that they're not following at that same level of specificity that you're asking about.
Andrea Chalupa:
Anybody that studies American history knows that Trump is American history, Trump is the institution of slavery, Trump is the confederacy, Trump is the K, KK. There's always been this MAGA movement that built America. So anybody that studied American history should not be shocked at all about Donald Trump and his popularity. There was this incredible exhibit that I saw in Paris after in late 2016, I went to Paris to visit my in-laws. My husband's from Paris, and there was this phenomenal exhibit called Art in the Color Lines. And you go through the beautiful evolution of black art on the land. That was America, that became America, and you follow it. And what it is is a story of white rage reacting to black progress. So every time black people made any progress by serving in World War I becoming heroes for the US Army in World War I, they came home to bloody race riots, including especially in the north and so on.
So when you go through this whole exhibit, you're left thinking the only inevitable response to the first black president of the United States is Donald Trump. That's the whole history of America. So what we're living now is just the latest chapter of pushing back against the racism that built this country and we're trying to change things. We cannot tolerate this anymore. We're trying to change our history. We're trying to heal our generational trauma and the cycles of violence ending it with us. So that's why we have this moment of polarization. The abolitionists went through it, the abolitionists were divided, demoralized, sniping at each other just as much as we are today in this resistance to this growing fascism,
Terrell Starr:
Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an essay during the Trump presidency called the First White President, and there was a passage in his essay that sticks out in my memory. Barack Obama was saying, if you work hard, he was selling to black America in particularly if you work twice as hard, if you do your optimal best, then you can make a place for yourself in this country. Donald Trump's message was the polar opposite in direct response to Obama's message, if you work even less and if you do the absolute least, you'll get substantially more. And it was such simple language that was so powerful in ways that only Coates could articulate, but that is what Trump is selling to the American people. It is incredibly appealing because what Trump is doing is he's saying that your whiteness is being devalued and I am going to bring value to it again.
So when he says, make America great again, he's saying that I am going to make your value that of which is higher than that of the black person of that, of the Latinx person, all these people who are ultimately going to outnumber you. And so that is something that is driving so many people to the MAGA land because he's saying the quiet parts out loud. That is what I wish many people in Ukraine who want to understand American politics will get. And so we can't get to any of the things that you're talking about in regards to these trials without understanding that. And that is my everyday conversation with Ukrainians. And so they are still devoted to this understanding from American versions. I'm not saying that they're naive. They definitely get that America is not this beacon of democracy, but the specificity of why is the work that I'm doing,
Andrea Chalupa:
It's really incredible because you're bridging this gap between Ukraine and the West where you're decolonizing the western understanding of Ukraine. For so long it was dominated by Moscow through a Moscow lens in academia and think tanks and newsrooms where growing up in America as Ukrainian American people just assumed right off the bat I was a Russian. I'd say, oh yeah, my family's from Ukraine. Oh, you're Russian. No big difference Americans with your lack of geography and history and all of it. And so thank you for doing that. And so you're also obviously in that movement for decolonizing the world's understanding of Ukraine. You're also helping Ukrainians understand race and how it's so center to our own history. And not only that, Ukraine's own liberation because the racist might overpower us in the 2024 election and if MAGA comes back, we're a dictatorship. We are a gas station dictatorship just like Russia.
Terrell Starr:
But the thing is, is that for one, I don't think people appreciate how offensive it is to call Ukrainian or Russian because in the American context, they understand you all are just being white people. And one of the things that I do is I contextualize what multiple types of imperialism actually is because number one, people don't even use the words like imperialism and colonialism. That's just kind of lofty academic language. But essentially what we're saying is that Ukrainians within their own context are oppressed peoples. And so there are different types of systems of oppression. We as black people experience it via chattel slavery. In the Ukrainian context, it was experienced via serfdom. It was experienced during annexation and colonialism, having your language stripped away from you, having your land taken away from you, having your identity erased. The difference between racism, where American racism, where white people say that we are superior to you because you're black, the Russians are saying you're not really a person because your culture doesn't even exist.
It's made up. And so which one is worse? And you can't pick which one's worse because they're all fucked up. And so they're both different types of bad and horrible, and they come with their own specific sets and histories of extreme violence. And so when someone says, oh, you're just Russian, the American who has no context of what oppression means beyond let's say chattel slavery, they're not going to understand how violent it is to call a Ukrainian whose parents or whose grandparents or whose history they fled that structure. They don't know how violent that is. And so that has a lot to do with the fact that our countries, we as people, we don't know enough about each other. And so why I love being here is that I feel like if I'm talking about Ukraine, I need to be in Ukraine. I have to learn Ukrainian language, I have to go out where the suffering is most pronounced.
And so I need to build up the respect to properly be an ambassador for this country because that's the only way that we're going to learn to appreciate one another. One of the things that Donald Trump does very effectively and what the far right does is that they understand that they may have different political differences, but whether it's Giorgia Meloni in Italy or whether it's the alternative for Germany, for Deutsche land and Germany, which did pretty particularly well in these European Parliament elections or elsewhere, is that we may disagree politically, but one thing that aligns us is our whiteness, but they understand that their whiteness unites them. So we have to think of people of good faith about what unites us.
Andrea Chalupa:
Absolutely. And so I want to get into the European Parliament results with you. There was a huge victory for the far right. We're talking straight up Nazi parties, increasing their numbers in the European Parliament. This just goes to show that the voters are frustrated. They want easy solutions to complicated problems. Racism is alive and well in Europe. This was an anti-immigration backlash. This was an anti collective action to meet the challenges, the moment of the climate crisis for the sake of the future of the planet and civilization on this planet. They're tired of being pressed with all of these carbon policies. Here in New York we have a controversial conversation going on, a yelling match over congestion pricing in New York City where during certain hours of the day you'll be charged $15 if you drive your car in to Manhattan during the peak of traffic or whatever.
And Governor Kathy Hochul pulled this back in the last hour after it was developed over painstaking several months to pass this really progressive aggressive policy. And Kathy Hochul was like, Nope, we're not going to do it. And now you have New Yorkers fighting each other over this because the one way that we get through this climate crisis is collective action. Even if that means putting the pinch on the people when we didn't even cause this crisis. We didn't choose to pollute our blood with plastic. We didn't choose to pollute our air with fossil fuels, and it's really the 100 companies or so that are destroying this planet and profiting from that, that should be paying for this should be paying reparations. And so the tension of congestion pricing that we're seeing here in New York, those same policies are playing out in Europe and voters punished their European leaders for this saying, we don't want to deal with these complex issues.
We don't want to bear the brunt of these complex issues. We want life to be easy. We want to feel a surge of power. We want to take back our power. And so we're going to gamble with these far right populists that are promising us easy solutions to complex problems. And they're going to keep German Germany traditionalist lederhosen, beer garden, schnitzel eating, I dunno, you know what I mean? They don't want Europe to become a melting pot. And these elections are certainly scary. One thing that people have to pay attention to is the far right did very well in countries that haven't suffered recently under a far right government like Poland was stuck under a Trumpian government and they've been being pushed back and contained. So where voters across Europe haven't had to actually live under a far right government and populous policies and what a circus and chaotic those policies are because at the end of the day, simple solutions don't solve complex problems.
And at the end of the day, we need collective action to get us through this crisis moment in addressing the climate crisis meaningfully and so on. And so populous governments are all bluster, no governing other than lining their pockets and furthering their corruption and using the state to attack and oppress their enemies, which are of course asylum seekers, LGBTQ plus people and women. So this rise, this red tide of fascism in these European elections, it's incredibly troubling and it comes at a moment where President Macron of France, who really got the biggest pushback here in these European election results, president Macron has been leading Europe with this new Macron doctrine as I've been calling it, saying that we have to be more determined to win the war of Russia's fascism against global democracy. We have to put French soldiers on the ground in Ukraine. If it comes to that, it comes to that stop telling the Kremlin what you're not going to do because that shows weakness.
And Macron has really filled a power vacuum across Europe when Germany Schultz has been dithering as Germany does because they love that Russian money, they love that Russian gas and they're in the pocket of big Russian interests. And so Macron being vulnerable now calling this snap election, hoping that this will shake up the people of France and get him a ruling coalition to make his job easier. That's what he's taking a gamble on. And as we've seen in recent European history with David Cameron gambling with the Brexit referendum, these gambles don't always pay off. Hopefully they will in Macron's case. So I wanted to ask you, Terrell, what were your thoughts on the European election results?
Terrell Starr:
Well, here's the thing. I expected the far right to do particularly well during these elections because they universally have become very good with their messaging. It's very plain, very simple for their supporters to understand. Whereas many of these countries are being led, you have the greens who perform particularly poorly, and then you have the center, right? So one thing that's important to keep in mind is that you have IR, which is ideology and democracy, which is roughly around fifth in the European par. So for folks who don't know what the European parliamentary elections are is that there are multiple bodies that comprise of the European Union. The European Parliament has roughly 720 seats across 27 of the member states, and the European Parliament is the legislative body that takes policy of how the 27 states should be governed. So at a very basic level, that's what they do.
And the consequences that the more far right people that you have that are in significant positions of power and can actually build coalitions with other, let's just say they may not be far right, but they may be right wing or right or closer to the right is that they could build coalitions. And so that will have a strong impact on European Union policy. So it's really significant what's happening here. Another thing is that we can't really, just because a party is right, it doesn't mean that they're far right. That's an important thing. So you have Giorgia Meloni's party, she's definitely far right, but ironically they support you Ukraine. So when you talk about the Macron doctrine for example, we don't want parties like Giorgia Meloni's party having power in Europe because we don't want racists dictating power. We don't want that at all. So let's just make that perfectly clear. We don't want anti-immigrant parties making up policy in the European Union, particularly with their own history of colonialism across the world, which they have yet to reconcile, which I find the irony of it. Yeah,
Andrea Chalupa:
I mean Mussolini, Mussolini was the first founder of fascism. The idea of fascism came out of Russia from a Russian intellectual that Tim Snyder has written about. I'll link to his writings on that in the show notes for this week's episode. But it was Mussolini that first put fascism into practice and showed us what fascism looked like in the end game of fascism, which was mass murder destruction. And as part of his fascism, he was a violent imperialist. They invaded what is now known as modern day Ethiopia. They had this Italy first racist, imperialist violent policy. And so that's the roots of these parties and of course, namely in Italy where they've been full on fascist rallies where you see crowds of people shooting their palms up in the air in the fascist salute. That's what we're up against, this surge, this rising tide of political violence.
Terrell Starr:
They are, and so what's happening with these elections, by the way, the votes are still being tallied, and so we don't know the exact number of seats at the far right is going to win, and so the voting is still ongoing. There are a lot of votes that are still being counted because all the voting took place over the weekend is, well, I'll tell you something else that was really significant with countries like Germany and Belgium for example, or a few others. They lowered the voting age from 18 to 16 and alternative for Germany for example, did well with these groups. And so we make the assumption that the younger, the voter is more liberal, they are depending on where you are, that's not necessarily the case. And so could you imagine in America if a 16-year-old could vote? I actually didn't think that people who are younger should vote.
That's a whole nother conversation, but that's just another key dynamic that took place here. And so you expanded the number of eligible voters by simply lowering the age bracket from 16 to 18, or I think it's in Greece, they lowered it to about 17, which is still a year younger than what we will be eligible for here in the United States of America. On one hand, these elections show that the messaging for liberal parties, socialist leaning parties, the center left, they have no alternative to it is very similar to the same challenge that Democrats have in response to the 2025 project. There is no robust reaction to this and what's going on in Europe in regards to a dearth of messaging to say that, Hey, maybe we shouldn't have a racists that are dictating. Policy. Democrats don't have an alternative to it either, but more specifically with the European parliamentary elections is that I think the bigger consequence I would say for Ukraine.
And then finally for everyone else for Ukraine, fortunately there are enough people in the European Parliament, even on the right side that support Ukraine because there are not enough, at least with the election results that we have right now, there are not enough far right people to cause enough of a problem. It's not so much about what the far right has gained. It has more to deal with the number of seats with preliminary results that progressives in the center leaning parties lost. And so with a lot of these far white groups, they may have gained a dozen or so seats were, et cetera, with the center leaning parties and the more progressive parties, they've lost dozens. And so once the numbers tally up, it's going to be a devastating loss and it has everything to do with messaging, and it has a lot to do with not acknowledging the extreme far right sentiment that is percolating in Europe.
The European left in the center has to really reconcile this one thing. They have to deal with the conversation of racism because the far right is doing it pretty well. These dark people, they need to get the fuck out. That's not complicated. Whereas with the center, they're trying to play both sides in the same case as with Democrats in the United States, Republicans particularly the far rate, don't play both sides. They put all their cards on the table and it's all or nothing, and they benefit from it. Whereas with the Democrats are differing between, maybe I need to kind of put my toe on one end and they're toe on the other end. And this old type of good old boy club mentality that Joe Biden has, for example, about my friends on the Republican side and my colleagues here and the gentlemen from North Carolina and the gentle woman from Dakota. All these people are there, be racist, and no matter how much they'll enjoy drinking cocktails with you, everything about the people who support Joe Biden is something that his friends and his colleagues hate and they see as an attack on their identity. It is existential to them. And so until politics become existential to the center and to progressives, then you're going to continue to see these losses
Andrea Chalupa:
In an urgent reminder of what we're fighting for. Here's Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meeting an American D-Day veteran in Normandy, France at the 80th anniversary of the Historic Landing
Volodymyr Zelensky:
Savior, the You.
Andrea Chalupa:
This election is here and it's happening and it's bigger than Biden. We have the chance to hack away at corruption at the root by building our power at the all important state level. Were crucial quality of life issues from voting rights to environmental protections to lgbtq plus rights and more are decided. Carl Rove ran the same strategy for the GOP during the Obama years laying the groundwork for Trump to come to power in 2016. Now we're reversing this dangerous trend, securing key victories in swing states to protect our elections and advance progressive laws in states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Yes, even Wisconsin. Another world is possible when we unite and build together. Here's how. Join me, Andrea at State Fair, a giving circle that collects small dollar donations among friends and family to build big power in key states. If 1000 Gaslit Nation listeners set up a $5 recurring monthly donation, that's $5,000 we're sending to turn
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Our discussion continues, and you can get access to that by setting up at the Truth to our level and higher on Patreon at patreon.com/gaslit. It's Pride Month. On behalf of everyone here at Gaslit Nation, we extend a happy pride to all of our listeners in the LGBTQ plus community. You and your loved ones are not alone in this time of genocidal hate. The Gaslit Nation community has your back and wherever you are listening, we love you. You're perfect. We're going to get through these dark times together to help us do that. Let's all come together and support these worthy organizations doing extremely important work for human rights. Lambda Legal is committed to achieving full recognition of civil rights for LGBTQ plus people and everyone living with HIV. To ensure legal protections and to end discrimination, donate lambdalegal.org. That's lambdalegal.org and Lambda Legal also provides free services from those impacted who need the support.
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