Josie in honor of today's episode can I play you my number one favorite joke about the modern

European far right?

Sure though I am kind of disturbed by the implication that you have multiple

favorite jokes about the European far right here go. It's from John Oliver's

HBO show. Did I hear that right? There was a surge of far right parties in

Europe. In terms of phrases you don't want to hear that is right up there with it's

malignant and we're losing cabin pressure. Okay now it's pretty good that's

pretty good. I'm assuming that joke is about the elections that were held all across Europe this week for the European Union Parliament,

and that ended with the far-right making, how do you say worrying gains? So this is the other reason I went into play that joke.

It's actually from 2014.

Oh!

The same thing happened then has happened this past week.

Elections throughout Europe for the EU Parliament, big wins for the far right, everybody's freaked out.

Right, and if memory serves, it also happened in 2019, so that is three EU elections in a row.

Which seems concerning.

It certainly does, but it also seems like kind of strange, right?

Because for a decade now we've been hearing that the far right is on the rise again in Europe.

Yes. And it's threatening the foundations of democracy in Europe.

And yet, with like a couple of exceptions, the far right is not anywhere near taking power in most of Europe.

And even in the EU Parliament, after the far right made gains again for the third election in the row,

those far right parties are expected to end up marginalized and powerless.

All true.

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