Donald Trump’s administration is planning to spend $4 million to bolster right-wing media in Europe, part of a package of at least $25 million for civil society groups working on conservative causes in the region, according to four people familiar with the funding.
The grants risk deepening tensions between the Trump administration and European governments, some of which have already accused Washington of interfering in their domestic politics.
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) says the funding is meant to strengthen transatlantic ties and promote free speech. It comes as European countries prepare for elections over the next couple of years, and as the Trump administration openly backs Europe’s populist right-wing and far-right parties.
I wouldn’t say a “fuckton.” Both are imperialists, it’s just that the US is the imperial hegemon while Europe is secondary to it. Both have consolidated finance capital and expropriate vast amounts of wealth created by the global south, and are dependent on this.
You’re talking about imperialism, which isnt synonymous with right wing; I was talking about domestic political orientation. Europe can participate in an imperial economic system while still being, on average, considerably further left than the US on welfare, labour rights, healthcare and regulation.
It may have moved right, and imo absolutely has, but that doesnt leave them at the same spot on the scale.
Imperialism as a stage in capitalist development is definitely right wing. Not only that, but fascist parties across Europe are rising. The fact that Europe uses imperialism to subsidize welfare while retaining capitalism, rather than pivoting to socialism, does not make them more “left.”
It feels like you’re confusing ‘more left’ with ‘left’. What makes Europe more left is the greater redistribution of wealth, stronger welfare states, universal healthcare, stronger unions and labour rights, larger public sectors and greater regulation of capital. You can argue those things don’t constitute socialism, but “left-wing” and “socialist” aren’t actually synonyms either.
Conversely, the US is further right through lower taxation and redistribution, a weaker welfare state, predominantly market-based healthcare, weaker unions and labour protections, less generous statutory benefits, greater reliance on private provision, and generally fewer constraints on capital. Again, none of that makes Europe socialist. It makes Europe relatively further left than the US on the conventional political spectrum.
I cannot consider rights that are explicitly built on the backs of the global south as “left.” Welfare under imperialist states is not the welfare created by a given society and redistributed, it’s built on the backs of the global south. Imperialist states aren’t regulating capital in the interest of their workers either, it’s done to protect capital. It’s also why safety nets are weakening across Europe, workers do not actually have power there.
Trying to argue that Europe is “more left” is more of a semantic argument. Both Europe and the US are built on imperialism and capitalism, and both are sliding further into fascism because of this.
We’re just talking about different things. You’re arguing about whether Europe qualifies as meaningfully left-wing under a Marxist framework; I’m only saying Europe is further left relative to the US. They’re not contradictory claims.
I’m saying trying to say Europe is “further left” is more semantics than anything.
I mean, yeah, it’s a relative comparison. Calling one country richer, more democratic or more authoritarian than another is “semantic” in the same sense. It doesn’t make those comparisons meaningless.
Semantics aren’t the same as making relative comparisons. I’m saying you have to kind of torture our understandings of what makes something more or less “left” to a degree that is more destructive to our understanding than constructive to say that Europe is “more left” than the US.