Well, I can't really argue because it seems to me it would be a full time job trying to understand the morass of EU politics. I don't really even know what the scope of European Parliament powers are. To be honest the whole notion of yet another group of politicians having power over me would be worrying. If anyone ever floated the notion of a North American Parliament (one that would include all the central American banana republics) I would be out on the streets in protest. Last thing I would need is those dysfunctional states influencing my life.
However, nothing you have said has really convinced me.
If you feel what is happening is the falling apart of centrism, I would ask why? What has changed that is causing people to become more bipartisan and drift left vs right? Something must be bothering people. If you can answer, I would be able to assess whether the unpopular policies are left, right, or center.
PS> I suspect immigration has a lot to do with it, and I consider open borders a far left policy. Center parties should be firm on the rule of law and controlled, legal immigration. If they have dropped the ball, they deserve to lose voter support.
You are right, understanding European politics is kinda the full time job. However I will try to put it into reasonable amount of text.
The causes of political shifts in Europe are fairly simple in the end. Through globalism and individualism the population and education ratios of Europe become sort of messed up. In other words many things were build and organized on the premise that globalization will go on forever. However as you know things basically snapped pretty hard over the last few years. In other words the situation has come to the point that maintaining the current socio-economic model requires importing plenty of cheap labor from global south. In the melting pot like the US this can perhaps work to some degree. However in Europe this is much harder to pass. I mean just outside of my city there are villages were you can find people that never saw a black person or Asian in person. Therefore pushing multi-culturalim on such people simply doesn't work. Legal or illegal immigration doesn't make that much of differnece to the average Joe. The cultural jump required to digest all of that is just too big in too much places. Not to mention that in my part of Europe we have public festivals that celebrate stopping of Muslim expansion into Europe centuries ago. Something that would be consider quite controversial in a typical multi-cultural country. In other words after 300 years of tradition I doubt that the locals would agree to stop that. There is just too much prde to change any of that.
In other words now we came to "if the economic system requires large shifts in populations then perhaps we have to ditch the system". Which is the part that is confusing to you. In other words pro business centrism requires continuation of the policies and expansion of immigration. Since that is required to maintain the market as it is, the concept that in central to any centrists worldview. In other words in Europe centrism stands for Capitalism. While as you move away from it to the right you have Fascism and what remained from 1940s. While to the left you have Communism, and the more you are going to the left there is more of it. However in North America you have much more narrow political spectrum. Since there just about everyone is a "centrist". Since there is very wide social consensus that liberal capitalism will be the name of the game. While in Europe such consensus was never made to such degree and it is increasingly falling out of fashion. Since it requires mass immigration.
In other words this is why I insists that mass immigration isn't a far left policy (at least in Europe). In other words the genuine far left prefers to ditch liberal market economy. However once you do that there is no point what so ever to introduce mass immigration. My local far left actually sees cutting of migration as a way of fighting "pro market forces". However in North America there is nothing to the left of woke hipsters and thus you are convinced that this is the far left. While in fact you can go much more to the left. However if you would do that you would undermine the North American consensus that liberal capitalism should be the name of the game. While on the other hand I have political options to the left of woke, but they are much more popular then woke (not to mention that they fight woke). For example for that I don't have to look further than my president that greets people at rallies with "Hello Commrades!" (and yes he is Russia friendly person, the country that completely banned LGBT as a topic). I mean to me it is kinda unthinkable that politcians in North America would greet their voters with such a call. Plus don't even make me to go in what kinds of policies are behind that "Hello Commrades!". However the fact is that this part of the sectrum doesn't exist in US/Canada.
So lets get back to the start. In other words more and more people in Europe are unhappy with centrism, since it requires many sacrafices that people aren't really prepared to make. Especially since the consensus never really got too strong over the concept that this should be the political landscape of Europe. In other words the increasing mindest is that on this continent we had way too many wars, dictatorships and attrocities that we should just accept our fate of becoming some kind of global scale multi-cultural melting pot. The concept that is basically ireversable once it happens. This is especially since the short term economic pain that would come out of ditching current paradigms would actually be minor than various periods we went through. In other words people that aren't working office jobs are what is leading this cultural shift away from centrism. Since they are increasingly convinced that they can manage without it. They are far from unified block but they all agree that there has to be large changes. Plus the fact that the Russians are pumping plenty of propaganda on the topic over the internet is something that is evidently speeding up the whole process. While on the other hand centrism requres individialism, free trade and low taxes, the idelogy that is fundamernally unfit to counter hard power of Russia (especially in the case that US decides to go isolationist). Kinda the same can be said about the situation with China's dumping practices (when it comes to trade).
So in the end we came to the point where we are, the crossroads that are election for EU parliament (which will then elect excutive branch of EU). What is the point in time that simply can't be ignored and which will decide where things are going in the long run. The elections are in 10 days so there is no time for anyhing large anymore, we are where we are. In other words if anti-system parties make large gains that will surely speed up the change on national, regional and local levels. Especially since centrism is becoming so unpopular that even the mainstream parties are ditching plenty of what are censidered to be centrist consensus policies. Because they know that not doing that will make sure that anti-system parties will have huge gains. While it is also safe to say that many parties in the mainstream of Europe never really accepted the centrism. For a while centrism was the name of the game so they played along to some degree, but now that the concept is cracking they are the first to move away. What is actually the main reason why all of this is unpredictable. While even the texbook centrists are kinda pragmatically moving away from various centrist policies, while they are also making various coalitions with anti-system parties in lower levels. What is in order to take better staring positions in the new era that is comming. In other words it seems that a fair amount of them realized that things aren't going back to where they were 5 or 10 years ago. What in a sense is true defeat of centrism in Europe.
I tried to keep it somewhat short while still trying to get to the point.
