Quote:
Originally Posted by Elephant Walk
The major parties (that get over 20% of the vote) are not right wing. However, parties like the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands in Germany, Le Pen's party in France (can't think of the name off the top of my head), Freedom Party in Austria, are extremelyy right wing, but more in the "nationalist racist" way, then in the free-market "classically liberal" way. Even then the NPD usually doesn't get more than 5% of the vote. Le Pen who went in the runoff for the Presidency only got like 15%.
I worked with the Freie Demokratische Partei in Germany for several months which is the only major classically liberal party in Germany and it generally garners less than 15% of the vote (in certain areas, far less than that). Furthermore, in terms of "classical liberalism" the FDP is something more akin to Republicans than actual Free Marketers.
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The neofascists like Le Pen are indeed rather marginalized today, but that wasn't necessarily always the case in recent history. I just hesitate to say that the Front National is totally irrelevant... It is the third largest party. Even today, they poll significantly better in the first round elections than say the Communists, who used to be a more significant party in France. Although if you combined far left/revolutionary candidates I suppose it would be more than Le Pen or at least equal, but they're very disorganized obviously.
UMP is also more conservative (I think) than you're giving it credit for. It's Liberal-conservative/Gaullist. And Gaullism (I think) is a very conservative movement, although it doesn't always appear that way to Americans because Gaullism includes thumbing your nose at the US to some degree...
eh. I'll leave it there. I don't know enough about modern German politics to discuss it intelligently.