 Hello, hello, and welcome. I'm Meryl Kilili, we are DM 25, a radical political movement for Europe and this is our regular live coordinating call with subversive ideas you won't hear anywhere else. And today we're looking at the far right on the rise in Europe, anti-democratic, euroskeptic and xenophobic parties across the continent have made significant gains recently. Victor Orban in Hungary has just returned to power for the fourth time. In Spain, the far right Vox party has entered regional government now in Sweden. The Democrats parties polling at 20%, same with the Freedom Party in Austria, not to mention Italy with far right leaders like Matteo Salvini flying high along with Georgia Maloney who's currently polling even higher than Salvini. And it's not just about gaining power either. The far right has proved how it can successfully move the establishment's agenda closer to what it wants hardening policies and public discourse on issues like immigration and security. And the latest battleground for the far right is of course France where Macron is facing off against Le Pen in the second round of the French presidential elections. But this time Le Pen actually has a chance of winning. So instead of defeating the far right, Macron's establishment policies appeared to have fed it. In France, what should progressives do now? Reluctantly support Macron once again? What does the rise of nationalist, anti-immigrant and EU critical politicians across Europe tell us about our own failures and how we could fight back? Our panel, including our own Janis Farafakis will be giving their take on these issues and answering your questions. You out there, if you've got thoughts, ideas, comments, rants, concerns, anything about the far right, about the French elections or just ideas that you'd like to throw at us, then please do put them in the YouTube chat. If you're not watching this live, why not? But if you're not, then please put them in the comments section of YouTube and we can also answer them there. But for now, let's kick it off. Over to you Janis. Thank you, Maren. Good evening everyone. Good morning if you are in some other part of the world. France's general election, presidential election, I should say, is a wonderful opportunity to reassert the reasons why we created the M25. Because if you look at our manifesto, February 2016, it's all in there. What we are saying is that the authoritarian construction, cartel-like construction of the European Union, guaranteed that there would be an interplay between the authoritarianism of the establishment, which crushed the Greek government, the Irish government, the Spanish government, French politics, progressive politics, imposed austerity in Germany across Europe. There would be an interplay between this establishment on the one hand and a nativist, anti-European, populist, right-wing, xenophobic reaction to this establishment. It's clear in our manifesto. I want to recite the lines in order to give an incentive to those of you who've read it, but forgotten about it, to go back and revisit it, and to those who haven't read it, to actually read it, because now we even have a new version that is just voted in, I believe, or is about to be voted in. The developments after 2016 just confirmed that perspective. Very soon after that, we had Brexit in Britain, which pitched a nationalist, Brexiteer strand against the blairism or chameleonism of the extreme center. We had Trump in the United States with Bolsonaro. We had, in a sense, the European Union, it was like the incubator of this clash between one in D.M. 25, immediately spotted and described as these antagonists between a nationalist authoritarianism, that of Le Pen, that of Trump, that of the right-wing Brexiteers, versus an establishment authoritarianism that of Hillary Clinton, of Joe Biden today, of Angela Merkel, of Manuel Macron. Now, the point we were making was that the standard narrative of the financial times, of the times of Le Monde and so on, was completely wrong. The standard narrative, what it tried to convince us, is that there is a clash between Macron and Le Pen. It is that it is as simple as that. The forces of liberal rationality versus the forces of illiberal nativism. And that's it, there's a clash of civilizations, in a sense, that's the standard narrative. And Macron was hailed as the young man who would lead without leaning to the left or to the right would lead the struggle for liberal rationality against the liberal irrationality of Le Pen. Our position was very different. Our position was, if you remember, we were saying things like that Macron should have a little icon, a picture of Le Pen on his bedside table, and he should pray to her every night, because without her he would never be Prime Minister, President, which is true, right? He only got scored 20 something percent in the first round. And again, this year, it's only the fear of Le Pen's rise that allowed him to be Prime Minister or President. Similarly, Merkel, why was Merkel successful? She was successful because it was either her or the alternative for Deutschland in a sense. It was either this liberal establishment, her and Sigmar Gabriel, the SPD, the center, the radical center banding together versus the Urbans, the Le Pen's, the Georgia Mellon is the Salvini's of the world. But in reality, Macron needed Le Pen, and Le Pen needed Macron because without the toxic, authoritarian, austrian policies of the extreme center, there would be no discontent in the former left-wing areas around Paris, in Marseille, and so on, to feed the monster of the nationalist nativists like Le Pen. Now, many opponents of us, of the M25 critics of us, accused us of trying to keep an equal distance between Le Pen and Macron. We never did that. It was very clear, remember four years ago, in the second round, we came out after we had an internal referendum, an old member vote within the MN, we said, we need to do this, hold our nose and vote for Macron, because when a fascist competes against a member of the establishment, we vote for the member of the establishment in order to avoid a situation where the fascist takes full control of the instruments of the state. We're not equidistant, in other words. Okay, and there's no conspiracy theory in what we're saying. We're not saying that Le Pen and Macron are conspiring to play the good cop, bad cop. No, no, they hate each other. There's no doubt that there is a civilized and anthropological clash between them. I'm sure that every morsel of Macron, every cell in his body vibrates with disgust when he sees Le Pen and vice versa, but that's irrelevant. It's from mathematical models of populations, of predators and preys. We know that there is a dynamic between a prey population and a predator population, that as the predators get more successful and eat more of the prey, then that is good for the prey because many of the predators die of hunger. There aren't enough prey to feed them. So the predator population shrinks and that's good for the prey. But then again, as the prey population virgins, that's good for the remaining predators because there's more food for them. So there's a feedback effect that is functional to the maintenance of this frowny clash between the prey and the predators between the nationalist authoritarians and the establishment of authoritarians. In the case of Europe today, but more broadly of other places like Brazil, India and so on, this feedback effect, this permanent choreographed clash between the two forms of authoritarianism, nationalism and establishment authoritarianism. This clash, this orchestrated clash is functional to the interest of capital accumulation. At the time when capital accumulation promotes the rise of a new Uber ruling class, the one that Macron ultimately serves with the unwitting support of somebody like Marine Le Pen. Now I will now comment on Macron's narrative. Remember Macron came into government promising to transcend the left-right divide. And yet within weeks of being elected president, it was very clear that he was promoting a class war, of the rich against the poor. His tax policies were aimed at lessening the very low, already very low tax burden of the wealthy. His attempt, which he is now going to continue because he was not fully successful, possibly because of the Gilles Jaune, to increase the retirement age is a class war, typical class war attempt to jeopardize the living standards of the working class. Let me remind you that the richest amongst the French males have a life expectancy, which is 13 years higher than the poorest counterparts. So when you are increasing uniformly the retirement age, this is an element of class war. Then remember how he introduced the carbon tax, which sounds great. We don't want the carbon tax, but we, DM25, propose that the carbon tax is revenue neutral, that yes, you put a hefty tax on diesel, let's say, because diesel is catastrophic for the environment and for climate change, but every penny that is collected from everybody, poor rich middle class, is put into a jar in a kitty, and then it's given to the poorest. In other words, you introduce a redistributional element to the carbon tax. He didn't, he just slapped a diesel tax. The result was something akin to a revolution, the Gilles Jaune. Macron's neither left nor right narrative has come to haunt him, because the youngsters who now clearly voted for Mélenchon above Macron, and the ones who didn't vote for Mélenchon, voted for Le Pen, the youngsters, the precarious and increasingly the proletariat also do not think in terms of left or right, because the left has failed them. They have taken on the mantle of Macron, neither left nor right. What they do, however, things, not just Macron versus Le Pen, they differentiate between politicians representing, on the one hand, an oligarchic system, which is rigged to hold them back. That's the feudal capitalist system that we have, that Macron represents, okay? And those other politicians who claim to want to bring the system down. And for them, it's really, it's a thin red line between Mélenchon and Le Pen. They just look at them as disruptors, people that will bring down the system that is holding them back. Now, our capacity as DiEM25 was progressive to support Macron in the same way that we did 20 years ago. Remember, when, I mean, we didn't exist as DiEM25 20 years ago, but some of us are old enough to remember that we had Jacques Chirac, the very right-wing conservative candidate of the Republicans who in the second round competed against Le Pen's dad, Le Pen's father. And even Mélenchon back then came out and said, when you have Chirac versus a fascist, we vote for Chirac just like we did four years ago. But our capacity to support the non-fascist against the fascist is thinning. It is getting harder and harder to justify doing this. We'll still do it. We just voted on a two-to-one margin, I believe, to recommend to DiEM25 friends and members that if they have the vote in France, they should vote for Macron, like this again, in order to avoid the election of Le Pen. But it's getting harder and harder. And it's getting harder and harder because the argument that if Macron doesn't win, the races is going to win, this argument is being depleted, diminished by Macron. Let me remind those who knew it and forgot it and tell those who never knew it that on the 15th of March of 2021, right, almost a year ago, a little bit more than a year ago, I sent a certain gentleman by the name of Gerald Darmanin, the Interior Minister of the French government, Macron's Interior Minister, denounced Le Pen for being too soft on immigration. So Mr. Macron, you are making it hard for us to vote for you to keep the bastards out because you've turned out to be as great a bastard as any of the bastards of the Nationalists International. And I mean that word, Mr. Macron. And you know that I know you and I used to say good things about you because our interaction in 2015 was actually quite amicable and civilized. But now you have turned into a bastard because when your Interior Minister attacks Le Pen for being too soft on immigration, you have gone to the wrong side of the force mate, to the dark side of the force. Now we will still vote for you. We decided that on a two to one basis. And for one reason, not because we are not a bastard because our Arab friends living in France, our black friends living in France, our trans friends living in France, our others living in France will probably not be able to stomach the idea that Le Pen is going to be able to control the secret police and the police. Their lives will be in jeopardy. They will lose their sleep if you don't win, Mr. Macron. This is why we are going to hold our nose and vote for you or recommend to our friends who have a vote in France that they should allow me comments to conclude by making a point which is broader than France. Centerists have become toxic. A long time ago, of course, we remember Tony Blair persecuting a genocidal war in Iraq from the perspective of the extreme center. But if you think about it over the last, what, 15 years, they've been, I'll just give three examples and finish this way. Now, centrists always think of themselves as the custodians of liberal reasonableness. But look at what has happened in Europe since our banks went bankrupt after the 2008 great financial catastrophe. Bailouts were given to banks and to states that were the definition of irrationality. Socialism, for the very, very few, austerity for the many, the result was a dramatic change in the world. And that's why we are going to hold our hands because the result was a dramatic precipitous fall in investment. If we don't have green energy today and we rely on the gas from in Germany, in Austria and in Italy, it's because of that. These highly irrational, stupid bailouts of the banking sector were extreme in their combination of inefficiency and injustice. It's the extreme center that tried to present those irrational bailouts as the epitome of rationality. Look at the pandemic. Thank goodness we had the vaccines. But even with the vaccines being rolled out, we had the liberal establishment sacrificing every basic principle of liberalism for shrill irrational reasons. The vaccinations are different. That became, you know, like, you know, holy script even though we knew that the rate of transmission was almost independent of whether you were vaccinated or not in the end. The attempt to create the vilified other amongst those who were, you know, worried about being vaccinated. I mean, I am a gun who supported vaccination, but the manner in which the liberal establishment treated the vaccination skeptics, not the mad, flat earth, anti-vaccine crowd that saw it as an ideological imperative never to be vaccinated, not them, but the vast majority of those who didn't get vaccinated who were nothing more than just worried people. The way that they were demonized, that is neither liberal nor rational. Effectively, it enhanced their reluctance to be vaccinated. And finally, Ukraine. The way in which the extreme center today is demonizing truly rational moderate positions calling for a neutral Ukraine within the West like Austria was during the Cold War. The way we are being demonized, we're asking for that. The way that the extreme center is calling for permanent war for the Afghanistan solution, that is, you know, 10-year war in order to defeat Putin and change the regime in Moscow, for supersonic nuclear weapons to be developed as if that is a problem. I mean, what would we do with them? Use them in Kharkiv and Kiev. By the same people who are denying the Ukrainians even a no-fly zone. We have Macron today and the establishment authoritarians as the epitome of shrill toxic irrationality being pitted against the nationalist international who are constantly a clear and present danger for civilization. This is why Dm25 is today. We keep saying this, I keep saying this, more relevant than ever. Our weakness in France today is also a very good, if you want, introduction to the rest of the discussion which must be about why we are failing to turn our correct analysis into action on the ground. Thanks, Janis, for setting the scene. And yes, that is a very important question and I hope we can tackle that in this call. Let me read a couple of comments from people watching us. SWP says people need more articulation as to what's happening in the economy and in economics and politics. Without that articulation, the right wing is always going to spin its populism and conspiracy theories. Someone else says, wouldn't the election rather controversial idea here, wouldn't the election of a proto-fascist be the necessary push for the mobilization of the left more so than the party that is maintaining the status quo which is only fueling the rise of proto-fascists? And KKMate says, I feel like the central question is, is it easier to fight the establishment slash liberal capitalists or the fascists? Juliana Zeta from Germany. I found the button, otherwise you won't. I want to jump to the, I think, second question. The pro-fascist strategy. I think, and for me to be honest, five years ago, it was more difficult to cheer for Macron. I think now it's just a completely different time. I think if you vote for Le Pen now, whether you're coming from the ideology or you're just anti-establishment, people will use her as a wrecking ball. And I think this might be very effective this time. And this is but not what we want. Because if she were elected now as the president, we have the war in Ukraine. We have COVID still going. We have an ongoing big crisis that is hitting people very hard economically. All the prices are going up all the time. Everything is super expensive. And I think now she has a perfect stage to do very bold things, like exit the nature, for example, immediately, or partner with Putin, or, you know, it's very unpredictable what could happen. And I think this writ is not worth a try. I think we cannot, I mean, we won't win either way in this election. Because in terms of climate change, you can see that both candidates are horrible for us. Macron has already decided to build new nuclear plants. And the pen is completely also a foreign nuclear power. She's against everything else on top. So for our progressives, it's really affordable. And actually the outcome will mean that we have to put in more work anyways. If either one of them gets elected. Only I think that the pen could change the situation in Europe in a very drastic way, not for the better, for the worse, very quickly. And if I see now, for example, in Germany, we don't have a, you know, we have a very weird government in Germany right now, to be honest. They are a government that is, well, how can I say, it's painful to watch these days. They don't have a position on anything. So it's practically ducking down from every topic. There is a very arrogant communication toward the public, I feel. And yeah, that can inspire the rise of a new wave of IFD in Germany as well. Because the dissatisfaction of people is equally high in Europe. I mean, the elderly people are very poor in many countries. People don't have a future. So I think, you know, electing the fascist candidate with hopes that things will change for the better is a very, very dangerous game at this time. And I think it must be avoided. So this would be the first time. And I wasn't even, you know, so much pro-Biden in the last election in the US. But this is the first time that I'm clearly saying that we have no alternative. You know, you in France have no alternative. Then to elect Macron, to be honest. In any other case, I think we would see a domino effect in Europe, starting with also Germany with the rise of real fashion. Because now I feel that many people who elect fascists are not necessarily from the ideology, but they are just voting out of frustration, which is also, I think, good news for us. Because we can pick up from there and find ways to communicate at a solution for all those crucial topics and to reach those people and get them back from the fascist party. And get them back also from the neoliberal and so-called centrists. So I think this is a big topic everywhere in Europe and especially for us in Germany. So it's important what happens in France, I think, on Sunday. Can I ask you one question on that, Juliana? I mean, where is it that progressives have failed to persuade to address those needs? What other things that progressives are not saying or doing that they ought to be doing in order to have a fair more balance with these far-right parties that are doing so well and clearly articulating what people are wanting to hear? Well, one thing is, I think a lot of the left parties were very introverted, like looking on the inside. And also, you know, the left and progressives had a lot of meta discussions within the last year, not being very radical in their approach. You know, also, you know, building up boundaries to other groups. Like Yamase said before with vaccines, you know, you're an anti-vaxxer, you're not talking to anyone. You know, maybe you're not agreeing on one topic, but it's really crucial that we agree amongst each other on the crucial topics which, you know, are about how do we live together. So we are really bad, I think, in the progressive side to have an open communication and to really put the finger on those topics which are very urgent for people. I think the urgency is what we sometimes don't see in people's lives. People need to pay their bills now. And if we go in with meta discussions about any other thing, they won't listen to us. And so populist women, very easy if they just, you know, prioritize and say, yeah, we are talking to poor working class that's working very well for us. And on the other side, the working class, I think, would like a left, a strong left party and also saying that here for Germany. I mean, we have now met at 25 in Germany, lucky for Germany. But, you know, what has happened to the link in Germany is still devastating. Thank you, Juliana. Gabrielle Frafin from France. Thank you. Yeah. I want to try to answer this question as well. The question that you asked, Juliana, what are progressives are not doing rights? Why is the far right rising and not us? And the way I see it, especially in France is that the left is coming from years of talks, years of promises that are never followed through. We shouldn't forget that only five years ago, supposedly the left was in power in France, right? And I think people are just tired of listening to these promises that are never followed through. And what we're really missing as radical leftist is building already prefigurative politics. So already building resistance and already building the alternative in the cracks of the system right now to show, not just to talk, to show what we mean to people. Because I think people don't believe us anymore. And rightly so, to be honest. And they want to see what we mean, what alternative we mean. And that's really, I mean, I guess that's also self-criticism. That's really what I want to see with movements like DM. It's already building the alternative. We can't wait anymore. And I mean, the environment was just mentioned. We can't wait anymore. So let's build the resistance and the cracks, build the alternative in the cracks of the systems because they already exist. And so that's really what I'm seeing that is missing from our side and from the radical left. Maybe as an example of something of what I mean is in the Canary Islands that they were having a big and still are, I think, having a bit housing crisis. And a group of anarchists that was, you know, I mean, not popular within the workers there. They showed them, they squatted buildings, they built a tenant union and help the people, the workers that were not politicized that were completely against politics and completely in complete apathy. They helped them get a house as simple as that, right? Like people need a house. Let's give them a house. People need health care. Let's build our own, like our resistance networks to run health care. And really it worked and the movement now is really massive in the Canary Islands out of out of nowhere. They just grew this anarchist federation and, you know, gave people what they needed and put practice and I think also Janis mentioned this like completely failed in practice. And that's what we need. Like people don't need ideologies anymore. People don't need another strand of Marxism. People need actual material conditions to get better. So that would be my two cents on what's happening right now. Thank you. Thank you, Gabrielle. Good point. Since we need to build these resistance and these alternatives, we're straight after this intense election period we're having for the Paris region members on Monday at 7pm on the 25th of April. We're having a meeting to brainstorm about how we can build this resistance. And that will be the first meeting for other meetings for all around France to rebuild these local collectives and be there against hopefully Macron. Yeah, straight away. Thank you. Thank you, Gabrielle. Absolutely. And a good point there on actually building the alternative as opposed to just pushing for it. So if you'd like to be part of that and you're in France, please join dm25 dm25.org slash join is the address. And you'll need to get information about that meeting that you could, you could attend. Dushan, you had a quick response you wanted to make to Gabrielle go for it. Thanks, Gabrielle for for inspiration and thanks. And I just wanted to add that I think, yes, that is the crucial thing that extreme right place on the emotions while left place on the logic and emotions are much more powerful powerful than logic and unfortunately they are doing it good. I mean, they are funneling the anger towards immigrants, LGBTQ plus people woman and so immigrants and so on and so on, while they are not really the ones to be targeted. And we need to funnel that anger, sadness, despair towards the 1% towards the people that are actually responsible for the conditions regular people are living in and not also that not just to touch upon negative emotions but also to talk about alternatives to present them in practice to present them in doing in animations in whatever possible tools we can make in order to present to people what the alternative looks like, not just critique of this current system and not just statistics and analysis but to present post capitalism or anarcho syndicalism or anarcho corporatism or whatever with any tools that we have available. And let me just say to our comrades in France that right came to power in Montenegro right after the establishment was ruling for 30 years, and all of the deals between, well, establishment between corporate corporations and polluters didn't fall through they continued. So the nationalist was doing the same, except they also added additional layer of xenophobia of nationalism of extreme religious affinity and similar stuff. So none of these exploitations are going to stop. They are just going to have another layers of hatred. So, unfortunately, pick your nose. I mean, put the hand on your nose and vote for Macron. Yes, hold your nose as opposed to pick yours but I know you mean yes thank you. And a quick comment on that. That's something that the left in terms of like building alternatives. There's a lot of movement activity does building those alternatives but there's a PR component to that of actually showing people, look, this is what we're doing we're doing this to lead by example, and you can do the same. There's a lot of PR around it that I think I don't see very often from progressives and from the left. They just go out and build the alternative because there's an urgent need whether it's saving refugees or creating housing or things like that. So, I think that's a point which is another shortfall from progressives. Julia, Julia Moore UK from the UK but based in France. Indeed. Thank you, Miran. Thank you. Yeah, so following on from from colleagues with a different type of analysis as Miran said I'm a I'm an expert living in south of France from the UK for people who are watching this who are not familiar with the mainland history France and the UK historically medieval times have been almost part of the same country the kings and queens we shared a common court. And there are some very interesting historical parallels that are coming out in our sort of modern experience here and I'll return to Brexit just just just as I finished but just to give a flavor here for people who may not sort of have an angle of the geography. So, France comparative to the UK same rough same population around about 60 million five times the geographical landmass, which is now divided into 18 administrative departments, five of which are offshore, La Martinique, etc. So, as our colleagues this evening been saying, the political history of the diverse groups which fall away in elections and become where we are the different the choice that we have of the right. And the centrist the toxic centrist of Macron does not bear out the observation if one is lucky enough to travel around France and move in and out of rural communities suburban communities and the metropolitan communities. As Miran has just said, there is a beehive of community activity when people are very clear when there's a need and I'm not just talking about the current Ukraine system and I've been very proud I'm in a very right wing part of the coat desire. And compared to contrasting to the UK, the speed with which Ukrainian families have been welcomed, children have been integrated into school with full interpretation, translating assistance, roots into employment, bearing in mind language issues, the provision of French and English. Almost instantly free beauty treatments, free hairdressing and accommodations, as Juliana was saying in other respects, very proud. And this is in a right wing area, which doesn't sit comfortably with the racist that we're seeing that came out for example that was used as a mechanism in in the UK's Brexit. So there's an interesting paradox there. And I think what what Miran pulled together just now and I just want to say is that if we can, as the progressive, the leader of progressive narrative, if we can somehow capture that, clearly the 12 million blank votes of the last election, remember our colleague Shresko Horvath last time we were talking four years ago with this has said 12 million people. That is one hell of a new potential political party that we have still yet to capitalize on but we have better mechanisms now and we're getting better. And I think we can do this as far as France concerned, because there's a will to activism out there. Gilles Jaune is a fantastic modern example, but just the everyday people who go out see a need provide is providing a mobile cinema up in a rural environment that I go to quite frequently where there's no hope and less volunteers have got together to organize the showing of popular films, etc. Because that wouldn't be provided as the entire network of people providing need as Juliana has just identified. Now we have got mechanisms now we've got our voting systems we've got our policy processes we've got our campaign offers. And if we can somehow knit that natural cause to activism of these people and there may be more after Sunday when we finally know what the statistics are voting. Those people have energy and it needs to go somewhere and we the progressive left can find that simple narrative and drag that narrative away from the simple and toxic message of the right from an opinion from an expert living in France. Thanks, Miran. That's it from me. Thank you, Julia. Well said, Lucas from Brazil. Thank you, Miran. Yeah, I wanted to go back quickly to the to the question that someone asked in the in the chats that you liana already answered answer to it at length, but I just to offer the perspective. You know, coming from a country that unfortunately has had to say Bolsonaro as its as its president for the for the past few years, what it looks like when an actual proto fascists is in power in your country. So, first of all, in terms of how does that change the political landscape. What we have seen in Brazil is now, you know, Lula who had been imprisoned has been freed. So thankfully, and she will be running in the elections later this year. And she's going to be the main opponent of Bolsonaro. But what we're seeing is a broad alliance being created between the left or the center left, or even like sectors that used to be pretty hard left a few years ago, with the establishment and with the center right. And you just have to look at Lula, for example, who is, you know, obviously he was present for two terms he is a politician of the establishment in some way. But he's going to share his ticket now with Gerald Walkman, who is the former governor of some Apollo from the right, who Lula beat in fact in 2006 to win his second term. And we're seeing that across the political landscape politicians sort of flocking to alliances with the establishment under the pretense that we need to be united to to beat Bolsonaro now. I'm very skeptical that this is a good thing in the end. I'm obviously I'm completely for Bolsonaro being thoroughly beaten by, as it's probably going to be Lula. But, you know, Lula doesn't need to force those alliances to beat Bolsonaro. Lula is an electro phenomenon, almost without equal in the in the world. So, it's ironic also because the coup that happened in Brazil in 2016 was supported by those people who the left are now forging alliances with in order to beat Bolsonaro. And I think this feedback loop that we're talking about that the young is mentioned in the in the opening, it works both ways when the fascist are in power. Unfortunately, is still keeps on going. And then in terms of what has actually happened. Speaking of the actions that Bolsonaro actually took when he was in power. Well, you know, has he been an enemy of workers. Yes, absolutely. But so has been the establishment, you know, historically. The right has, you know, especially in the 90s has done nothing but hard to workers as well. Has it been a disaster for minorities? Yes, absolutely. You know, there's still widespread racism in Brazil, the police is massacring black people in the in the favelas and in the slums, which again already happened before it already just happens more, more openly than the numbers have have gone up a bit. And the acceleration is racist, you know, like, I don't know. I don't think that's a controversial thing to say, look at the UK, for example, they want to ship asylum seekers to Ronda now, like their sex of potatoes. And, you know, the social democrats the social democrats in Denmark want to want to do the same and I think it's a great idea. But in those senses, it's just neoliberalism, but supercharged, you know, but I think where it changes a bit is what if something unexpected comes up. And while those people are in power. Imagine for a second, for example, that a virus, a deadly virus gets on the loose somewhere in the world and then starts going around the planet. And, you know, the establishment, you know, with all these defects might have handled the situation a little bit better. Well, when you have Bolsonaro, you have over half a million deaths in the country. So I think because of those contingencies, we should still, you know, be supporting the establishment when the choice is binary, as it unfortunately often is between fascists and the establishment as we have in France now. And then lastly, just to keep this a little bit more productive, hopefully, I wanted to talk about what is it that we can do. Well, in terms of what we can actually do in terms of actions, I think Gabrielle already and Duchenne talked about it wonderfully. I wanted to just very briefly talk about how we can speak and project ourselves and if there's anything that we might learn from those people with anything at all. I actually do think, and this might be controversial, but I think there's a lot that we can learn from the far right in that sense because, you know, there's nothing that we can learn ideologically from them, but in terms of communications, it's been working for them. So if there's anything that we can take for them, we should. And I think what they do that the left doesn't do enough, in my opinion, is they're approachable, they're personable. They have terrible ideas, you know, horrific ideas, but because they come across as regular people, they, they're able to sell those to people who, you know, in the past in Brazil, for example, used to support Lula, because again, Lula is a personable person. He's similar to Bolsonaro in that sense. I think there's a lesson here that, you know, has been learned in Europe by people like Salvini, for example, and in the US by people like Trump, who should be the least personal person in the world because you know he's a billionaire who is completely out of touch with how regular people live. But he's been able to surpass that just based on the way that he acts and the way that he talks, not on the things that he does. If there is any lesson that we can take here for ourselves, I think that would be it's that we should be approachable, we should be personable, we shouldn't be afraid of using humor here and there to get our points across. And then hopefully we can still at least a little bit of the, of the territory that we've lost to the, to the right in the past few decades. Thank you, Lucas, for detailing the experiences in your country. And also for that important point about what can progressives learn from the far right in terms of tactics, not in terms of ideology. So if you've got ideas on this out there, please put them in the chat as well. And of course, the panel here if you've got specific suggestions on this front and please put them in. Judith Meier from Germany. I would like to have a moment of silence for the Polster profession. Because in this situation where you have, as Lucas and also Janne said, a feedback loop between two people. And these two people are also the only choice, a binary choice between these two people. You cannot have accurate polls. We saw this with Brexit, we saw this with Trump. The polls thought that Hillary would win by four or 5% same for Brexit. No, for Brexit, the poll before the before the Brexit referendum actually predicted 10% in favor of remain. I mean, 10% more 55 to 45. It's not possible to accurately predict and stay right about it. If you have a binary choice which also affects each other. Because the only reason people vote for the establishment option is because they want to prevent the other option. And the only reason people vote for the other option is because they want to prevent the establishment. So as soon as you release a poll that says Trump is going to win, immediately Hillary gets more votes. As soon as you say Brexit is going to win, immediately more people are going to show up to vote against Brexit. So whatever you predict it will be wrong. And the same goes for the other prediction. And this is because people are not voting for something they want. They only vote against something that they don't want. We need to get back to voting for what we really want, but obviously it's not possible when there's only a binary option. So the pollster profession is dead. We don't know what will happen. And that means that as progressives, we should assume the worst option and we should behave in such a way that we would still be happy if the worst came to pass. So for this election in France, let's say we assume that Le Pen is going to win. What do we want to have done ahead of that? For Europe, for America, you know, a lot of people back in, say, 2018 or so, they were saying there's no way that people will reelect Trump. Okay, let's assume that he's going to win the next presidential election. Let's assume he's going to win the next midterms. Let's prepare. Let's do what we feel we need to do in this kind of situation because there's no other way. We're not going to get accurate information from the polls. And the only thing that we can do is to live in such a way that we won't regret. Thank you. You did. And it's so true. Even since the Scottish referendum before Brexit, the polls have been way off. The system just isn't built to handle disrupters and almost promotes the idea of spectating and just hoping that the far right candidate or the far right position isn't going to win. And that's not what progressors should be doing. They're sitting and watching. We should be getting in there. If you want to get in there and organize and confront this problem, dm25.org slash join is one important action that you can take. It'll take you a few seconds and you can join the fight with us. Who's next? Eric Edmund based in Brussels. Half Greek, half Swedish. That's right. Thanks. Hi, everybody. You did is totally spot on. And if you noticed the first poll that came out that gave a Macron something like a 10 point head over the pen. The first thing Macron did was to come out and say that nothing's decided everything's uncertain and so on exactly to prevent people from not turning out to vote because they think it's pre decided. That is the biggest sort of enemy of Macron's campaign right now the sense of nobody's going to be crazy enough to vote for the authoritarians when the alternative is Macron, even if they don't like him, which is, you know, the same kind of narrative that you had with Brexit, for example, you know, who on earth would ever vote for Brexit. A lot of people, I remember the first few weeks and months after Brexit were coming out saying I can't believe I didn't go to vote. Because they thought it was a pre decided. So this, this is completely true. However, I wanted to speak to something else that's been sort of already touched upon. First of all, a binary narrative only benefits the two sides of that binary. So in this case, the extreme center Macron, and the far right, the pen. And the more the threat of one or the other is being highlighted and extenuated, the more one of those two sides wins. And unfortunately, I think the left has been working its narrative a lot around the people it opposes. And unfortunately, it is never seen as the main opposition to any of those enemies. The more we talk about how terrifying Le Pen is, the more we are empowering Macron. And the more we're talking about Macron, the more we're empowering Le Pen. And nobody's considering us as an alternative to either because we're not seen as a likely candidate to win. So I think one of the big mistakes that the letter has been making is to talk a lot about the people we oppose and not so much about our own narrative, our own goals. But we are trying to achieve instead of what is already in place to make ourselves more credible and to establish ourselves more as political actors. I think that's point number one on top of a myriad of other issues, including, you know, how divided we are and so on and so forth. However, with this in mind here, I would like to speak a bit or to push back a little bit to what Gabriel and the induction were saying about grassroots. And that, you know, people don't need another strand of Marxism. And I agree in terms of the narrative, people don't want to hear about another strand of Marxism. And that's the last thing we should be talking about in the same way that we shouldn't be talking about another strand of anarcho-communist syndicalism or whatever. It's not the theory that is important. It's not necessarily the policies what Luke has been saying about how you present yourself, how you formulate and reframe what it is you stand for. However, this idea of giving up the mainstream political game and focusing only at the local level and creating those alternatives within a system that is ranked against those alternatives is giving up the bigger game, I think. And I think that's problematic because that is essentially what the left has systemically been doing for the past few decades as it sees its chances of mainstream political victories crumble. So we are retreating away from the real fight and we are adapting to a hostile environment and how we can make the most of it rather than overcoming it. So although I agree that we as DM especially, we should be better established at the local level. We should be working a lot on grassroots actions, developing all those things. It's important to also maintain a narrative and a bigger framework for a more systemic change. Because if we don't do that, we are essentially giving up that game so that the next time we have elections, we again need to have an old member vote about whether we're going to abstain or have Macron for another four years. And that can't be the case anymore. You know, the left needs to pick up itself confidence and reenter that discussion as a, not somebody who is scraping by to get into the second round, but as the left of the past, the left that was one of the two main candidates to win the presidency, and not to sort of normalize this kind of loser ideology and giving up that part of the of the political arena. Thank you, Eric. Good points all. A couple of comments from the chat now zap Zen this with the proposals that what can progressives learn from the far right in terms of tactics was the question zap Zen says fight them with the language of millennials memes. Yes, that Brazilian guy Lucas Fabraro is the master of this and very happy that he's on board Winston Fetness says progressive should learn how to be populist populism shouldn't be a dirty word because it doesn't have to be a precursor of fascism it can be a force for reform. And a prey coup says what what progressives can learn from progressives like Bernie is a better question dm 25. Well, we have fortunately very good links with Bernie Sanders via our sister organization the Progressive International but take your point there also any other comments from people here perhaps, perhaps a mere key a policy coordinator would like to offer some reflections on on policy. Thank you, Aaron. Well, this is when we look at the green ideal for Europe, which is a flagship policy of the movement. It actually begins with the establishing of the, from a gross response to view the thousands upon thousands of local assemblies and spaces of discussion and pressure points to to to bring down pressure on existing current forces that that we have in terms of the local governments if you like or national level, and so on. So we actually are beginning in our policy terms from the gross was pushing upwards and talking about allowing the local population and local regional framework and so forth, imagining that where people are coming together and deciding about the utilities about how the re nationalized water or housing, or whether public transport in public infrastructure should be handled and what decisions should be made. In the Netherlands, for example, in the recent national elections, the, the baby they came to power, already promising the creation of a few nuclear power plants, that's only going to benefit the oligarchy as we know, whereas in the most recent elections locally. Some of you might know that meta Facebook wanted to establish a data center here and of course the people rose up to that. And they through the local elections, voted in a local party that effectively canceled the whole meta Facebook project so it's possible so whether we're organizing locally regionally or nationally. We've actually laid the plans out already in agreement for your program. We have the people's gathering process where members can get can join in and invite long time 25 members to take part in discuss solutions to their problems. So we will have it laid out. So please join us and let's make this happen. Thank you. Amir, we're reaching the top of the hour. Yanis, can I bring you back in for a few closing words. Very few, very few. I agree entirely that we need to learn lessons from right wing populists. The fundamental lesson we have to learn is that being on the margins does not excuse us for not winning. Donald Trump won against the whole panoply of the media system in the United States with far less money than Hillary Clinton. Similarly, the Brexiteers, they had less money. They had fewer institutional backers than the Remainers. I'm very sad that those people won. But our lesson is that there are no excuses for losing. The fact that, you know, let's face it, we of the left have always tried to find excuses in our exclusion from the media, from the circles of money, of finance. All these are handicaps, but the extreme right has shown that they can be overcome. We showed that increase in 2015, even briefly for five months. So no excuses made. You know, we have to, comrades, we've got to put our money and little money where our mouth is, our big mouth is, and win. So that's lesson number one. Lesson number two, I will go against the grain of something that was said in the chat and which Maren approvingly conveyed. No, there is no such thing as less populism. We must never confuse populism with being popular. We need to be popular. Of course, it depends on how you define populism. But my definition of populism is to promise everybody, whatever it is that they want to hear, to be all things to all people. That is right wing. That is disrespectful of the electorate. We need to look at people in the eye and say to them, okay, this is what we want to do. These are the large costs that we're going to have to suffer in order to do it. But this is also why it's an excellent investment for the future, because that's what the definition of investment is. You suffer a cost today, you forfeit some satisfaction or something which is comfortable, some comforts today in order to achieve a larger price for the future. In that sense, we're not populist and we never will be. We do not stroke the ears and lull people into a false sense that everything is going to be fine. No, the struggle is going to be difficult. There are costs involved in a rebellion against the system. The system is going to bite the heads off or the heads of many of us off. But it's worth it. It's worth it because, you know, a life of stagnation and permanent subservience while the planet is burning is all worth it. So let's win. Thank you, Ennis. Okay. Well, that concludes our session for today. A couple of little housekeeping issues. If you're a DM25 member, this week we're, well, it's the culmination of a long process of reworking from the ground up. The ground up our founding documents are our manifesto and our operating principles. And of course, this is DM25 members decide the big decisions in this organization and you should please vote if you haven't yet the deadline for voting. I think it's April 24. Right, Judith. Yep, April 24. So we've got four, you've got four days left to vote on whether to approve the crowd sourced crowd edited version that's being put towards you of the operating principles and the manifesto. Another thing, got a new show coming up which I'll be hosting which is frontline interviews with people who are confronting power to learn about how they do it. The first one will be dropping in the next couple of days. And of course, you if you would like to join the M25 you'd like to be active with the M25 or just donate to the M25 and help us put that little money to good use that Yanis just referred to, then please do the address is DM25.org slash join. As mentioned before, it will only take you a couple of seconds, and you can be part of it, taking it to the establishment and fending off the far right. Thank you again for watching. See you at the same time. Same place two weeks from now, it will be on a Tuesday though not a Wednesday so not exactly the same time. This time was one day late so not next Tuesday, the following Tuesday. Okay, thank you. Take care and stay safe.