Thread by @BuzzFeedNews

The past decade has seen the rise of the far-right everywhere from the US to India to Brazil. In Europe, fringe factions started winning elections. Meanwhile, Europe's left-wing parties are on life support.

Does Europe's left finally have a hero? Thread:
buzzfeednews.com/article/lester…

Remember Yanis Varoufakis, the motorcycle-driving former Greek finance minister? He rose to fame during Europe’s financial crisis for opposing budget cuts to pay off bad loans.

Now, he’s styling himself as the Bernie Sanders of Europe, trying to give the left a new identity.

The populists are gaining ground, fast. Look at the numbers on the board:
• Far-right parties lead the government in Italy.
• They form the largest opposition faction in Germany’s parliament.
• Hungary is inching closer to dictatorship by the day.
buzzfeednews.com/article/lester…

In the midsts of this, Varoufakis is trying to solve a central problem: As the right has united, the left dissolved. Many of the continent’s major center-left parties, perhaps because they offer no alternative to the reigning political order, sit on the edge of extinction.

Why is the left so divided? For one thing, the very questions that are forging a natural alliance among the far right — immigration, identity, and national sovereignty — split the left, in many cases driving a wedge right down the middle of existing parties.

Varoufakis is traveling across Europe — and doing events with Bernie Sanders in Vermont — to promote a new transcontinental political party to save the EU by enacting a “Green New Deal” that he says will spread prosperity and tackle global warming.

His mission is also to energize the left around a common agenda. While the US has exported Breitbart, which boosted Brexit, the kind of progressive surge that launched politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has yet to take hold across Europe.

Europe’s volatility and the growing threat of the far right does create an opening for new players to galvanize the left. But Varoufakis is not the only one trying to play the role of savior.
buzzfeednews.com/article/lester…

As the far right continues to gain ground, the left finally looks like it’s trying to fight back. But will Varoufakis’ movement be enough? Read @jlfeder’s profile of a man trying to save Europe’s left.
buzzfeednews.com/article/lester…