A German county elected a far-right candidate for the first time since the Nazi era, raising concern
A German county elected a far-right candidate for the first time since the Nazi era, raising concern
If the politics don't change and stop pushing a neoliberal agenda, it won't stop. Inequalities are rising in Europe, what makes the far right “against the system” semantic looking nice. It's up to the traditional parties to change and stop the last 40 years of politics to stop this rise.
I agree. Major parties are increasingly at odds with voter sentiment, then everyone pretends to be surprised when voters turn to smaller parties. Migration is a massive issue in Europe following the 2015 Refugee Crisis. Very little has been done to solve the resulting major social issues. Instead, many parties are doubling down on policies which have been a complete failure.
Denmark is a really interesting case study. Their large leftwing party started losing votes on the migration issue, so they stole policies from the right and implemented them in a softer, more moderate manner. They proceeded to dominate polls for years. I don’t understand why leftwing parties across Europe don’t replicate that. Surely it is preferable to be in the driver’s seat to shape how migration is controlled, rather than being relegated to being a spectator for the next decade.
Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk. Democracy will prevail and Europeans will ultimately decide the fate of their nations.
It’s a global issue though. Capitalism is demanding cheap labor fodder, and sooner or later societies will crack. See how in the whole western world, which has a comparatively high living standard, fascism Is on the rise?
Yeah the problem is that the world is kind of running out of dictatorships and underdeveloped countries that "first world countries" can exploit without a second thought - so the reality of having to adapt to a far less glamorous life will have to settle in sooner or later for a lot of those richer countries as there is a huge divide between their lifestyle and moral values.
So the easiest solution for a lot of them is to put moral values aside and be egoistic and imho that's what leading to a lot of the shitty stuff that we see happening today all over the world.
The only way to keep living while exploiting people halfway across the world is telling yourself that those people are "worth less" and there you have the necessary first step for racism/fascism/populism to latch onto
The thing is, the AFD, apart from being Nazis, are also neoliberal. Only an idiot (who also likes Nazis) will vote for them over disliking neoliberalism.
People don't dislike neoliberalism, they dislike the effects it has on society. But they fail to connect the dots.
Instead, conservative parties everywhere are trying to tap into the fascism for extra votes.
That might be workable in the long run, but let's face it. AfD took advantage of racism and likely the ignorance in former Soviet region.
It's not like policy can change the mind of mad, emotional and uneducated creatures.
What do you mean by "neoliberal"? I feel like most of our political parties (here in Canada) are way more conservative than most people I know.
The canadian conservative party is largely neoliberal. Neoliberalism is generally in favor of lower regulations, lower taxes and more private sector presence.
As a Canadian as well, I find our parties to be extremely Left leaning, even the Conservative party isn't very Right leaning.
Sadly the denazification was overall a joke and not a success as many claim it to be. The trials held were just for show. Barely any people ended up paying for what they did. Most people that collaborated with the nazi party just signed a piece of paper saying they weren’t Nazis and they were good to go. No such thing as real denazification ever happened.
One other problem is how history is taught.
At one point, fascism was taught as "evil people marching with evil symbols, to do evil things, for the sake of evil". Essentially the nazis were reduced to Saturday morning cartoon villains, erasing the memories of how they manipulated the minds of the common people.
This gives an opportunity for modern nazis. And since most people don't know what kind of manipulation tactics they use, they can still use the same ones in new costume (see "great replacement", the "groomer" panic, etc.).
At one point, fascism was taught as “evil people marching with evil symbols, to do evil things, for the sake of evil”. Essentially the nazis were reduced to Saturday morning cartoon villains, erasing the memories of how they manipulated the minds of the common people.
That really wasn't my experience when I went to school in Germany. Nazi Germany was a major topic for many years and across different subjects and included a visit to a former concentration camp. At some point it got a little tiring but it was definitely not simplified in any way.
This is absolutely not how it is taught in Germany. If anything, our education concerning the WW2 era is what is making germany lag so far behind the other EU states when it comes to far right votes.
We are taught at length the underlying issues that were plaguing germany after WW1; social, economical, political, and how all of them contributed together to the rise of the third reich.
That’s why Germans are also very very wary when we spot developments in our country (or other countries, for that matter) that mirror the conditions in that time.
EvErYonE i Disagree with is a NAZI!!!!!
You are litterally defending nazis in another thread. Never seen people take offense with what you're quoting except your kind of people.
Ribbit
Social media misinformation is far from being the largest cause. There are so many people living in villages and islands that aren't educated, and fully believe the far right's fairy tales about how they're going to fix the system and restore things to how they used to be.
I agree about social media though, I think that the EU needs to give Meta, Google and Twitter an ultimatum: Fix your algorithms in order not to create echo chambers of misinformation otherwise you're gone from every EU country.
As an aside, since it's an area where I see a lot of misconceptions, AFAIK, algorithms aren't purposefully trying to promote alt right views. But rather alt right views are usually outrage driven and outrage drives consumption, which is what the algorithms are trying to maximize.
Though I completely agree that all the social media, search, AI, etc companies need to do far more to combat disinformation. Most of them seem to try to be "neutral" and assume good faith, but those are things that the alt right playbook actively tries to exploit. There's a very famous quote by Jean-Paul Sartre:
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
I think a lot of tech companies (except Twitter -- that's gone full Nazi) are full of people trying to maximize profits by attempting to be as centrist as possible, trying not to piss off either "side". But they either don't understand how fascism spreads or don't care, so their actions are resulting in spreading harm.
Alternative for Germany are performing alarmingly well in Eastern Germany. They're already the second-largest party in several Landtags including Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia. They're also overtaking the incumbent party in opinion polls and are pretty much poised to be the ruling party across multiple German states.
Thankfully, I don't see AfD leading the country, but Merkel opening the floodgates to mass migration has spooked a lot of people into right-wing voting.
We should be more worried about France swinging to the far-right. Le Pen has a very good chance of winning the next election in 2027, especially with how badly Macron and Renaissance have tanked their reputations.
...but Merkel opening the floodgates to mass migration
Please don't replicate right-wing talking points. She didn't open any gates - she just decided (contrary to all countries around us) to not suddenly shut our open borders when millions fled war and were seeking for refuge.
She basically did, what she always excelled at: sitting it out and doing nothing, then selling it as her political success. Active change was her constant enemy.
I don't have a deep knowledge of German politics but I do know that a major shift towards AfD is very alarming, especially when the main focus around NATO, the EEC and post-war European politics has been to prevent another Fascist uprising.
This isn't me disagreeing with Merkel's decision to take in refugees, but it was unwise from a national/European security perspective to not close the borders and properly vet arrivals. But I do think the swing towards AfD especially in East Germany has coincided with this crisis.
Hopefully it doesn't turn out as bad as France
The concerns should have been raised long before it even reached this point, but I guess even in Germany the willingness to preserve the memory of the atrocities they committed as a nation is beginning to wane.
And it didn't even take 100 years, though when you look at who they're playing against (the even bigger imperialists and colonisers who have never even pretended to be sorry), it's almost impressive.
But only almost.
The concerns were raised but ignored by the media and in politics. It doesn't stop people from voting for right-wing parties if you just insult them as right-wing and never do anything about their concerns. At some point they just accept that mark and act accordingly.
So let me just clarify before I jump to the wrong conclusion, in case there's some language barrier going on here or something, though I'm pretty confident I understand you perfectly well:
You're saying it's the concerns of the Nazis that should have been listened to, and think that because they weren't, a Nazi got elected? As, what, "payback"?
Globalization's beating will continue until moral improves.
As concerning as this is, luckily it is „only“ a major of a small area of the former sovjet zone. The party or the mayor won’t gain influence in the federation.
The people over there are strangely attracted to the propaganda. I really hope this isn’t the new trend for whole Germany, I still have hope we are not that dumb (again).
Unfortunately it seems to be a trend for the whole western world. There has been a steady shift to the right in politics in Europe and America for a couple of decades now. And I think it'll get a whole hell of a lot worse before it gets better. There are no quick fixes. There are no easy solutions. The left needs to get its act together and present a viable alternative.
The problem is money, right wing politicians are a great return on investment to large corporations. Money always sides with fascism.
The people over there are strangely attracted to the propaganda
It's due to the schools in the DDR. Kids growing up there didn't learn a lot about Nazis and also didn't have access to lots of media to teach themselves. Besides they had other problems to deal with.
Then Germany got reunited and one half of the country was completely uneducated about Nazi Germany.
Not to forget most Teachers and professors were still Nazis due to the lack of denazification.
I thought this was a portrait of Adolf Hitler with a pride flag background at first glance 😂
There is no concern: 1 - I bet it's only in east germany 2 - It's mostly just 60 y/os who vote them
There is no concern
The guy was elected!
And that's how they win. They make everyone else think there's no concern.
"It's only group X". And then later "it's only groups X and Y", there's still no concern. And then "it's only groups X, Y and Z, we can still outvote them..."
I don’t think there is concern. In the age of uncertainty, massive inequality, cultural clash between immigrants and locals, people either turn far left or far right. But the far left are always clinging on the legacy of Marx and forgot how to adapt their ideology to modern world that only far right are evolving. Or they are trying idolise Mao/ Lenin which is not very saint as well.
The only thing to stop them popping out is built a better society that is with positive growth, good wealth distribution, high employment rate, good equality, which is not going to happen in the current political climate. Blaming people who vote for them is really not a good take as if people are willingly destroy their own country. Storm is brewing and once again the rich will take their money and leave to hide in nice tropical islands while ordinary people are punching each other in the face for a slice of bread.
I think one of the main problems is that there's no "home" for people leaning left. The SPD has long dropped the "S" from it's name, it's just another conservative party representing those who are already well-off, without any ideas or plans to improve life for those who are exploited in our current system. Die Linke is completely detached from reality and too busy with fighting between themselves to address the giant issues that they should have the answers for. Greens are a climate/environment party first and they're too elitist to pick up any of the angry people who (rightfully) feel like they've been cheated by the system.
So when you have a well organized, populist party on the far-right that provides (wrong) answers for those people, it's no wonder they flock to them. Of course, you'll always have those who are actual fascists and will always vote for a fascist party, but a strong left could easily draw a lot of the other voters away from the AfD.
But the far left are always clinging on the legacy of Marx and forgot how to adapt their ideology to modern world that only far right are evolving. Or they are trying idolise Mao/ Lenin which is not very saint as well.
Not that much in my experience, they rather cling to, I think, unrealistically high expectations on the human nature or culture, especially about the ability of people to work, share wealth and respect things purely based on philosophy without needing constrains such as requiring a job to live, police and hierarchy.
As a former "text book" leftist I am inclined to agree that good will alone is not enough for humanity in its current state to operate a society on, and that many current day leftists are wearing the same rose tinted goggles for the USSR and China that the right wears for the 50s.
We need both incentives as well as strict limits to remain within healthy behavior at large, otherwise we end up with apathetic full time unemployed people on the lower end as well as cancerous outgrowths like individuals possessing billions, living like feudal lords of medieval times.
Incentives tied to employment in the current form are not practical any more though. With continuing industrialization, automation, and the emergence of artificial intelligence on the horizon the economies of the world simply don’t need those people as workers any more. This leads to the UBI as the next logical conclusion to provide the consumer base our economies depend on with disposable income to participate as well as a means of securing their essential needs. This then means the incentive must be different, personal ideas are to tie the UBI to the individual being at least x hours per month engaged in some kind of productive and/or creative outlet, be it education, community work, pursuing interests, or some other form of value provided to society based on the individual‘s interests and abilities.
Basically the Star Trek federation philosophy of personal improvement (enhanced with some basic incentive to participate), mixed with the communist idea of assigning professions based on ability, except with the individual freedom to choose instead. Do something worthwhile, and if it’s just pursuing a hobby, and thats good enough.
I'd add that, more than anything else, leftist fixation on older theory is more than just idolizing people who are not very "saintly."
I think, at its core, older leftist theory is still very geared toward an industrial society. It found purchase primarily among trade unions representing industrial workers, and in some ways, I don't think we have adequately "adapted" to a post-industrial world.
Don't get me wrong, the core tenets of labor participation, labor mobilization, and mass action will probably be relevant tools up and until mass automation occurs across the board. But we don't have the same working class base we did a century ago. I'd be interested in seeing a greater emphasis on incorporating, in addition to traditionally working class people in trades and "unskilled services," white collar workers that are nominally distinct from the former groups but are still nevertheless abused and exploited like everyone else.
Obviously, someone who makes $50k/year doing back breaking labor is objectively worse off and more exploited than someone making $100k/year in a computer science or similar field, but the computer science person is probably getting shit on too.
This is the fault of the existing left-wing parties that allowed unlimited migration to Germany in 2015.
You believe the rise in support of parties with racist ideologies is because of ... Other parties not being racist enough?
Cool take on the issue, bud.
link to the policy that allows for "unlimited migration to Germany in 2015". i'd like to see it.
Politicians have been letting hordes of immigrants for the past years. One would imagine with all the problems they cause people would react.
Let me fix that comment for you, since you seem to be missing a few key words...
Politicians have been letting hordes of immigrants for the past years. One would imagine with all the problems they cause, horrible racist asshole people would react.
“Far-right” candidate and party which… checks notes… supports free speech, democracy, and rule of law. The article appears to throw around the term as a pejorative but it doesn’t even appear to be accurate.
Leading figures of the AfD are outright fascists (to the degree that it was ruled in court that one of its most prominent members can rightfully be called a Nazi).
Just because they don't step into parliament and declare Germany a dictatorship doesn't mean they aren't a threat to democracy and won't nudge the country towards facism once in power.
Where do you get the "supporters of free speech, democracy and rule of law" thing from.Oh, it's how the party describes itself? Well that's reliable...
The AfD is nothing of anything you just mentioned. Especially in Thüringen where this clusterfuck is taking place, the AfD is as much full-on Nazi-mode as you couldn’t imagine in your wildest wet dreams about the Führer in latex underwear.
Thüringen übersetzt man mit Thuringia in Englisch.