Most of the comments in this thread show exactly why Europe needs to get away from the US as far as possible, even if they do vote differently next time. Everything is set up to be polarizing, nothing has more than two options... democrat/republican, left/right, good/bad, winner/loosers, popular/unpopular, smart/dumb, ingroup/outgroup... and once you're pigeon-holed you can't ever be rehabilitated, because the other side won't let you. Come to think of it, that seems like a side-effect of internalized consumerism, "Broken? No need fixing, just get a new one!". Combined with American individualism, staging and making a huge fuss about themselves, plus the lefty urge to feel intellectually and/or morally superior (while chanting slogans against hierarchies and classism LOL) they will never be able to reconcile and just swing back and forth between political extremes ad infinitum. That country is a lost cause for at least my lifetime, we need to find allies that can deal with grey areas and know how to fix things, including relationships.

Labour sits below 20% in the polls, Reform UK above 25%. So who cares what Labour wants, the country clearly still has a problem with gullible idiots listening to whatever Farage is spouting, arguably more so than before Brexit where UKIP was around 15%. EU should not waste time with a "Breturn" right now and instead find ways to reform so that traitors like Orban can't block everything and to get Ukraine in ASAP.

Germany had conscription until 2011, men turning 18 were required to be mustered until then, and, if qualified, had to go through a basic military training for a couple of months. Even when qualified for military service, you could pick an alternative in lieu of military service, which was some kind of social service, like helping in an old people's home or hospital, amongst other things.

The law for conscription in Germany is also dormant, not abolished, so it could be re-activated any time... and I for one would welcome it being reinstated, for all genders. Working with people and doing something that is important for society at that age was a grounding experience that me and my fellow Xennials wouldn't want to have missed, even though we were not too keen on the whole thing back when we were 18. There was a palpable delta in maturity between those that went through military or social service and those who went to study right away, especially in those that studied go into some bullshit job, like business administration.

I would only agree to the law being re-activated if there was a compulsory civil service for people after being retired as well though. People become lonely and egotistical when they get old, and I believe that getting people to contribute to society for a year or so (not full-time) after they have focused on themselves and their careers for decades is urgently needed. Might cure the electoral behavior a bit as well (old people tend to lean more to the right).

What on earth makes you believe that "enough British idiots noticed" they were lied to? Reform UK is at 26% in polls, was at 30% not long ago... that's double what UKIP ever had before Brexit. Idiocy doesn't just disappear, even the most naive should have realized that after Trump's return.

No country in Europe has the idiotic power concentration that the US has... maybe Hungary has/had it but Orban was kicked out and the new government has an absolute majority to roll things back and make them more. We'll see how that goes, but the start looks promising. All countries in Europe have more than (de facto) two parties and many form coalitions... within the EU they are all somewhat dependent on other countries even. Most people and parties here still have the skill to make compromises. Also on average people here are more sceptical of shit that is spun around on "social" media and there's a mostly functional press landscape with far fewer billionaires involved than in the US. No offense, but what you claim sounds like you have zero clue about Europe... I guess I know which side of the pond you're from.

Yes here we are... still whining and misdiagnosing the root causes, and playing the "people who lived on the same continent of where you are now ages ago did bad things so you inherited guilt and must always be wrong". Exactly the divisive playbook that will not get anyone anywhere good. This is getting dull, have a good one and greetings from the country side (admittedly not the very poor and left-behind kind).

Well you can take the American out of the US, but you can't... never mind.

I would ask in what way I claimed I was "holier than thou", but frankly I don't care. I would also ask what media you consume, because it's clearly not giving you a differentiated picture. But you and your friends sound like the whiny, defeatist lefties (probably pretty young too), that are exactly why things sound like they are getting worse, leading to cozy self-imposed surrender, so again I don't care. Luckily I am seeing a growing number of people and organizations that are analyzing mistakes and creating ideas for the future and acting on them, which is why I am positive that Europe will not look like that failed state across the Atlantic in 5 years at all... I never claimed that we can never slide back into facism and I don't claim it will be a linear path, but as long as there's enough people doing effective shit against facism, which includes getting people out of those bubbles and welcoming them when they made it out, maybe even analyze how they got dragged into the right-wing narrative in the first place and getting active against those root causes as well, I'm hopeful. The doom-scrolling whiners that run away as soon as things get a bit uncomfortable won't help, but I don't see those being the majority.

Edit: Yeah, yeah, everything is white supremacy in the end... leftist folks have been sounding like broken records for years, having nothing to offer except pearl-clutching and online-outrage. That won't improve things, hasn't worked so far, won't work going forward.