Germany updates: AfD tops poll with highest support ever

The billionaire backed right wing takeover playbook is international - not just the US. Billionaires are a plague on democracies everywhere.

russian backed afd party too.
- Exactly! So many people fall in this Russian trap, not even understanding that it's only goal is division and destabilization.
I don't understand why the billionaires think they are somehow off limits or immune to social chaos. They will always be surrounded by the working class, since someone needs to cook their food, wash their clothes, and raise their kids.
- Never underestimate the arrogance of billionaires. They get surrounded by sycophants that inflate their egos to near godly proportions.
- They are creating compounds, underground bunkers, they have islands and mega yachts, and they are even trying to get into space. They know what their plans are, and they know it will get really, really bad at some point, and they do not plan on being among the rest of us when that happens.

I believe the results mainly reflect the anti-immigration sentiment.

I'm a naturalized immigrant in Germany myself and don't understand the trend at all. I imagine that supporting certain immigration groups might stretch the social support system in the country, but it's the faulty of the system itself, no? I get the vibe that it's the immigrants who are the problem, and that we are somehow worse humans than the natives and set our minds on causing problems just for the fuck of it.

Can someone explain why immigration is a problem for Europe? It seem to be the good old xenophobia... Or maybe I'm biased.

it's a "problem" just about everywhere right now, I'm in Canada and the anti-Indian rhetoric is through the roof here.
why? Because we're all collectively broke. If there wasn't an immigration issue, and we were still all collectively broke, then the blame would fall on the backs of people even poorer than us.
When the cost of living is unaffordable everywhere, when there's no housing anywhere, when jobs are hard to obtain the defacto fall back crutch is....blame the immigrants. History doesn't repeat but it sure as fuck rhymes.
- The anti Indian rhetoric is kind of warranted. Speak to one who immigrated years ago and ask what they think of the Indians coming here today and they will tell you why

How!? Where are these numbers coming from? In Germany of all places!?

Hmm, the guy who manipulated his stock price to make himself the richest man in the world and fixed the election for Trump also supported AfD. Surely it's a coincidence
- There is money required for running campaigns and advertisements and making deals.
  What it won't do is magically populate a country with fascists, supremacists, and other extreme right wing types. Those would have to already be around.

Do you have a country for me to fuck off to in a few years.

Any stable democracies?

Ireland didn’t elect McGregor as president. They might be worth your time.
Canada is my only hope. Please Canadians, don't go insane, too.
- If you believe that you haven't been watching. Conservatives nearly got a majority last election.
Iceland
- We don’t need any more tourists, thank you.
Antartica

The German government has to get going to finally show some tangible results. The last government, at least at the end, did basically nothing, the current one is not fulfilling its promises, either, and people are left standing, seeing that money is spent everywhere but for the peoples needs.

The chancellor is 100% in the pockets of the rich, so properly taxing the top 5% to get the money to fix things is completely out of question. But that is a problem other governments seem to have, too. As if fairly taxing the rich was against some physical law of the universe. Or if taxing capital income as high as income from work would open the gates of hell.

Correction for you: the last government was heavily criticized by the media about the most absurd things nonstop for years.
The media could have used all this energy to write against the afd and we would have a different result now. Apparently it was more important to shit on a left wing liberal government than to save democracy.
Our worst chancellor since 1945 used the program of the afd as his own to keep them small. This never works. This always legitimizes right wing populist parties and does not weaken them.
The current government may not even last 4 years and then its pro Putin fascists in power.
- That's the problem. The current government has to deliver. FAST. And they have not understood that yet, I'm afraid.

It seems that the article only mentions numbers for Frankfurt.

It is a f*cking disgrace for the US and even more for Europe electing fascists.

Electing opinions over facts. But as an european I'm not surprised, sadly.

UK, France, and now Germany. The far-right really is winning everywhere huh... What can we do? Is there still hope?

It's happening here in Australia too. I'm watching the slow rise after being lucky enough to escape the US.
I wrote about my experience going to a racist rally a month or so ago with my husband and children.
It was supposed to be peaceful and I wouldn't have expected to be putting my kids in danger.
Yeah, we take it to the source: Russian propaganda should be completely cut off from the rest of the internet.
- The source of fascism is Europe itself, not Russia. We literally invented fascism, first in Italy, then Germany and finally allowed it to live unbothered in Spain.
  Russian media was censored already what, two years ago? And the far right keeps exploding in popularity. Europe can't keep blaming the Russians for every bad thing happening in the continent, we have a responsibility in fighting fascism and waving hands saying it's somebody else's fault isn't going to solve it.
  Racism, misogyny, islamophobia and the total loss of faith in the current system are the main reasons for far-right vote. Europe has been in an economic crisis since 2008, and electing socdems or christiandemocrats has led to the exact same policy everywhere for the past 17 years: austerity, austerity, and more austerity. Kid Starver in England, supposed labour party, enacts policy as far-right as the far-right government in Finland, both countries driving hundreds of thousands of people into poverty and austerity.
  What we need to fight fascism in Europe is what worked last time: less hand-waving, and more worker organizing. Whether you like or dislike the anarchists from the CNT in Spain, or the communists from the CPSU in the east, they were the only ones who meaningfully fought, and in the latter case ultimately defeated fascism. Organize, unionize, join local worker struggles, push for international worker solidarity with Palestine.
idk, honestly. usually this kind of tribalism burns itself out after a World War and a bunch of atrocities. there's a global empathy shortage.. too much hate and too little love.
- usually this kind of tribalism burns itself out after a World War and a bunch of atrocities. there's a global empathy shortage.. too much hate and too little love.
  It's the understandable pent up anger because of failed promises by ruling elites, hiding behind fake smiles and platitudes, who are supposed to be representative of the people. The older I get, the less the Star Wars Prequel becomes meesa Jar Jar-y. Lucas touched on toxic masculinity and the lack of positive male role models, and I think he saw something in history that none of us have twenty years ago, on how toxic masculinity influences real politics. It's obvious now how fascism has connection to toxic masculinity, but I think only few saw it at the time.
Fascism is a disease that spread rapidly in last century: 10-15 years. Imagine how fast it can spread in a world with Internet, cars, airplanes and trains. No place is safe
Do a little honest introspection you leftie. (I'm leftist too)
The only time nazis go down is when they are put down. The free world needs strength to do what's necessary and avoid the paradox of tolerance.
- The only time nazis go down is when they are put down
  Usually by communists in particular

Well one of the downside of learning German after living blissfully ignorant for over a decade here is that I can now understand Germans talking around me, and holy fuck have I been exposed to such rampant racism. Kinda explains both the Nazi past, and the current popularity of AfD, and upcoming future Holocaust 2.0.

To be honest the far right is up in a lot of places.
This is a result of the ever growing divide between the rich and the poor, the cost of living crisis, the AI future where a lot of young individuals are struggling finding jobs, the unaffordability of living spaces, etc.
Look what is happening in the US, that's what's scarier, where the right-wing is thriving and they are turning into an autocratic state, with suppression of civil liberties, abuse of power, etc. And they are desperately trying to export this ideology across the Atlantic. They don't want a strong EU, that can threaten their hegemony and they consider the EU as a threat, long gone are the days of friendship and partnership.
Germans for you: https://youtu.be/6MSMjuhJ224

I keep saying it again and again, but this is the future of European politics. The "progressive" brand of politics that was very pro-immigration in the 2000s and 2010s is dead. The establishment parties that are choosing to cling to it are going to get burned by this gamble.

The reality is that Western Europe handled immigration horribly and there are real issues and people are facing real consequences. The reasonable course of action to address these issues and try to resolve them. However, establishment parties simply refuse to do anything. They either pretend these issues don't exist or that they're not that bad, and then blame any criticism of these issues or policies as racists. It is a stupid and elitist approach that is leading people to seek out alternatives.

What's the alternative? It's these far right parties, they're the only ones who address the issues of immigration and want to do something about them. The polls regularly show that these far right parties are entirely fueled by anti-immigration sentiment. That is why people flock to them and why they're relevant. Their prominence in European politics sends a loud statement as to the failures of the establishment parties. They're so incompetent and out of touch, that they're being bested by foreign funded grifter parties that offer worse policies and more extreme rhetoric.

But it doesn't have to be this way. These far right parties are only inevitable if the establishment parties double down on their mistakes. But what if they don't do that? What if they wise up and adapt to the current political climate, what would happen? Well there is a country who's establishment parties did this, and that's Denmark. It is the only Western European country where it's establishment left wing parties figured out the secret formula. They kept the popular economic and social policies, but also adopted a reasonable anti-immigration platform to match the will of the people, and guess what? It worked, Denmark doesn't have a far right party surging in the polls. They kept what worked, and fixed what didn't, thus leading them to neutralize the far right. This is the model that the rest of Europe is going to find itself adopting sooner or later.

A country should never give into its worst tendencies. There has been plenty of racism already, more isn't going to fix it and it won't fix you.
- Equating reasonable immigration policy with racism is false and wrong. This is the mentality that the far right exploits to boost their popularity. If the left refuses to be practical and flexible on immigration policy, then their inability to adapt will be their downfall. Europe has to follow the Danish model or these far right parties will continue to grow in popularity and win elections... That's not a future I want to see
- Maybe you are agreeing, but it's unclear.
  Adopting a reasonable immigration policy isn't giving into their worst tendencies, it's dealing with a situation in a responsible manner, so that extremists don't fill the vacuum with THEIR unreasonable solutions.
That's a whole lot of words to try and justify racism.
- Reasonable immigration policy is not racism, you're a part of the problem that's fueling the far right.

Fascism is back like in the late 1920s, we all know what happened right after.

NGL, I dont know what happens after this time. It seems like the entire west is turning to fascism so I'm not really sure who'd fight it
- What gets me is that it's all a response to the generally centre right governments focusing on business for the last 45 years. Government has forgotten about the individual in the west. And the people have had enough.
  Why then, do they turn further right? This should be bonanza time for the left.
  Far right parties are happy to tell lies to get into power, so the people hear what they want to hear.
  100 years is too long for living memory to survive.
- I'm not sure anyone really fought it last time. The wars didn't start until Germany started invading other nations which is what started the shooting.
  The US didn't even enter the war until it was bombed.
  "We fought fascism" is a bit of retroactive justification IMHO. We didn't, we were just defending ourselves from fascists who attacked first.
  If Hitler stayed in Germany... Who knows?
- Yeah, history doesn't provide much help in this regard because fascism was stopped by the Axis losing a war. That's not happening this time.
- It'll be the communist in China who will fight fascism. But even China's claim as being a communist is questionable since the 1990's.
But who's going to be the Allies this time?
- Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and others will make sure there will be no "Allies" this time...
- China. It's the socialist industrial power of today, and the west keeps positioning itself geopolitically against it.

You can see what's happening in the USA, Germany. That's really what you want for yourself? Again?

Pretty much all the adults from WWII are dead. Notice we're doing the same stupid shit? Gilded Age wealth gap, tariffs, fascism, heading for a depression, etc.?
Yes. Unfortunately people are that dumb.
I have no part in this. Neither do my peers. Lies, deception, easy answers to complex questions and a lack in education are doing this.

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Don’t say that too loud, they might find a reason to send you off to something like alligator alcatraz once they’re in power.
Apparently, those people mysteriously disappeared.
Don't let them get to you. Its like 1000 people doing this. We can change it still.
- I wish I believed you. I try to keep my defeatism to myself but the overwhelming majority of people around me IRL are going around like nothing is happening, ignoring current events in the name of self care. Must be fucking nice.

Do better, Germany

It's the scars of reunification. The east has a lot of people left behind.
- Nah its scars of not doing anything to fight the bad guys and just "carrying on" until the fucming mold just keeps on growing.
- Yes, it should have been done much better
- Eastern Germany is like the US South in that regard.
- It's not the scars of reunification. The same trend happens in France, Italy or Spain. It's the European neoliberal capitalist austerity model.
Sorry can't. Police and courts will stop anyone from taking out nazis themselves.

FUCK

Danke, Fotzenfritz!

Der wollte doch die Faschos halbieren, oder?
- Yo, läuft super.

The strategy laid out in Foundations of Geopolitics in 1997 is being implemented

Is there any context to add which makes it less appalling than it seems?

There isn't a federal election until 2029, so these polls really don't matter.
- that is not true. it is a snapshot of current voter mentality. if this doesn't turn around it's only going to grow and get worse. that's what this is useful for.
- Right and the current government is right-wing neoliberals. They're only going to make everyone's lives worse so unless die Linke manages to drastically improve its reach, the discontented masses will continue to move towards fascism.
Based on my conversation with some Germans, even if afd did have the most offices held, they wouldn't have the majority. The other parties would tend to work together and afd would tend to be on their own.
- This is only partially correct. The CDU (conservatives) has growing faction in it that wants to "normalize" relations with AfD and enter a coalition with them. Steigbügelhalter is gonna halt Steigbügel.
- A party not having the majority doesn't stop fascism from taking over as Germany well knows.

I really hope France has nukes in Germany this go around.

France is going down the same path, as are Italy and Spain.
- France's people are revolting better than most. There's hope for them. Italy I have low expectations for.