CharonY

In other words it is all about reproductive success in whatever form, which would include collaborative behavior, rather than the original notion that suport leads to weakness?

Again, that is not necessarily true. Predators are not necessarily the key selector in a given species. Many species have virtually no defence against predators, but rely for example on high reproduction rates or life cycles that minimize overlap with predators and many more. I.e. the "strength" here is just being one of the lucky ones to reproduce before predation (or anything else happens). And if you broaden it up to be more accurate in having any traits that helps with reproduction, the argument of taking care of the weak kind of evaporates. For example, some may have large testes and high sperm load increasing likelihood of reproduction. But they might run slower. Parents that take care of that "weaker" one to fertility suddenly gain a higher chance to influence the gene pool. It is indeed not a complicated argument. Just not a scientifically accurate one.

The issue here is that I don't think that there are any studies out there that really are able to investigate e.g. which genetic factors could lead to prey escape. As you can imagine that would be incredibly difficult to do. What has been studied to my knowledge are specific elements with a genetic basis (e.g. coloration) and detection by predators. While it makes intuitive sense, I just don't think that we have the data to establish that as fact. And biology has many ways to be really counter-intuitive.

Likewise, group protective behaviour (i.e. regardless if it involves exclusively your offspring) can improve overall reproductive success. And conversely, risking "weaker" (however they might assess it) offspring can backfire dramatically. Though again, that does not make much sense to me in the context of predation as used in earlier posts. After all, even the strongest offspring is unlikely to survive a predator and survival would be more a matter of luck than individual strength (assuming lack of protective behaviour).

The last part is the important bit, as it can lead to traits and behavior that make a species less suitable for the environment (but for example more attractive to their potential mates). The tricky bit here is that extrapolating this to general behaviour is a bit like using anecdotes to apply to human. We could take footage from a stampede during a terror attack or some other mass-incident and then claim that humans have the propensity to trample each other to death. Individual animal behaviour takes a long time to explore, something that the field is has only started to recognize very recently. Not only for that reason it is silly to try to apply these vague narratives to human societies (either for or against certain elements in society). And also, if predators get to the injured and sick ones, it does not mean that it has any effect on the quality of the gene pool. After all, even fit folks can get injured or sick. Though especially for the latter there is no need for predation, it would be between them and the pathogen.

I see here and in the following quite a bit of mixing up of biological, political and culturally concepts. It is important to note adding biologically to these discussions generally just muddles up things as the relationship is not well understood and it is easy to falsely extrapolate. But this sentence has already multiple misconceptions. As mentioned in the biology section on this forum, survival of the fittest relates not to strength or even survivability, but to reproductive success. There are many, many species who prioritize the letter over what one might presume to be strength. In addition, "strength" is not a universal unit, and it can be very very counter-intuitive. In many species there is sexual selection towards some sort of outward features that are a hindrance. A stronger rival may be present but lacking the ability to attract partners could then consider a weakness. I.e. strength and weakness in this example are on two entirely different traits. Also, many species protect their young, who are by definition weak compared to adults. It is not that they just watch to figure out who is strong just groom those that survive. Some herd animals (e.g. buffalos) band together to protect the young and in others (e.g. elephants) elderly members stick around for a long time and do not just get abandoned outside of emergency situations. There are reports from bisons that members of the herd stayed behind to protect the rest of the herd from wolf attacks, similarly African buffalos form up defensively (interestingly, aggressive dominant males are occasionally pushed out, typically by other males and are thus more vulnerable, despite being one of the strongest of the herd). Another interesting behaviour is that it has been frequently observed that when a lion has brought down a buffalo, sometimes the herd returns on mass and retrieves the fallen individual. Animals are not automatons and can exhibit a wide range of behvaior that frequently do not align with simple narratives. Behavioral studies have shown that frequently there are altruistic as well as cheating behaviors in social animals, which means that e.g. cheating cannot eliminate the benefits of altruistic behaviour. In other words, the description of animal behavior and evolution itself is erroneous and as such already not a great platform to extrapolate politics from it.

Agreed, there are well-established trajectories to attack her (e.g. the stupid diversity hire line).

Depending on where you are and how they do surveillance, it is possible that COVID cases are not reported or monitored anymore. The CDC is still doing wastewater analysis and some is also done in Canada on the federal level, but it is being dialled back. There has been a bit of a summer surge in quite a few parts in North America, for example. While hospitals are not filling up that much anymore (which is great) reduction of surveillance does not bode well for future preparedness.

At least in Germany the most extremes are fairly clumped and very non-religious. Actually the overall theme is more that there was a promise that things will get better and while things started to move that way, as outlined in the article, non-democratic forces are taking over democracies. Also I think it is important to acknowledge that this trend is not caused by certain far right lunatics seizing the moment of immigration crises as such. The argument (with all the caveats of social science approaches) is that reactionary forces are embedded into the system and while they mostly draw from the right, they also capitalize on resentment fostered in the center and left, with a common theme (i.e. perceived status threat).

I don't think that is the necessarily the case. I agree that the immediate shock of higher rates makes things more visible and enrages folks more. However, anti-immigration stances are, as swansont mentioned, also very prevalent in areas with low immigration rates. When one digs down into it, the perceived threat overrides the reality/ This is also an aspect where where social media can really amplify things. A group of 5 differently looking folks can suddenly become a source of displacement fears, even if they were the only ones. Or as any crime involving someone looking differently is amplified over "regular" crime. Though one could turn it around and make the case that immigration works better if immigrants are invisible. But that is obviously a challenge for visible minorities. Ideologically, it means that folks have to acquiesce to bigotry, which used to be the norm, but is increasingly challenged. That in turn contributes to current ideological rifts. I haven't heard that folks are similarly organized elsewhere and have a more broad recruitment strategy (but with a focus on identity politics).

I think that is common, but not (yet) universal. While these groups tend to organize themselves around autocracies, in some either no obvious leader has emerged yet or are keeping a fairly low profile (something like in Germany). But you are right that those tendencies generally go well together.

I think specifically for UBI there is support from both sides. The issue is really just the implementation. Specifically right-wing support is related to demands of lower taxes and cuts to welfare which might alienate groups on the left.

Several misconceptions here. DNA is not a set of instructions, but in its simplest form encodes proteins (and has some other functions) which are elements of the cell. Some call it a blueprint, which is somewhat more accurate (but still not quite right). Adaptations do not cause mutations. Mutations are independent, but selective pressures can result in some mutations over time become more frequent than others. The DNA in an organism is not a code (the genetic code is something else). What you mean is probably just the DNA sequence and that does not stay consistent, nor is it unique for each individual. Many organism proliferate clonally I.e. the offspring has a copy of the DNA sequence as the ancestor. Likewise, during sexual proliferation DNA of the parents are merged so with the exception of few mutations there are not going to be larger changes from generation to generation (and too large differences would result in non-viable offspring). Geography can be a separator of populations as mating does not happen over large distances (usually). So whatever mixing in a gene pool happens relies on the population that is there.

I think that may be down to methodology, i.e. how the study was set up. In most surveys if you ask folks why the they vote for their respective party, You will find economic anxiety fairly up. But this is true for all parties and does not explain a shift to the extreme right. Feeling of being ignored is a bit more common but it is actually not tied to their socioeconomic study. Other studies (including the one mentioned in the article) have a more specific design. What they did is try to figure out what sentiments are predictive for voting for far right (rather than mainstream conservative) parties. So you ask all kind of questions and then try to find a pattern. Some predictors are very local, but among the themes that appear to be predictive in many countries (most studies were conducted in Western countries) are related to sex/gender and another along ethnic lines. There is an emerging split, especially among younger votes along gender lines, with indicators of sexism being a decent predictor of far-right support. However, ethnic concerns tends to be a stronger predictor. This falls under the general umbrella of status threat and when looking at the various factors. While intuitively one might assume that e.g. socioeconomic factors (especially decline) should be the main mechanism related to that, it turns out not to be. I.e. strangely the socioeconomic status or even the loss of socioeconomic status according to one study are not a predictor for far right support. But having e.g. attitudes that fall under the ethnic threat bracket is (again independent on actually socioeconomic situation). Similar studies in the US have also shown that this status threat is a strong predictor for the support of Trump (over "regular" Republicans). Structurally the argument made by the article (though written a bit from an Americanized perspective) makes a lot of sense. Let's say 20-30% of the population are by default nativist reactionaries who originally would vote conservative. The issue is that a liberal democracy simply cannot address this fears, as immigrants, once becoming residents, enjoy the same rights and protection as regular citizens. Moreover, mechanistically they (mostly) are no economic threat. I.e. the fear, as other mentioned is not based on reality that might be addressable. Therefore, these reactionaries will ultimately be dissatisfied with liberty itself and some part will be drawn to those far right authoritarian groups, as they generally do not particularly care for things like civil liberties or rights. In a parliamentary system the result is a formation of groups to the right of mainstream parties (much in Europe) but in two or three party systems (like the US) it threatens traditional positions within the party. This is what we see with traditional conservatives in the GOP. In liberal democracies there would be mechanistic safeguards protecting certain rights, which in turn is why these groups actively try to undermine them (see Hungary but also what is happening with SCOTUS). Social media is a big amplifier of resentment in this context, but I don't think that could be causative on its own. I will also note that the fundamental issue outlined in the article is that there is an underlying current of threat to liberal democracies which does not appear to be addressable. When Trump and other far right authoritarian populists/demagogues were getting power some political commentators thought that this might be a good thing for democracies in the long run. These non-traditional parties had never ruled and the assumption is that they would fail miserably (Germany is right now looking at the same idea, unfortunately). However, as we can see that is not what happened universally or even commonly. My suspicion is that social media will again play a role here, as it will be used to rewrite reality. I will note the catastrophic handling of the COVID19 pandemic as an (almost forgotten it seems) example. I.e. even with the blatantly incompetent leadership those groups only see a moderate drop in support. Trump lost in 2020 but might win again 2024. PiS lost the absolute majority but remain the largest party. We did a big swing into authoritarianism and especially autocracy and I do not really see a big swing back. Perhaps things will change but at least over last decade or so we went quite a bit into crazy land and it seems we might be be stuck there for a long while if nothing fundamental changes. After all, the only strategy so far is banking on far-right incompetence and I don't think it works.

Interestingly many of the threats you listed are things that the reactionary forces mentioned in the article actively ignore except for the migration part. People are therefore seemingly less afraid of pollution or disease (remember COVID-19) but are mostly worried about folks coming in (or at least that is what this article argues and which some studies seem to support). In fact, addressing the many challenges, including climate change has not been a winning strategy in many (most?) areas. Edit: crossposted

I wanted to use this thread to discuss the rise of far-right sentiments across the world and start with this article https://www.vox.com/politics/361136/far-right-authoritarianism-germany-reactionary-spirit It provides some background about the the rise of democracies and includes this sentiment from Francis Fukuyama There are various lines of thoughts, but in article suggest that a lot is driven by ethnic resentment related to immigration: In many discussions on this forum, there have been puzzlement why folks like Trump with strong authoritarian tendencies have been able to gain so much ground in democracies and often fear has been an underlying current. The argument in this article is then that in countries from Hungary to India, the very idea of equality and rights (and potentially resulting demographic impacts) has become a threat to the reactionary core in society. In other discussions I (and I think others) have speculated (many years ago) that some of the craziness might be just the last reactionary embers before the rise of a more equitable and democratic society. Now we see that these "fringe" groups have become mainstream and what some of us might have dismissed as craziness has actually paid electoral dividends. So in short, does the current world give you pause and make you revisit how you thought the world would change, say 10 or 20 years ago?

What worries me is that that discussion about US as an unreliable partner has been ongoing since the first Trump presidency, but at least as far as I can see, nothing fundamental has changed. Also, both Trump and his VP have been rather vocal for supporting Russia. I mean, not supporting Ukraine.

Basically what iNow said. Europe is not able to provide the necessary support (and some far-right parties are actively undermining efforts).

Ukraine is in serious trouble. Just as Putin planned.

I thought it was more a retroactive legacy thing.

Folks that are afraid are often in favor of authoritarianism, and more specifically, to autocracy (consolidation of power into a person). The idea of a great man as savior is unfortunately deeply ingrained in most folks. Whenever things are perceived to get tough (regardless whether it is really the case or not) these tendencies get a severe boost. While there was trend of world-wide democratization (which was linked to some degree to trade and cultural exchange), there is always the tendency to backslide. In Europe, authoritarian groups have been on the rise for a while and have taken over is some countries. So even in well-established liberal democracies, there are efforts to erode certain rights (making them closer to become electoral democracies). Even looking at things from a high level we do see these trends, where liberal democracies have declined since the the height of liberal democracies in the 2010s with movement toward the authoritarian axes- (liberal democracy-electoral democracy-electoral autocracy-closed autocracies). Thus somethings started to happen around 2010 that seems to make matters worse. Many of the mechanisms are therefore not unique to the US, though there is a relationship between neoliberalism and authoritarianism. The interesting bit is that most folks might think that neoliberalism with all its emphasis on free-market and individual liberty and focusing on economic growth should in fact be more associated with ideas of freedom. Yet in reality, the opposite happened. Essentially, and perhaps paradoxically, neoliberalism with all its demands for austerity and deregulation, ultimately sees the state as a means to re-shape society along market-driven lines. However, this leads to fracturing of social cohesion (a source of "crisis" in the Marxist lingo) which required at the same time authoritarian tendencies to maintain the cohesion. In Europe, this is often happening by drawing ethnic lines (see Hungary), for example. A similar tactic is used by the GOP in the US, to blame immigrants (the use of illegal is really optional) and so on. One of crises was 2007 and the fallout was investigated rather thoroughly through that lens: https://doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2013.843250 https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788112659.00013 Also: https://ourworldindata.org/less-democratic

One thing to consider is what is to be considered fit for office. Clearly, Biden is not in the shape he once was and cognitively there are folks that are better. On the other hand, his opponent is clearly not fit for office. Not only from an ideological standpoint, but he also screwed up one of biggest global challenges of recent times (COVID-19) resulting in way more deaths than necessary. So if that passes the bar for fitness, clearly Biden does too. Provided that the president puts the right people into place, they might as well nap through the presidency. I don't think the bar is actually lower than that. But I think the actual question the Dems have is whether Biden is able to beat Trump. And as others already noted, this is quite a bit more difficult to figure out.

Or not soon enough, depending on perspective.

I think this is the danger of a word that seems to be clear what in what it means, but actually isn't. It is not necessarily related to something that might or might not be popular. Rather it is the overarching anti-elite messaging (as if he wasn't rich and part of the elite himself). The populism part is really that he claims to represent the unheard masses and to rise up against... someone. Probably common sense, for the most part. The platform itself does not need to be popular in the broadest sense (though obviously, it has to resonate with someone). But it is not same as just supporting things that the majority of people want (e.g. common sense gun laws, abortion rights, higher salary for teachers etc.). And again, the misunderstanding is understandable, but just not what the term more commonly refers to (exception for a fairly narrow time in the long past). Populism tends to come out of the tool box in times of crisis, as an important factor is not stating things that are popular, but rather promising to fix things that are not. It was less about being for something, but rather against. And these promises are usually vacuous. Populists/demagogues were fueled in Europe due to the immigrant crisis. What these group did was to whip up fears (and data be damned) and promised to take care of it somehow. Including deporting folks who did not look like them.

No, it has nothing to do with Trump. The idea of calling groups populists predates that for a very long time. And the common part is that folks were railing against an elite. Specifically, if they use prejudice and fear to make their point. Also, the repetition that populism just means the will of people is just not true, even if you repeat it once more. Especially in the past (around 19th century) there have been populist movements that were associated with development of democracy (largely, because ideas related to democracy were evolving), but that has not been true at least since the 20th century (where different forms of populism across the political spectrum were associated with the creation/strengthening of authoritarian structures and heck, in a way that might have been what people wanted, but it clearly did not further democracy). From Wiki: Margaret Canovan, 1981[8] As noted, populists was never a well-defined term, but using the simplest definition of anti-elite one could claim that two examples of populism are: - demanding tax increase on the ultra-wealthy to finance social programs and - calling for deportation of citizens with immigration backgrounds to combat crime. However, at least theoretically the former could (doesn't mean that they do) provide economic calculations showing how that might work. Conversely, the second example is based on prejudice and fear-mongering because it is not based on actual data/research and also would have issues of legality. As such, the latter could be considered demagoguery.