I know absolutely nothing about Romania beyond Dracula, Nadia Comǎneci and a coming of age movie that has maths in it. In particular, I know nothing about either Cǎlin Georgescu or Diana Iovanovici-Șoșoacă. I am quite willing to believe that Georgescu and Iovanovici-Șoșoacă are, as has been claimed, “far-right” and “ultra-nationalist” and “antisemitic” and “pro-Russian” and baby killers and that they smell of cabbage, that they are the most troublesome Romanians since Vlad the Impaler. Nonetheless, I am pretty sure that the stupidest, most counterproductive manner in which to combat right wing populism is to bar candidates and to annul election results simply because one does not like the candidates or the results.
It is annoying and deeply depressing to have censorious, anti-democratic sleazebags such as Thierry Breton and Ursula von der Leyen force one to be on the same side as all-round sleazebags such as Musk and Vance.
Such actions do drive people to the right-wing cause. Very counter productive and hypocritical.
It also gives the right credibility when they do the same and weakens counter arguments.
Guy Rundle says something similar about censorship on his substack.
Yes, and Taibbi. But it’s just the ratbags who care. It’s maddening.
The association with ratbags seems to further entrench that being anti-censorship or pro-free speech (at least in public discourse) is the same as advocating for being outright racist or whatever.
Yes. The more the self-righteous Guardians and ABCs and Murdochs leave it to the ratbags, the more these same assholes feel entitled to argue “It’s only the ratbags”. God, I hate them.
Now France…
I haven’t looked but it smells bad. Is it?
Any bets which country is next?
Bet it will still be from EU…
My understanding is that the court decision is based on the allegations rather than the establishment of Russian interference. This is analogous to cancelling the election of Biden in 2020 on allegations of election irregularities. Courts are supposed to operate on the basis of evidence. Of course, people shocked at the rightwing success are going to claim irregularities, even if on the charitable presumption that their fellow citizens would not be so stupid as to vote for them.
I think that the proper process would be to allow the elections to proceed, but to set up some sort of enquiry afterwards. if the enquiry find no interference, then that enhances the decision of the court. If it does, then allow the politics to work its way out; the government may be forced to resign in the face of public outrage. Not a certainly perhaps, but sometimes you have to make a calculated risk.
They annulled the result of an election because of some fucking Tik-Tok videos. Does anybody want to apply that standard of interference to Murdoch, in every election ever?
Perhaps it’s time for the left-dominated media and academia to stop referring to everyone who holds an opinion on an issue which puts them to the right of Henry Rogers as “fascist” and “deplorable”?
Think abortion should be legal but rare? MYSOGYNIST! Think that immigration is becoming unsustainable? FASCIST! Horrified by the British “grooming gang” story? ISLAMOPHOBE! Think that Israel has the right to defend itself against infanticidal, genocidal maniacs? IS-LAM-O-PHOOOOBE! Think that renewable energy isn’t living up to it’s promises and it would be better to go with nuclear? ENVIRONMENT HATING CONSPIRACY THEORIST! Think that the hysterical reaction to the CoViD was worse than the CoViD? SCIENCE DENIER! Feel that being welcomed to your own country before every sporting/musical/political event is at the same time insulting to non-indigenous Australians and patronizing to indigenous Australians? RACIST. I could go on (I really could).
Reasonable people with reasonable, relatively centric positions are not being listened to. What exactly are they (OK, we) supposed to do, exactly?
P.s. Before I get slammed for overreacting, I don’t think I’m being toooo hyperbolic here: consider the current political situation in Germany, Britain and France, in addition to Romania (not to mention academia)!
P.p.s. Love ya, Marty!
Thanks, Supp. The trouble with that is that the Right is, indeed, pretty damn deplorable. They’re just not the only deplorable people around. As for “fascist”, yeah it’s a cheap slur, but Trump and his thugs are being pretty damn authoritarian (and pretty damn nuts).