What a beautiful day. 14 years of oppression, absolute power, no media freedom, and the most ridiculously botted internet down the drain.
throwaw12 · 2026-10-25 21:59:34 UTC
do you think, if there was real oppression people could even vote democratically and change their government?
I think you don't know what is oppression then.
(not downplaying how bad Vucic had been to Serbia, but the fact that people replaced him without violence and democratically means something still was in place)
stavros · 2026-10-25 22:01:18 UTC
What is the point of this "no true Scotsman" comment, exactly? To defend Vucic? Or to say that what the people managed to do wasn't very hard because they managed to do it?
falserum · 2026-10-25 22:44:05 UTC
If you question was honest, most likely - a dislike for semantic bleaching.
Also, some (not me), have survived regimes like Tito, Assad or Saddam, they definitely would have different perspective on word oppression.
(A thing to get us on the same ground, lets call him extremely corrupt, very few will dispute that)
jibalt · 2026-10-25 23:34:26 UTC
Clearly the question is honest. As for that response ... not so much.
Would you also say for example, that there was no suppression in the GDR?
necovek · 2026-10-25 22:08:16 UTC
There are certainly different levels of oppression and autocracy.
Here it was designed and made to look like a democracy, but it really required a 70% turnout and 50%+ of people voting against the ruling party for them to accept defeat, especially as there are still large vote thefts going on (to the order of 5-10% of the entire voting population). Basically, anything less than 50% would have put the country in turmoil and violence — again.
As a tidbit, we've got 6.4M registered voters (18+) in a country of 6.5M people. There are a few explanations about how that works, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
ncruces · 2026-10-25 22:31:17 UTC
Dead people not removed from the registry?
lakeviewterrace · 2026-10-25 23:36:33 UTC
> especially as there are still large vote thefts going on
Funny, because if you even suggest there *might* be cheating in US elections, especially with the farce that is mail-in voting and groups actively fighting to NOT check IDs, people get really upset.
bakies · 2026-10-25 23:56:06 UTC
If only there was any evidence at all. Trump could only find 50 people incorrectly registered to vote in all of California. They still check your registration at the polls too.
margalabargala · 2026-10-26 00:01:35 UTC
There is tons of evidence! When Texas does its biannual purge of voter registrations from blue zip codes, all the people who silently had their right to vote revoked generate statistics when they try to cast a ballot.
Kinda like how you can point to an essentially arbitrarily large quantity of illegal immigrants if you first manufacture them by revoking their ability to be here legally, without informing them.
bakies · 2026-10-26 00:50:59 UTC
It's just maintenance of the voter list
margalabargala · 2026-10-26 01:19:42 UTC
Right exactly!
It's not hacking, it's just surprise maintenance of someone else's computer.
It's not fraud, it's just maintenance of someone else's money into my bank account.
bakies · 2026-10-26 01:49:52 UTC
Yeah not really at all the same thing okay
margalabargala · 2026-10-25 23:58:34 UTC
The reason people get frustrated with the things you brought up are because they don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, and ignores actually impactful voter fraud. It's like complaining about a paper cut while getting mauled by a tiger.
Anything that an individual person does with a ballot is mostly not impactful Barring a handful of generally-not-important local elections, an individual casting one or two or three ballots (or filling out someone else's ballot on their behalf) doesn't actually move the needle.
What does move the needle, are mass voter role purges dome based on demographic. These are done by the government, generally by the party in power in a given location in a bid to stay in power despite their unpopularity.
As a bonus point, when citizens get the voter registration invalidated without being told, then when they go to vote they generate a statistic that gets parroted by internet sycophants talking about evidence that voter fraud is rampant!
lakeviewterrace · 2026-10-26 00:30:08 UTC
> mass voter role purges dome based on demographic
Like dead people? We wouldn't want to disenfranchise them.
bakies · 2026-10-26 00:55:00 UTC
Oh wow normal voter roll maintenance and nothing to do with fraud, crazy!
margalabargala · 2026-10-26 01:18:40 UTC
That's the excuse often given. If only it were so!
If your voter role purge is >90% living citizens whose only "violation" is living in a zip code unlikely to vote for the party in power, then that's disenfranchisement.
Including a token dead person on your voter roll purge, does not make it a purge of dead people.
RunSet · 2026-10-26 00:02:17 UTC
Voter registration already requires an ID.
Checking ID on election day is more likely to enable election fraud than prevent voter fraud.
hingler36 · 2026-10-26 00:41:19 UTC
We have extremely low voter turnout overall and a truly negligible amount of provable election fraud, even after years of investigations from an administration that has a vested interest in proving the 2020 election was fraudulent.
Why should we enact more barriers to voting to solve a problem that doesn't even exist?
jacquesm · 2026-10-26 00:24:58 UTC
Congratulations! Huge step this one.
ZnerflBerp · 2026-10-25 22:24:13 UTC
"not downplaying how bad Vucic had been to Serbia".
But you are, though.
cromka · 2026-10-25 22:28:57 UTC
Oppression is not binary. And modern forms make it extremely difficult to hold the oppressive governments accountable.
kergonath · 2026-10-25 22:29:52 UTC
> do you think, if there was real oppression people could even vote democratically and change their government?
Sorry, they get no bonus point for accepting the elections’ results. It’s the bare minimum if they want to pretend to be in a democracy. It does not make them any less oppressive. See also Orban and the PiS.
Now they have some time in the opposition to build something credible to get back into power if they really want it.
chpatrick · 2026-10-25 23:04:17 UTC
There's a spectrum between the Netherlands and North Korea.
jacquesm · 2026-10-26 00:27:01 UTC
NL should not be at the top of the range though, Switzerland would be a better choice for that position.
shevy-java · 2026-10-25 23:18:18 UTC
That is not a good analysis. Both North Korea and
Russia claim to be democratic countries - see
the name "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".
Betelbuddy · 2026-10-25 23:42:08 UTC
Ronald Reagan in 1987, while speaking to the Bicentennial of the Constitution Essay Competition winners, discussed reading the constitutions of other nations like the Soviet Union and noting their stated guarantees of freedom, emphasizing that the true difference lies in the concept of "We the People".
I always took this as warning that "We the People", can also be the cause of why those freedoms are taken. Cue the US electing convicted rapists and Brazil almost electing an US agent...
p-e-w · 2026-10-26 00:15:40 UTC
That’s an absurd take. The true difference lies in how things actually work in reality, not in a phrase written on a piece of paper somewhere.
You could replace the constitution of North Korea with that of the United States without a single thing changing in practice.
Betelbuddy · 2026-10-26 01:42:14 UTC
You managed to completely misunderstand both Ronald Reagan and my comment in one single take. Amazing.
jibalt · 2026-10-25 23:31:07 UTC
Fallacy of relative privation.
brendoelfrendo · 2026-10-26 00:11:50 UTC
Bad take. These kind of hybrid regimes or "electoral autocracies" are kind of the flavor du jour of modern attempts towards authoritarian governments. You take control democratically, and then build a system where you control as much of the apparatus of democracy as possible: you change rules or laws to ensure opposition parties cannot gain an advantage in elections; you take control of or ally with the owners of media institutions to push your agenda; you concentrate powers under offices that are easy to control, such as an executive or judicial body. When these regimes topple, as with Orban earlier this year and Vucic now, it is because the autocrats overestimated their control. Orban didn't think it was possible for the usually fractious opposition to get the votes to defeat him, but Magyar managed it. Pressure from outside helps, too; when Orban took power, he did so as a center-right figure aligned with the largest political block in the EU (and got support from many of his counterparts, especially Merkel). By the time he lost power, much of Europe had distanced itself from Hungary and that pressure was being felt internally.
I think the important takeaway here is not that "a lack of violence means that there wasn't real oppression," but rather that modern autocrats are trying to execute a playbook whereby they retain the appearance of democracy to legitimize their rule as a mandate from the people while stacking the deck as much in their favor as possible. Indeed, trying to violently retain power kind of defeats the purpose of the charade; by relinquishing control, the autocrats can treat defeat as a temporary setback, not a permanent loss. Expect this playbook to evolve as more hybrid regimes fall out of favor.
jacquesm · 2026-10-26 03:25:25 UTC
Indeed, the democracy -> dictatorship pathway is well documented by now. The reverse is a lot harder, though it is good to see that when the people show they are not going to be cowed that there is a way back out. It takes a lot of bravery though and the people of Serbia are to be commended for what they have done here. Vucic is already laying the ground for discrediting them so the fight isn't over yet (watch is 'concession speech' to see how).
bgandrew1 · 2026-10-26 01:07:22 UTC
Definitely. As someone who's been living in Serbia for quite some time, I'd say Vučić's regime has been relatively mild. I haven't personally heard of people being jailed, killed, or even forced out of the country for political reasons. Turkey is much more repressive, while Russia, Belarus, and North Korea are in a completely different league.
johnisgood · 2026-10-25 22:07:49 UTC
Same thing happened in Hungary earlier this year, after 16 years of Orbán (and FWIW, the two are / were "good friends").
Interesting times.
Ygg2 · 2026-10-26 01:48:17 UTC
Now both of these movements need to prove that they can lead their people better than the previous regime or the backlash will be enormous.
Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power. Joining EuroZone only makes sense iff EU becomes a federation.
jacquesm · 2026-10-26 02:22:00 UTC
They'd have to work hard to do worse, at the same time the old guard is going to try to sabotage this for sure.
Ygg2 · 2026-10-26 05:10:14 UTC
Thing is there is a sort of regression to the mean. Even if you free all the media and do some great progressive moves, if people's lives don't get easier and future shocks make your living worse, blaming past governments only helps to a point.
Hence why going to EZ for Hungary is so worrying. Nothing helped fascist thrive more in Greece than austerity. With Drahma, you have some control over fiscal policies. Not so much with Euro. You'll do what Troika says, or else!
jacquesm · 2026-10-26 05:42:29 UTC
Yes, it is a problem. But barring an actual centralized EU government this is what we have right now, a federation that is 'loosely coupled'. It has advantages, but as you correctly note also some massive disadvantages.
tpm · 2026-10-26 07:31:03 UTC
Joining the Eurozone makes sense if your country does most of the business in euros. Which Hungary does. Czechia and I guess Poland do too and should have switched long time ago. Worth mentioning also that all of them legally committed to that on accession to the EU back in 2004; of the new EU members from CE, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Baltic countries adopted the Euro and I don't identify a fascist streak there.
Ygg2 · 2026-10-26 11:23:44 UTC
> Joining the Eurozone makes sense if your country does most of the business in euros.
It doesn't. As Yanis Varoufakis put it nicely[0] you can't have fixed exchange rate with Germany (or other EU countries), shared customs and exchange union, balanced budget and a functioning society.
When you have two different economical and political policies it's a design guaranteed to generate problems.
> I don't identify a fascist streak there.
> Croatia
See there is your problem. Your fascist detector needs to be recalibrated.
Croatia has a *strong* nostalgia for the good old times of Nazi Collaborations (Nazis were less thrilled and found their handling of lesser races both brutal[1] and lax[2], which makes sense Ustashe hated the Serbs mainly, and Jews weren't that high on their list).
I don't agree with Varoufakis regarding more or less anything he says; he's been consistently wrong for a long time.
You picked one state from seven, while not mentioning fascist elements in Hungary or Poland (before Tusk). Great calibration on your side.
So some other things you failed to mention:
- most CE economies are very open and so big businesses already do internal accounting and/or facturation in euros anyway
- a move to euros would save transaction costs for companies and individuals
- in Hungary at least this would also probably lower mortagage costs (they had some issues with mortgages in Swiss francs in the past as far as I remember)
Ygg2 · 2026-10-26 13:47:11 UTC
> You picked one state from seven, while not mentioning fascist elements in Hungary or Poland (before Tusk). Great calibration on your side.
Because I know how off mark you are about Croatian politics. Not going to wade in Bulgarian or Romanian politics that are way less on my radar. But each of them has their own flavour of - if not straight fascist then some far-right tumour.
Also, I didn't state that having your own currency is enough. It's a necessary but not sufficient condition.
What I do know all major Euro economies are experiencing constant crises that never end (Greece, Italy, Spain, France, ...). And that is excellent breeding ground for the populist movement.
Far-right appearing more business friendly is what pushes the scale in its favor.
> he's been consistently wrong for a long time.
He's also been right where it matters. Euro as a whole just produces more and more crises.
tpm · 2026-10-26 14:45:57 UTC
> Because I know how off mark you are about Croatian politics.
I am sorry, but what are you on about? Your thesis is that Eurozone accession enables future fascism ("Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power."). What does that have to do with Croatian fascist leanings, which existed long before they joined the EU? Precisely nothing. So why are you mentioning them in connection with the euro?
> What I do know all major Euro economies are experiencing constant crises that never end
Compared to what?
> And that is excellent breeding ground for the populist movement.
Compared to what?
> Euro as a whole just produces more and more crises.
Compared to what?
There is no serious analysis, only talking points about perpetual EU crisis which are exactly what the fascist movements are pushing, so yeah.
Ygg2 · 2026-10-27 10:08:10 UTC
> Your thesis is that Eurozone accession enables future fascism ("Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power.").
Not really. I said it creates future crises that the fascists are usually best poised to seize.
If one country in the EU experiences problems (e.g. France/Greece/Italy/Ireland), then the whole EU will experience problems (because they have the same currency).
So rather than one country in Europe having its problems and dealing with it internally, most of Europe has a problem. And worst yet, if the crisis causes the euro to devalue, it will benefit only the net exporter countries, causing massive divergence in economies of different countries.
I hope you can see how this will cause losers to be more spiteful, while making winners more arrogant. That spite is great place for various far-right monsters to spawn.
It's a myopic decision because, as you said, it definitely has some benefits for companies and consumers alike, but long-term it sentences you to joint economic pain, without relief.
> What does that have to do with Croatian fascist leanings
It was a response to your quote:
> ...of the new EU members from CE, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Baltic countries adopted the Euro and I don't identify a fascist streak there.
You obviously are not good at identifying a fascist streak.
> Compared to what?
Stable EU states that aren't in the EZ. Like, say Norway or Switzerland.
> only talking points about perpetual EU crisis which are exactly what the fascist movements are pushing, so yeah.
Fascists can also talk about massive poverty. That doesn't auto-disqualify it. Their approach to solving it does.
This is slightly different from mine: either tighter EU integration or disbanding the Euro.
tpm · 2026-10-27 12:26:52 UTC
> I hope you can see how this will cause losers to be more spiteful, while making winners more arrogant.
These are again fact-free arguments based on feelings. Who are the winners and who are the losers? Germany as a big exporter certainly doesn't look like a winner now, does it? Spain is doing better than Germany since Covid in GDP growth.
And of course we need the EU markets to be converging and you can't really do that with 27 currencies and monetary policies. Why do we need them converging? Because businesses like the US or China greatly benefit from having huge economies of scale in their internal markets, which makes it much easier to expand after that. The EU has to come as close as possible to that too, otherwise we have no chance and will suffer much greater economic pain. But I guess Varoufakis doesn't tell you that. He just makes you long for the great times where you had to pay for each currency exchange and every bank transaction to other EU countries.
As for far-right monsters, the nazis are currently the most powerful parties in Italy, France, Germany, Austria among others. So your thesis still doesn't make sense.
> You obviously are not good at identifying a fascist streak.
You still don't understand what I wrote. There is no fascist streak that would distinguish countries that adopted the euro from those that didn't.
> Stable EU states that aren't in the EZ. Like, say Norway or Switzerland.
Let's at least try being serious.
Ygg2 · 2026-10-27 15:47:48 UTC
> These are again fact-free arguments based on feelings. Who are the winners and who are the losers? Germany as a big exporter certainly doesn't look like a winner now, does it? Spain is doing better than Germany since Covid in GDP growth.
You can't just weld two different time periods while ignoring what changed in-between.
Germany around 2008 was an exporter that benefited indirectly (devalued Euro) and directly (rescuing German banks) from Greek crisis. Germany today is basically deindustrialising at a rapid pace. It's exports can't compete with Chinese nor do they have access to cheap materials, and that's disregarding tariffs on their exports.
> You still don't understand what I wrote. There is no fascist streak that would distinguish countries that adopted the euro from those that didn't.
And you don't understand what I'm conveying. Far-right and fascist voices always exist. And no, Euro isn't the only possible crisis that can happen.
But those that happen are spread and amplified.
Want example of this happening? It's happening right now. France crisis turned into a France+Italy+Greece+Belgium crisis.
> And of course we need the EU markets to be converging and you can't really do that with 27 currencies and monetary policies.
You can't have them converge (also converging to what?) even with same currency! If say Gambia adopted the US dollar it wouldn't help Gambia at all. In fact quite the opposite. Only once there is a political union of US and Gambia can we talk about possibility of convergence.
mrtksn · 2026-10-25 21:55:12 UTC
Meanwhile, in Bulgaria there was the presidential election that no one cared about so the turnout is in the %20 and the pro-Russian candidate severely underperformed. It was expected to be %47 vs %30, ended up being in the %30 for both the pro-Russian and the pro-western candidates.
Also the stronghold of Erdogan is crumbling with the collapse of $20B ponzi scheme where all the winners happen to be from Erdogan’s inner circle.
It’s overall a feeling of earth moving in Europe again.
timcobb · 2026-10-25 22:02:52 UTC
Le Pen? AfD?
mrtksn · 2026-10-25 22:03:44 UTC
What about them?
layer8 · 2026-10-25 22:09:39 UTC
Gaining ground in the two largest EU countries.
doginasuit · 2026-10-25 22:19:49 UTC
Every movement has a counter movement.
timcobb · 2026-10-26 01:59:11 UTC
France and Germany aren't Serbia, and Turkey is far from certain still.
kergonath · 2026-10-25 22:40:18 UTC
Le Pen is more or less dead politically. The RN is currently twisting itself into knots because they want to use the anti-government protests but are still supposed to be about law and order.
noeltock · 2026-10-25 22:55:52 UTC
Le Pen is leading polls and is the polymarket fav by 2-3x.
spacebeer · 2026-10-25 23:09:05 UTC
You know who else was polymarket fav? The guy in this news who just lost
consumer451 · 2026-10-25 23:37:49 UTC
Wait, is that true? I try to ignore the prediction markets as they appear to be very well funded efforts at the tail wagging the dog, but can you provide the links to the biggest positions on this?
AfD, whose internal emails were leaked for all the world to see who they really are?
timcobb · 2026-10-26 17:40:45 UTC
Please understand that none of that stuff matters. Trump/AfD etc is about being maladaptive and antisocial. Trump voters aren't reading emails and they don't care about the Epstein files either. The sooner people understand this, the sooner we'll be able to, maybe, just maybe, get out from under this.
christkv · 2026-10-25 22:03:27 UTC
Is this new party cohesive enough or will it split into infighting?
necovek · 2026-10-25 22:17:11 UTC
It is not really a party — it's a nomination list by the protest-organising students — and the people really voted against the ruling party.
The idea is for this to enable true democracy to re-appear, and then actual parties would battle it out in the next elections.
I'd say the risk to political stability in Serbia remains, but just like in any functioning democracy, what matters is that there is regular change and politicians understand that they are soon to be replaced (this avoids the levels of corruption that is multiples of base government project costs and actually cost lives).
consumer451 · 2026-10-26 00:19:45 UTC
I hope that everyone reads your comment. This is how far-gone it was in Serbia, and now there is hope of recovery. This is not some USA left/right party discourse, this is recovery from pure corruption. This is what happened in Hungary, where after years of "far-right"[0] control, a center-right party took over with just the promise of competency and far less foreign influence, and everyone cheered.
[0] What ever the hell that means these days, pure kleptocracy that sells xenophobia but is funded by Russia and China?
u8080 · 2026-10-26 07:13:22 UTC
You are absolutely right!
cdrnsf · 2026-10-25 22:09:07 UTC
Good. The world needs fewer fascists and nationalists in power.
deadbabe · 2026-10-25 22:18:28 UTC
By any means necessary.
holoduke · 2026-10-25 22:42:02 UTC
The replacement party isn't any better though. It will not change anything in Serbia. Just like Hungary which might look like it's changed , but it's not. The political layer isn't remotely controlling those countries. Powerful institutions are. And they are not chosen.
cdrnsf · 2026-10-25 22:43:29 UTC
The same is true of the US, up to a point. Should the democrats win in the midterms, they’re largely defined by being not their opponents. They’re still corporatist and unwilling to take meaningful stands or make significant changes.
izacus · 2026-10-25 22:51:17 UTC
Saying Hungary hasn't changed has to be the biggest lie I've seen in a while.
velvetz · 2026-10-25 22:54:26 UTC
I’m genuinely curious, what makes you think Hungary hasn’t changed?
drcongo · 2026-10-26 09:25:49 UTC
Putin told them to say so.
jacobgorm · 2026-10-25 22:55:50 UTC
Can you describe in detail what these powerful institutions are, and how they manage to hold back change?
chpatrick · 2026-10-25 23:06:18 UTC
I'm Hungarian and there have been countless positive changes in only half a year. The people in charge are also way more competent than the last lot who all got promoted based on loyalty.
* Billions in EU funds restored
* State funded propaganda shut down
* Tax cuts for low earners
* European prosecutor's office joined and anti corruption agency established with real power, crooks already going to jail
* Forint 363 to the euro compared to 400 in 2023
* Homophobic law repealed
* Term limit introduced for MPs and PMs
* Rail overhaul plan
* No more kowtowing to Russia
falserum · 2026-10-25 23:12:13 UTC
(1) Nothing changes over night. (Unless you want explosions; I surely dont)
(2) The most important thing is that power was handed over peacefully. New guy, new team, new ideas and approaches.
2OEH8eoCRo0 · 2026-10-25 23:08:28 UTC
Dont look at Brazil's election thats happening right now.
Edit: Hopefully this ages poorly. It's a tight race
This is great! I never understood the Serbian view of allying with a loser country like Russia. I assume it was all corruption and oligarchs.
baxtr · 2026-10-25 22:47:27 UTC
They share many cultural elements.
falserum · 2026-10-25 23:04:26 UTC
Nato bombed Serbia in 1999. Russia is anti nato. Result unsurprising.
Hopefully, wounds are healing, and more productive friends can be found.
rasz · 2026-10-25 23:09:58 UTC
Why did Nato bomb Serbia in 1999?
navane · 2026-10-25 23:17:08 UTC
Serbia and Croatia attacked Bosnia. All three parties are former yougoslavia. It's complicated.
input_sh · 2026-10-25 23:44:29 UTC
Wrong war(s), Serbia (proper) suffered zero damage during those wars. The only time Serbia (proper) suffered any real damage was ~4 years later, in 1999, in response to attacking Kosovo.
bkovacev · 2026-10-26 00:05:24 UTC
We (Serbia) were ethnically cleansed as well, that does not count, right?
input_sh · 2026-10-26 02:07:45 UTC
Ah yes, how could I forget about all the ethnic cleansing that happened in Serbia during the 90s. You (Serbia) were literally unharmed until 1999. Not even like a a single grenade that flew past the border into Serbia, or like a small scale terrorist attack.
Serbs in other countries were fighting their own separatist wars. You (Serbia) didn't do any of that fighting. You dealt with sanctions, hyperinflation and a refugee crisis, which sure wasn't easy, but you saw no death, you experienced no grief, the village you grew up in wasn't burned to the ground, the city you live in wasn't under siege.
The only time you (Serbia) experienced anything war-like was in 1999, and even that was like a two months long air campaign with no boots on the ground.
bkovacev · 2026-10-26 07:39:58 UTC
“Serbia (proper)” is doing a lot of work in your argument. I was talking about Serbs, not a line on a map.
Around 200,000 Serbs were driven out of Krajina in a few days during Operation Storm in 1995. Roughly a quarter of the ~100,000 dead in Bosnia were Serbs (Bosnian Book of the Dead). By 1996 Serbia was hosting over 600,000 refugees, one of the largest refugee populations in Europe at the time. Those people didn’t “deal with a refugee crisis”. They were the refugee crisis, and today they’re our neighbours, in-laws and classmates. Plenty of families in Serbia also buried conscripts who were sent to Croatia in 1991.
1999 also wasn’t just “a two-month air campaign” to the people who lived through it. It lasted 78 days, killed around 500 civilians by Human Rights Watch’s count, and was followed by another ~200,000 Serbs and Roma leaving Kosovo.
None of this cancels what was done to Bosniaks and Croats, much of it in Serbia’s name, by a regime many of us protested against. Bosniaks suffered and I’m not disputing that. But “you saw no death, you experienced no grief” is simply untrue, and saying it doesn’t make anyone else’s grief count for more.
Also saying Serbia has not experienced anything war-like but the NATO bombing, is delusional. You do seem to forget how many Serbian people died in WWI and WWI.
Whoever taught you this at such a young age, is helping spread and water the seed that is not letting anyone heal from the shit that was organized in the 1990s. I wish you well.
Comments
I think you don't know what is oppression then.
(not downplaying how bad Vucic had been to Serbia, but the fact that people replaced him without violence and democratically means something still was in place)
Also, some (not me), have survived regimes like Tito, Assad or Saddam, they definitely would have different perspective on word oppression.
(A thing to get us on the same ground, lets call him extremely corrupt, very few will dispute that)
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Relativ...
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Relativ...
Here it was designed and made to look like a democracy, but it really required a 70% turnout and 50%+ of people voting against the ruling party for them to accept defeat, especially as there are still large vote thefts going on (to the order of 5-10% of the entire voting population). Basically, anything less than 50% would have put the country in turmoil and violence — again.
As a tidbit, we've got 6.4M registered voters (18+) in a country of 6.5M people. There are a few explanations about how that works, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Funny, because if you even suggest there *might* be cheating in US elections, especially with the farce that is mail-in voting and groups actively fighting to NOT check IDs, people get really upset.
Kinda like how you can point to an essentially arbitrarily large quantity of illegal immigrants if you first manufacture them by revoking their ability to be here legally, without informing them.
It's not hacking, it's just surprise maintenance of someone else's computer.
It's not fraud, it's just maintenance of someone else's money into my bank account.
Anything that an individual person does with a ballot is mostly not impactful Barring a handful of generally-not-important local elections, an individual casting one or two or three ballots (or filling out someone else's ballot on their behalf) doesn't actually move the needle.
What does move the needle, are mass voter role purges dome based on demographic. These are done by the government, generally by the party in power in a given location in a bid to stay in power despite their unpopularity.
As a bonus point, when citizens get the voter registration invalidated without being told, then when they go to vote they generate a statistic that gets parroted by internet sycophants talking about evidence that voter fraud is rampant!
Like dead people? We wouldn't want to disenfranchise them.
If your voter role purge is >90% living citizens whose only "violation" is living in a zip code unlikely to vote for the party in power, then that's disenfranchisement.
Including a token dead person on your voter roll purge, does not make it a purge of dead people.
Checking ID on election day is more likely to enable election fraud than prevent voter fraud.
Why should we enact more barriers to voting to solve a problem that doesn't even exist?
But you are, though.
Sorry, they get no bonus point for accepting the elections’ results. It’s the bare minimum if they want to pretend to be in a democracy. It does not make them any less oppressive. See also Orban and the PiS.
Now they have some time in the opposition to build something credible to get back into power if they really want it.
I always took this as warning that "We the People", can also be the cause of why those freedoms are taken. Cue the US electing convicted rapists and Brazil almost electing an US agent...
You could replace the constitution of North Korea with that of the United States without a single thing changing in practice.
I think the important takeaway here is not that "a lack of violence means that there wasn't real oppression," but rather that modern autocrats are trying to execute a playbook whereby they retain the appearance of democracy to legitimize their rule as a mandate from the people while stacking the deck as much in their favor as possible. Indeed, trying to violently retain power kind of defeats the purpose of the charade; by relinquishing control, the autocrats can treat defeat as a temporary setback, not a permanent loss. Expect this playbook to evolve as more hybrid regimes fall out of favor.
Interesting times.
Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power. Joining EuroZone only makes sense iff EU becomes a federation.
Hence why going to EZ for Hungary is so worrying. Nothing helped fascist thrive more in Greece than austerity. With Drahma, you have some control over fiscal policies. Not so much with Euro. You'll do what Troika says, or else!
It doesn't. As Yanis Varoufakis put it nicely[0] you can't have fixed exchange rate with Germany (or other EU countries), shared customs and exchange union, balanced budget and a functioning society.
When you have two different economical and political policies it's a design guaranteed to generate problems.
> I don't identify a fascist streak there.
> Croatia
See there is your problem. Your fascist detector needs to be recalibrated.
Croatia has a *strong* nostalgia for the good old times of Nazi Collaborations (Nazis were less thrilled and found their handling of lesser races both brutal[1] and lax[2], which makes sense Ustashe hated the Serbs mainly, and Jews weren't that high on their list).
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgW81-Yi4F8&t=70s
[1]https://greekreporter.com/2026/02/28/ustase-fascists-eastern... It takes *a lot* to make Nazis complain about your barbaric mass execution methods.
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e#cite_ref-fischer_2... See "Honorary Croats".
You picked one state from seven, while not mentioning fascist elements in Hungary or Poland (before Tusk). Great calibration on your side.
So some other things you failed to mention:
- most CE economies are very open and so big businesses already do internal accounting and/or facturation in euros anyway
- a move to euros would save transaction costs for companies and individuals
- in Hungary at least this would also probably lower mortagage costs (they had some issues with mortgages in Swiss francs in the past as far as I remember)
Because I know how off mark you are about Croatian politics. Not going to wade in Bulgarian or Romanian politics that are way less on my radar. But each of them has their own flavour of - if not straight fascist then some far-right tumour.
Also, I didn't state that having your own currency is enough. It's a necessary but not sufficient condition.
What I do know all major Euro economies are experiencing constant crises that never end (Greece, Italy, Spain, France, ...). And that is excellent breeding ground for the populist movement.
Far-right appearing more business friendly is what pushes the scale in its favor.
> he's been consistently wrong for a long time.
He's also been right where it matters. Euro as a whole just produces more and more crises.
I am sorry, but what are you on about? Your thesis is that Eurozone accession enables future fascism ("Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power."). What does that have to do with Croatian fascist leanings, which existed long before they joined the EU? Precisely nothing. So why are you mentioning them in connection with the euro?
> What I do know all major Euro economies are experiencing constant crises that never end
Compared to what?
> And that is excellent breeding ground for the populist movement.
Compared to what?
> Euro as a whole just produces more and more crises.
Compared to what?
There is no serious analysis, only talking points about perpetual EU crisis which are exactly what the fascist movements are pushing, so yeah.
If one country in the EU experiences problems (e.g. France/Greece/Italy/Ireland), then the whole EU will experience problems (because they have the same currency).
So rather than one country in Europe having its problems and dealing with it internally, most of Europe has a problem. And worst yet, if the crisis causes the euro to devalue, it will benefit only the net exporter countries, causing massive divergence in economies of different countries.
I hope you can see how this will cause losers to be more spiteful, while making winners more arrogant. That spite is great place for various far-right monsters to spawn.
It's a myopic decision because, as you said, it definitely has some benefits for companies and consumers alike, but long-term it sentences you to joint economic pain, without relief.
It was a response to your quote: You obviously are not good at identifying a fascist streak. Stable EU states that aren't in the EZ. Like, say Norway or Switzerland. Fascists can also talk about massive poverty. That doesn't auto-disqualify it. Their approach to solving it does.This is slightly different from mine: either tighter EU integration or disbanding the Euro.
These are again fact-free arguments based on feelings. Who are the winners and who are the losers? Germany as a big exporter certainly doesn't look like a winner now, does it? Spain is doing better than Germany since Covid in GDP growth.
And of course we need the EU markets to be converging and you can't really do that with 27 currencies and monetary policies. Why do we need them converging? Because businesses like the US or China greatly benefit from having huge economies of scale in their internal markets, which makes it much easier to expand after that. The EU has to come as close as possible to that too, otherwise we have no chance and will suffer much greater economic pain. But I guess Varoufakis doesn't tell you that. He just makes you long for the great times where you had to pay for each currency exchange and every bank transaction to other EU countries.
As for far-right monsters, the nazis are currently the most powerful parties in Italy, France, Germany, Austria among others. So your thesis still doesn't make sense.
> You obviously are not good at identifying a fascist streak.
You still don't understand what I wrote. There is no fascist streak that would distinguish countries that adopted the euro from those that didn't.
> Stable EU states that aren't in the EZ. Like, say Norway or Switzerland.
Let's at least try being serious.
You can't just weld two different time periods while ignoring what changed in-between.
Germany around 2008 was an exporter that benefited indirectly (devalued Euro) and directly (rescuing German banks) from Greek crisis. Germany today is basically deindustrialising at a rapid pace. It's exports can't compete with Chinese nor do they have access to cheap materials, and that's disregarding tariffs on their exports.
> You still don't understand what I wrote. There is no fascist streak that would distinguish countries that adopted the euro from those that didn't.
And you don't understand what I'm conveying. Far-right and fascist voices always exist. And no, Euro isn't the only possible crisis that can happen.
But those that happen are spread and amplified. Want example of this happening? It's happening right now. France crisis turned into a France+Italy+Greece+Belgium crisis.
> And of course we need the EU markets to be converging and you can't really do that with 27 currencies and monetary policies.
You can't have them converge (also converging to what?) even with same currency! If say Gambia adopted the US dollar it wouldn't help Gambia at all. In fact quite the opposite. Only once there is a political union of US and Gambia can we talk about possibility of convergence.
Also the stronghold of Erdogan is crumbling with the collapse of $20B ponzi scheme where all the winners happen to be from Erdogan’s inner circle.
It’s overall a feeling of earth moving in Europe again.
Seems true. Was at 70% before
The idea is for this to enable true democracy to re-appear, and then actual parties would battle it out in the next elections.
I'd say the risk to political stability in Serbia remains, but just like in any functioning democracy, what matters is that there is regular change and politicians understand that they are soon to be replaced (this avoids the levels of corruption that is multiples of base government project costs and actually cost lives).
[0] What ever the hell that means these days, pure kleptocracy that sells xenophobia but is funded by Russia and China?
* Billions in EU funds restored
* State funded propaganda shut down
* Tax cuts for low earners
* European prosecutor's office joined and anti corruption agency established with real power, crooks already going to jail
* Forint 363 to the euro compared to 400 in 2023
* Homophobic law repealed
* Term limit introduced for MPs and PMs
* Rail overhaul plan
* No more kowtowing to Russia
(2) The most important thing is that power was handed over peacefully. New guy, new team, new ideas and approaches.
Edit: Hopefully this ages poorly. It's a tight race
https://www.reuters.com/live/brazil-election-live-lula-bolso...
Hopefully, wounds are healing, and more productive friends can be found.
Serbs in other countries were fighting their own separatist wars. You (Serbia) didn't do any of that fighting. You dealt with sanctions, hyperinflation and a refugee crisis, which sure wasn't easy, but you saw no death, you experienced no grief, the village you grew up in wasn't burned to the ground, the city you live in wasn't under siege.
The only time you (Serbia) experienced anything war-like was in 1999, and even that was like a two months long air campaign with no boots on the ground.
Around 200,000 Serbs were driven out of Krajina in a few days during Operation Storm in 1995. Roughly a quarter of the ~100,000 dead in Bosnia were Serbs (Bosnian Book of the Dead). By 1996 Serbia was hosting over 600,000 refugees, one of the largest refugee populations in Europe at the time. Those people didn’t “deal with a refugee crisis”. They were the refugee crisis, and today they’re our neighbours, in-laws and classmates. Plenty of families in Serbia also buried conscripts who were sent to Croatia in 1991.
1999 also wasn’t just “a two-month air campaign” to the people who lived through it. It lasted 78 days, killed around 500 civilians by Human Rights Watch’s count, and was followed by another ~200,000 Serbs and Roma leaving Kosovo.
None of this cancels what was done to Bosniaks and Croats, much of it in Serbia’s name, by a regime many of us protested against. Bosniaks suffered and I’m not disputing that. But “you saw no death, you experienced no grief” is simply untrue, and saying it doesn’t make anyone else’s grief count for more.
Also saying Serbia has not experienced anything war-like but the NATO bombing, is delusional. You do seem to forget how many Serbian people died in WWI and WWI.
Whoever taught you this at such a young age, is helping spread and water the seed that is not letting anyone heal from the shit that was organized in the 1990s. I wish you well.