AfD is the most popular party in Germany for the first time, with a record 26%
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Germans literally have so many choices of political parties that they can actually elect, why do they have to go for the worst one AfD?
its a few factors in play, one is the normalization of far-right policies by the other big parties (SPD, Greens, Union) and their inability to fix the damage caused by the financial crisis of 2008, the rise of anti-migrant beliefs in the german working class, and a few others
i think this video explains well the rise of the AfD in germany, at this point its only a matter of time until one or more parties decide to make a coalition with the AfD
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Just looking at the people around me (mostly colleagues, I'm not friends with this kind of people) it's no surprise, when just about anything triggers them to vote AfD. Some actual examples:
"We have a vegetarian day at the cafeteria now. Stupid Greens forcing me to not eat meat one day a week. I'm going to vote AfD next election."
"They built a new bicycle lane on my way to work. Now I'm forced to stick to the speed limit because of all the bicyclists on MY road blocking me. It's a straight street, I should be able to go 80 even though it's inner city. I've always been going 80 there! Stupid Greens, I'm going to vote AfD next election."
"Supplier X stopped issuing their bikini model calendar. Everything is forbidden nowadays! Noone ever cared for bikini model calenders, but the Greens want to forbid every little piece of fun. Stupid woke culture. I'm going to vote AfD."
And let's not forget that one boss who told me that my life-threatening nut allergy was woke nonsense, because back in his day "everybody just ate what's on the table and noone died, but nowadays everybody has to feel special by making up things they won't eat."
They just want to go back to 1950s culture, when gay people, trans people, allergies, ADHD, autism, veganism, climate change and anything other than straight white dudes and straight white housewives "didn't exist", because how dare the world be more complex than a Rosamunde Pilcher movie.
The German mindset to capitulate in the face of challenges that cant be solved by doing how things where allways done (since kohl).
By god, nobody wants things like wealth and inheritance taxes to be done like way back when (when they existed).
Ok, unfair the majority of Germans wants them, but this great democracy continuously produces Governments for and by the 1% irrespective of your vote.
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Don't overinterpret my tongue-in-cheek wording there. Afd is fearmongering about Muslims, Afd wants mass deportation of foreigners, Afd wants an end to to the right to asylum, and Afd wants people with multiple citizenships to give up their German citizenship so they can be deported. And given that they are the German party who got support from Elmo this past election, none of this should be a surprise.
You’re misrepresenting their policies.
https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-12_afd-grundsatzprogramm-englisch_web.pdf
Show me in there which policies you’re referring to please?
By mass deportation of foreigners do you mean illegal immigrants?
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You’re misrepresenting their policies.
https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-12_afd-grundsatzprogramm-englisch_web.pdf
Show me in there which policies you’re referring to please?
By mass deportation of foreigners do you mean illegal immigrants?
I am not. Their election program is misrepresenting their worldview to a degree. This is a legal strategy to avoid being too bannable by courts, nothing more. But look at quotes from influential people like Björn Höcke, Max Krah, Rene Aust, Lena Kotre or ...
By mass deportation of foreigners do you mean illegal immigrants?
Almost anyone who wants to claim asylum in Germany, needs to cross the border unlawfully, in their world view that makes people "illegal". The term is used to discredit people whether they ultimately gain asylum or a protection status or not.
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I don’t think you know what authoritarianism actually is.
I have relatives in China and Vietnam and lived in both places for extended periods of time... well, let's just say i have a rough estimate...
Ok so those examples then?
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I am not. Their election program is misrepresenting their worldview to a degree. This is a legal strategy to avoid being too bannable by courts, nothing more. But look at quotes from influential people like Björn Höcke, Max Krah, Rene Aust, Lena Kotre or ...
By mass deportation of foreigners do you mean illegal immigrants?
Almost anyone who wants to claim asylum in Germany, needs to cross the border unlawfully, in their world view that makes people "illegal". The term is used to discredit people whether they ultimately gain asylum or a protection status or not.
So their policy documents etc are lies? Based on what? Verifiable proof would be great. What is being misrepresented in there exactly?
Can you provide some of these quotes that go against their policies and confirm what you’re saying they want to do?
Ok so you do mean illegal immigrants. Can someone apply for asylum in Germany without illegally entering the country? A quick google shows that that is what the AfD are proposing - asylum seekers apply before entering the country. Germany isn’t an island so that shouldn’t be too difficult, and seems reasonable. What is the issue with only people who are granted asylum being allowed in?
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AfD is using fascist manipulation using propaganda (always putting immigrants and immigrant attacks in the spotlight) to gain power and discriminate immigrants even more, causing more retaliation which in turn makes people give the AfD even more power.
In a tolerant society we should not be tolerant of such intolerance.
I'm an American. I really hope the German masses can learn this lesson before it"s too late.
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in most contexts here ive heard "liberal" used to describe neoliberalism rather then leftism or libertarianism (though I know many conservatives in the US use it as a catch all for the left)
I'm American and I use the term "liberal" specifically to refer to neoliberals. I'm probably in the minority, though, especially given Fox News and GamerGate.
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Unfortunately, the other parties are very well taking up the Nazis' lies. The Nazis are playing the political establishment like a fiddle.
To stick with your example of the potato sack, the established parties do just jump the Nazi bandwagon and parrot their narrative in a less extreme manner, like "Illegal immigrants kicking over potato sacks is a severe problem, we need to protect our potato sacks by border controls and increased deportations."
Just as one AfD politician remarked last year, (after the election in Thuringia, if I recall right) the AfD is ruling without actually being in the government.
This reflects American politics as well.
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This reflects American politics as well.
I think the problem can be summed up as poll driven politics.
It's a feedback loop, they do focus on a topic some opinion poll has shown to be somewhat popular, the resulting exposure increases popularity, which reflects in the polls, which leads to increased political focus on the topic...
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One out every four people you meet being a literal nazi is tough tho
sadly, it's basically expected that about 15-30% of the population are far-right xenophobes. the question is how well they can be mobilized.
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So their policy documents etc are lies? Based on what? Verifiable proof would be great. What is being misrepresented in there exactly?
Can you provide some of these quotes that go against their policies and confirm what you’re saying they want to do?
Ok so you do mean illegal immigrants. Can someone apply for asylum in Germany without illegally entering the country? A quick google shows that that is what the AfD are proposing - asylum seekers apply before entering the country. Germany isn’t an island so that shouldn’t be too difficult, and seems reasonable. What is the issue with only people who are granted asylum being allowed in?
So their policy documents etc are lies? Based on what?
Their policy documents are half-truths that point in a direction, their speeches in front of followers are often more to the point.
And these quote collections are really all over the German-language interwebs, e.g. https://www.watson.ch/international/rechtsextremismus/291420759-rechtsextremismus-in-der-afd-diese-21-zitate-sprechen-fuer-sich
And guess what kind of materials court proceedings against Afd would be based on? Quotes and overheard conversations.
Ok so you do mean illegal immigrants.
I don't. People aren't "illegal", unless you dabble in dehumanizing language.
Can someone apply for asylum in Germany without illegally entering the country?
No, with the
A quick google shows that that is what the AfD are proposing - asylum seekers apply before entering the country.
It's a fairly transparent proposal to remove the rights of asylum seekers for any kind of due process and remove any kind of oversight. Regular German judges, lawyers, civil-rights organizations will all be far away.
Some private operator will get rich off running an internment camp. An airline will get rich off the flights there.
"The refugee doesn't care at which border he dies, the Greek or German." - Günter Lenhardt, AfD
Germany isn’t an island so that shouldn’t be too difficult, and seems reasonable.
Germany is part of the EU, Germany is part of the Schengen agreement that is supposed to guarantee free movement within Europe, and Germany should help the EU as a whole succeed. The latter includes integrating refugees into the society.
large number of people who are not granted asylum just staying illegally, as the current situation in the USA shows.
How do people that just live and go to work hurt the system? (I.e. the vastest majority of undocumented and overstaying immigrants.)
Yeah, and the US is currently doing a bang-up job deporting family father of 3 with no priors while not getting ahold of people who actually are criminal. (Iirc, 90% of the nameless, supposed "worst of the worst" gang members recently from the US had no priors.)
Incidentally, on a much smaller scale, so is Germany: Deporting the easy people, the people who show up to appointments and live at their registered place of residence.
They try to deport illegals who have lived there for 13+ years without even attempting to get asylum, and everyone blows up at them saying they should just leave them alone.
Possibly because these people likely are a net positive to society, have built a life, have friends, have integrated to a degree, just normal humaning.
If someone wants to rent my property I don’t let them stay in it while I process their application.
Cool story.
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It's mostly East Germany. Communism's fuckups in that area are still causing suffering today.
Put looting the east via Treuhand on that list...
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It's mostly East Germany. Communism's fuckups in that area are still causing suffering today.
Unfortunately, that's not the only reason. We have 16 Bundesländer (states). 5 of them are in the East. But they have hardly more inhabitants than Bavaria. So a lot of us in the "Real Germany" (the western states) are voting those AHs too.
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I think the problem can be summed up as poll driven politics.
It's a feedback loop, they do focus on a topic some opinion poll has shown to be somewhat popular, the resulting exposure increases popularity, which reflects in the polls, which leads to increased political focus on the topic...
In America at least, this is as a direct result of corporate media and money in politics both controlling the narrative. None of this was naturally occurring.
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its a few factors in play, one is the normalization of far-right policies by the other big parties (SPD, Greens, Union) and their inability to fix the damage caused by the financial crisis of 2008, the rise of anti-migrant beliefs in the german working class, and a few others
i think this video explains well the rise of the AfD in germany, at this point its only a matter of time until one or more parties decide to make a coalition with the AfD
nd their inability to fix the damage caused by the financial crisis of 2008
That's absolutely not it. Germany went through the crisis of 2008 like a breeze. In 2015 during the refugee crisis, Merkel decided to open our borders to all of the refugees. Before that, the AfD had below 10% of the voters on their side. But a huge chunk of the population did not agree to Merkel's refugee policies. That's when the AfD took off. And now we can't get rif of them
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In America at least, this is as a direct result of corporate media and money in politics both controlling the narrative. None of this was naturally occurring.
Not that different in Germany. The biggest difference in the media landscape, difference, the pretty large public broadcasters aren't really a difference, because their governing bodies and leadership positions are stuffed with (ex) politicians and their relatives.
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Not that different in Germany. The biggest difference in the media landscape, difference, the pretty large public broadcasters aren't really a difference, because their governing bodies and leadership positions are stuffed with (ex) politicians and their relatives.
Same thing here, but with basically every industry and not just news media. We call it the "revolving door" effect.
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Same thing here, but with basically every industry and not just news media. We call it the "revolving door" effect.
The revolving door effect is separate from large political parties' influence on public broadcasters, but it exists, too. It, and many other forms of legalised corruption, has led to an erosion of trust in politicians and political institutions in which the Nazis of the AfD thrieve.
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As a crimson lining, I hope the United State's decay will teach Germany to destroy the AfD and all other right wingers. They are a poison to civilization.
