Driving is one of those things where we’re supposed to be human - make choices, act sensibly, think about what we’re doing and adapt to others around us. But often people assume it’s something entirely deterministic - “if the light is green I’m going to launch forward even if there’s still traffic moving past me and I’m going to get hit or hit someone, because green means I HAVE to go”.
Being polite to others, asides from the nicety of it, is often more positive to everyone on the road than going “I have the right of way so I won’t let anyone in” and allows traffic as a whole to move with less issues. But some people go way too hard on the mentality that every road user other than them is stupid and stop acting like humans because they assume others won’t be able to cope. Which usually complicates traffic for everyone.
There’s a roundabout in my daily commute in which at the end of the afternoon 80% of drivers are coming from and going to the same direction and there’s usually heavy traffic in that specific direction that blocks the roundabout. Often, drivers who are approaching the roundabout to go to a different direction will signal their intention, and users already inside the roundabout will give way - even if they technically have the right of way and don’t have to - because those users aren’t going their direction and will only increase the number of cars stuck if they’re not allowed through. Roundabout users being polite effectively makes traffic as a whole go more smoothly and everyone benefits. Sometimes someone inside the roundabout will be an ass and not let people through - and the result is always that everyone is stuck for more time because there are now cars inside the roundabout which could’ve already vacated it which are stuck behind someone who could easily let them through.
This comment shows a large misunderstanding of european culture, policits, everything really. And I mean this with no offense, but there’s no nice way to say it.
The people who were - and still are - clowning on Americans for their politics are a different group than the people currently voting far right. You’re not dunking on the people you think you are. It’s tragically funny in a way because internet active and mostly left leaning circles still spend a lot of their time dunking on american politics while failing to see the growing trend of far right acceptance in Europe.
Europeans also aren’t a singular entity. The comparison of the US vs Europe is almost always bad IMO, as much as people of the internet love to make it - both americans and europeans alike - because the differences between two neighboring european countries are often larger than those between the two most culturally different US states. The country next over is so radically different to mine in terms of politics, economic choices, language, culture, that the only thing making us both “European” is a similar looking ID card and similar looking road signs. When I cross the border and order a coffee they look at me strange and then serve me what I would expect to get at an american coffee shop.
Europe is facing some of the same problems of the US politically speaking. Summing it up to “getting one big wave of immigration” is naive to say the least. There’s a growing discontent with traditional and more moderate parties, which have fundamentally failed to solve what many people see as big issues in their lives. There’s a housing crisis, an ever increasing wealth gap - which even left leaning socialist european parties, which were in power for decades in countries such as mine, have done next to nothing to prevent. There’s a perceived decrease in security - which is real in some places, while false in others but amplified by social media -, a bunch of high profile corruption cases all throughout Europe - often associated with high ranking members in more moderate parties. In short, there’s an ever increasing number of real issues which traditional parties have fundamentally failed to solve. Some because they’re genuinely complex issues, others because of sheer incompetence.
The media in Europe has spent the last few years treating far right parties the same way the media in the US initially treated Trump - painting them and their followers as crazy people which should be ridiculed and often pushing aside whatever issue they pushed as their political flag. The problem is that far right parties in Europe often pick very real problems as their political flags - such as corruption in the case of my country. They offer no actual solutions to the problems, of course, but the attitude of the media helps them paint the idea that the media and traditional parties are aligned in protecting corrupt individuals and that the only way to tackle the problem is to vote for extreme parties. Whatever the “main” political flag is varies from country to country, but the logic is always the same: Problem exists -> problem is pushed aside by media and traditional parties for whatever reason -> far right party picks up problem as their political flag even though they offer no solutions -> people vote for far right party after years of seeing problem be apparently ignored.
The last part on healthcare makes little sense as well. Public or partly public health services are culturally ingrained in a lot of European countries and many of the far right parties have been very outspoken about defending these services - not because they like their existence I’m sure, but because these healthcare systems are too popular to openly attack. A common attribute in a lot of European far right parties is that though they often claim to despise “the left” and make big claims about socialism having destroyed everything and etc, they’ll quickly incorporate any left leaning measure they perceive as popular - often defending measures which are so far left that you won’t even find them in the political plans of far left parties. Far right parties in Europe will incorporate anything they see as popular in their political plans - which they then use as a promotion point, arguing that they are “above” the left and right divide, instead focusing on whatever is “better for the country”.
Add to all of this a fundamental failure in left wing and moderate right wing parties to address many of these issues, even while being in power for decades in the came of some European countries, and the constant attempts by these same parties to silence anyone who so much as mentions hot topics like immigration - often by labeling them as racists, fascists, etc and what you get is a growing distrust in these parties.