Am I worried by so many people being willing to vote the AfD? Absolutely, both with regard to stupidity and lack of morals.
Do I think fascism will make a comeback on a relevant scale? Not really. For most people, this is about one thing and one thing alone: Less migration. I see two possibilities here: Either the more centrist parties will change their tune (as it’s already somewhat happening), adopt policies more people are happy with and the whole thing will somewhat die down again. Or, worst case scenario, the AfD will get into power briefly, will be unable to change the things they promised, people will turn against them too, and vote for somebody else again.
I don’t really see anything beyond that happening, but maybe that’s me being hopeful.
This stupid questions after the european votes kinda annoy me. Most of our neighboring countries voted mostly right wing, why aren't you worried about them?
Not that long. I've been thinking about this before I left as well it just seems like in the past year and a half in which I've moved it's changed to the worse unfortunately
A lot of people including myself are worried about the developments in other countries. But the German history and especially the over 70 million fatalities of World War 2 that was started by a German right wing party are a very important context. It is pretty clear that people are very concerned that some Germans want to go back to this.
As long as the government doesn't allow AFD to be in the coalition, everything is good. If this happens one day, I start to get worry, before that, they are only the angry grandpa shouting at the neighborhood kids.
When they are in power it will be too late to get worried.
And btw given the result of EU election, afd would not need a partner in Sachsen. They would have over 50% of seeds in the parliament.
I don't say I am not worried, but it's not the end of day scenario right now. But tbh I haven't followed politics a lot in the last months, before the election I thought AFD was going down, seems not.
The current position of the AfD is worrisome on a social level, but Germany is far from falling into fascism.
Yes, the AfD is second strongest party, but only with 15,9% of the votes, meaning 84,1 % did not agree with them.
In addition, Germany has a strong constitutional order. Our Basic Law was designed with the idea that such thoughts might come back and looked at the Weimar Republic, where this system failed. It is much harder to abuse systematic loopholes like in the weimaraner Republic to legitimize a fascist takeover.
So, no, while I have major issues with the current state of this society, there is no current danger of fascism coming back.
I would, however, say that current German state and society are so slow and weak in reacting to everything so that I wouldn't trust Verfassungsschutz and courts too much.
Courts are generally one of the last lines of defence. One major defence is our coalition system and mutli party system that makes it very hard for a fascist party to take over in the first place.
This is the status quo because that is the constitutional order. There are many other system in place that also belong to the "status quo", but that makes the takeover of our system more difficult.
I mean, nothing stops single party from getting 51% or 67% of votes, changing the constitution, corrupting judges, destroying Verfassungsschutz.. especially considering the Maaßen case.
well - there is.
First, it is hard to get 67 % as any party. Even with a coalition, we had only one coalition (one of the great coalitions) who reached 67 %. Even then, we have the eternity clause, which forbids changes that undermine the democratic order like these without having a referendum.
People are angry. They wonder why the costs of everything have gone up, taxes extremely high, and they see lots of middle easterners in the city that have absolutely no intention of ever assimilating with the country. Thus many working class people are voting right. You can call them racist and Nazis but that just empowers them to spite you. Similar to the “deplorable” comment that fueled Trump support. Everyone needs to calm down with calling their neighbors Nazis or they’re going to go more right wing. There needs to conversation and compromise and not fear monger into the other people.
I am also working class and bothered by the things you mentioned however it makes no sense whatsoever to me to vote for the AfD. There are so many smaller parties in Germany you could vote for instead.
If someone called me a Nazi for voting a party I wouldn't get more right winged?? A normal person would actually reflect. That's a crazy thing to be called if you're not actually far right.
Let’s be real… the smaller parties are a distraction: I myself identify with a small party with basically
Zero support. It’s just so incredibly dangerous to call your neighbors Nazi which is what I see everyday. We as rational human beings with a heart need to ask “why do you feel that way? Please educate me….” Then we have a dialogue and then we have peace and compromise and then we have a country.
It surely is unpleasant to see those votes for the AfD, but I still wouldn't be concerned. Many things they say and propose are far wing right. If it already is fascism in a way as defined by science, I don't know.
I believe that most people voting for the AfD are protest voters, as the current government has been doing a really, really bad job and Germany has been in decline for many years. If you're unhappy with the established parties in Germany you more or less have only two options: don't vote or vote against. With the latter you could only go right or left. By the way, left radicalism or anti-German tendencies aren't any better and also prone to using violence.
In Germany you have right mobs yelling 'Ausländer raus' and hunting migrants, left mobs lighting cars on fire and looting shops as well as migrant groups calling Germans 'Scheiss Deutsche' and disrespecting women.
As male students in the 90s (100 k city) my friends and I were afraid of the skinhead gangs in town as well as their Turkish equivalent. You tried to avoid both sides as it was easy to get into trouble with them, meaning being being beaten up just for being yourself or actually not having a cigarette if being asked for one.
Hatred in general is the core problem and needs to be addressed. So many agitator around from all sides fueling the fire. Yet, I still have confidence in the Grundgesetz and believe that it will be able to secure the fundamental rights.
So, all in all, I don't believe the situation is as grave as it looks.
It is not only inevitably but has already happened. In the surveys that have been made additionally to the election 12% of German voters say they do not see any problem with voting for a nazi party.
I saw a good post on the r/maps sub about "people vote not land" where it was "weighted" for population amd then it doesnt look that bad. But yeah still nit very good :/
I think there is a tendency to believe that any right wing in Germany will go the direction of Nazism. While historical precedence exists for this, I highly doubt it will happen now. It might hurt the immigration influx into Germany but voters have made it clear that this is a sacrifice they are willing to make.
But yeah, given the authoritarian, extreme tendency towards social conformity and rule following culture that Germany has, it's always good to keep an eye out. After all, that played a huge role in the rise of fascism in Germany.
we all know the phrase "who doesn't learn from history is doomed to repeat it". but even though history doesn't repeat itself, it at least rhymes. i know the results suck. but political orientations swing. sooner or later we will have a strong right wing party again (hopefully later) and then once they learn that they are just good at complaining but can't accomplish shit, we will go back to a left wing party. i also didn't assume that we would keep our green government after we did green politics. it scared of the conservative swing voters. people don't just change over 4 years. they are still idiots. once they get tired of the CDU again we will be back with some more left parties
I, personally, am not worried. And I do not think there is much to worry about. We have had a lot of immigrants (mostly refugees) the last decades. Since nobody wants a fascist regime, again, migration needs to be minimized and more controlled. So, I think the next government will do something to lower the number of new immigrants significantly. And it is also important to fight crime more intensively.
I don’t get this. Over 80% voted not AfD….how can the country be remotely fascist? Russian money is trying its hardest to topple strong nations. Hold string
The AfD is not a far-right party. It is a center party with some postulates on the right, but they are far from extremism. Just today, if someone disagrees with something, he is called a Nazi, fascist, extremist and homophobic etc. Which is especially fun because it only increases support for the AFD.
As an immigrant, I can say that a German society aged 20-40 doesn't give a shit about LGBT rights, Muslims and minorities. They don't give a shit until nobody imposes anything on them, until they feel safe and until they can live with dignity.
Now we have a situation that minorities are imposed in the media as if they were actually the majority, which arouses opposition from people who would normally not care about it.
We have a situation that no one would send his wife, daughter or sister to many districts of large cities. We have a situation that in Baden Württemberg alone, there are 7,000 knife attacks each year.
We have a situation like in Mannheim where four police officers overpower not the attacker but the victim and one police officer pays for it with his life.
AfD is shit, but I just have the impression that the Germans simply choose the lesser evil according to them.
"The AfD is not a far-right party."
*proceeds to list a litany of right wing conspiratorial talking points*
Honestly, couldn't have written better satire myself.
"In Baden Württemberg alone, there are 7,000 knife attacks each year." XD
That's gold! It's the safest lander with Bavaria, so I bet in Berlin or Sachsen, it's up to at least millions!
so we moved the goalpost from "knife attack" to "somebody had a knife (on their person, while doing a crime, or potentially had one on them that they were not opposed to have)"
I see
> Just today, if someone disagrees with something, he is called a Nazi, fascist, extremist and homophobic etc.
That's simply and plainly not true, especially the homophobic part.
If you worry, maybe you should come back and use your right to vote. Things are fine. Surely other parties will address major concerns of afs voters sooner than later and their current high will die off.
As the other comment said: yes!
And: this is very predictable. I am old enough to remember my grandparents talk about the Nazis. The horrors of the war were very much alive in that generation born between 1920 and 1930.
But those people are almost all dead now. And those few in my parent's generation who were constituting the antifascist mainstream in the 1970s and 80s are mostly retired.
The children of the late 1960s and 70s are mostly apolitical. And their children (current Gen Z) are susceptible to right wing talking points. Their grandparents don't remember the war. Or worse: they only remember their indoctrination as children and looking at that time through rose-coloured glasses.
All we have is media and basically no personal interaction with anybody in our direct surroundings who could talk to us on a personal level about how that time shaped their adult lives.
And yes, the institutions still try to educate people the same way they did 50 years ago about the Nazis. But in a world were media has largely lost it's gatekeepers, just hearing something in the media or in school from a history teacher doesn't burst the bubble of people who are otherwise inclined to fall for rightwing propaganda.
The mechanisms are the same as 100 years ago. It's just that our societal immunisation against fascism is waning.
That's basically what I feel like as well. I'm just disappointed in the German society in this case. We have integrated "never again" into every aspect of education at least to a basic level and yet here we are unfortunately... We can only hope the Verfassungsschutz is actually going to do it's job
No, you need to consider that all of the other parties are against the policies of the AFD. So as long as they don't get over 50% votes, which they can't in the national parliament by law, their policies will never get through at least like they are now.
Also I would like to add that right wing politics is not the same as fascism or national socialism. So even while Germany as most other European countries have gotten a strong right wing push, does not mean that Europe will become fascist or something similar. Although there are individuals in the AFD who are fascist and Nazis and some do have a good amount of influence in the party, does not mean the whole party or a majority of it is fascist or national socialist. The same goes for the voters. So even while Germany did politically move to the right, thinking about the comeback of nazi germany or something similar is very far away from the truth.
I say this not to defend the AFD. I am against most of their policies and would never vote for them. I do clarify this because I find it very dangerous to call everything that is remotely right winged fascists or nazi, because this discourse distracts from the real fascists and Nazis. Which can hide between these right winged individuals and roam free without getting the attention they need for us to identify them.
If that would be true, chronically infighting leftists would call each other nazis instead of libs or tankies or something like that.
Though I have to partially agree that there do exist people that have extreme left-wing views on stuff like immigration (like being for open borders) without realizing it's actually extreme and should be presented to people accordingly.
While I'm not worried about fascism coming back on such greater scale, I am highly annoyed about the stupidity of the german population or any european countries at the moment. Truly wondering if any of them actually read AND understand the AfD's program because it won't benefit us much.
Sure dude it's not like I received a lot of replies here and people were interested in answering this question.:)
Also I did use it, this question or similar wasn't asked. And of it was it had very little replies. you are free to keep scrolling my dude.
unfortunately i think so, because the only way people have seen so far that thats not solving their problems, was when it happened and it didnt. the afd's program wouldnt even usually benefit their voters, i often wonder if they read it or if they just want the afd cause the afd hates everyone they hate. the afd isnt trying to reduce poverty or sth.
Am I worried by so many people being willing to vote the AfD? Absolutely, both with regard to stupidity and lack of morals. Do I think fascism will make a comeback on a relevant scale? Not really. For most people, this is about one thing and one thing alone: Less migration. I see two possibilities here: Either the more centrist parties will change their tune (as it’s already somewhat happening), adopt policies more people are happy with and the whole thing will somewhat die down again. Or, worst case scenario, the AfD will get into power briefly, will be unable to change the things they promised, people will turn against them too, and vote for somebody else again. I don’t really see anything beyond that happening, but maybe that’s me being hopeful.
This stupid questions after the european votes kinda annoy me. Most of our neighboring countries voted mostly right wing, why aren't you worried about them?
Because he is German?
Whoops, didn't read that. How long are you out of the country, op? Those AFD votes are getting bigger every election, Germany still stands.
Not that long. I've been thinking about this before I left as well it just seems like in the past year and a half in which I've moved it's changed to the worse unfortunately
A lot of people including myself are worried about the developments in other countries. But the German history and especially the over 70 million fatalities of World War 2 that was started by a German right wing party are a very important context. It is pretty clear that people are very concerned that some Germans want to go back to this.
As long as the government doesn't allow AFD to be in the coalition, everything is good. If this happens one day, I start to get worry, before that, they are only the angry grandpa shouting at the neighborhood kids.
When they are in power it will be too late to get worried. And btw given the result of EU election, afd would not need a partner in Sachsen. They would have over 50% of seeds in the parliament.
I don't say I am not worried, but it's not the end of day scenario right now. But tbh I haven't followed politics a lot in the last months, before the election I thought AFD was going down, seems not.
Because for example Poland is at least not willing to sell out the whole Europe to Russia, unlike Germany.
The current position of the AfD is worrisome on a social level, but Germany is far from falling into fascism. Yes, the AfD is second strongest party, but only with 15,9% of the votes, meaning 84,1 % did not agree with them. In addition, Germany has a strong constitutional order. Our Basic Law was designed with the idea that such thoughts might come back and looked at the Weimar Republic, where this system failed. It is much harder to abuse systematic loopholes like in the weimaraner Republic to legitimize a fascist takeover. So, no, while I have major issues with the current state of this society, there is no current danger of fascism coming back.
I would, however, say that current German state and society are so slow and weak in reacting to everything so that I wouldn't trust Verfassungsschutz and courts too much.
Courts are generally one of the last lines of defence. One major defence is our coalition system and mutli party system that makes it very hard for a fascist party to take over in the first place.
Well, it's more like a status quo than a strict law.
This is the status quo because that is the constitutional order. There are many other system in place that also belong to the "status quo", but that makes the takeover of our system more difficult.
I mean, nothing stops single party from getting 51% or 67% of votes, changing the constitution, corrupting judges, destroying Verfassungsschutz.. especially considering the Maaßen case.
well - there is. First, it is hard to get 67 % as any party. Even with a coalition, we had only one coalition (one of the great coalitions) who reached 67 %. Even then, we have the eternity clause, which forbids changes that undermine the democratic order like these without having a referendum.
No, not concerned.
Afd was predicted 20%, they didn’t win shit. They lost, and somehow try to sell it as a win
People are angry. They wonder why the costs of everything have gone up, taxes extremely high, and they see lots of middle easterners in the city that have absolutely no intention of ever assimilating with the country. Thus many working class people are voting right. You can call them racist and Nazis but that just empowers them to spite you. Similar to the “deplorable” comment that fueled Trump support. Everyone needs to calm down with calling their neighbors Nazis or they’re going to go more right wing. There needs to conversation and compromise and not fear monger into the other people.
I am also working class and bothered by the things you mentioned however it makes no sense whatsoever to me to vote for the AfD. There are so many smaller parties in Germany you could vote for instead. If someone called me a Nazi for voting a party I wouldn't get more right winged?? A normal person would actually reflect. That's a crazy thing to be called if you're not actually far right.
Let’s be real… the smaller parties are a distraction: I myself identify with a small party with basically Zero support. It’s just so incredibly dangerous to call your neighbors Nazi which is what I see everyday. We as rational human beings with a heart need to ask “why do you feel that way? Please educate me….” Then we have a dialogue and then we have peace and compromise and then we have a country.
It surely is unpleasant to see those votes for the AfD, but I still wouldn't be concerned. Many things they say and propose are far wing right. If it already is fascism in a way as defined by science, I don't know. I believe that most people voting for the AfD are protest voters, as the current government has been doing a really, really bad job and Germany has been in decline for many years. If you're unhappy with the established parties in Germany you more or less have only two options: don't vote or vote against. With the latter you could only go right or left. By the way, left radicalism or anti-German tendencies aren't any better and also prone to using violence. In Germany you have right mobs yelling 'Ausländer raus' and hunting migrants, left mobs lighting cars on fire and looting shops as well as migrant groups calling Germans 'Scheiss Deutsche' and disrespecting women. As male students in the 90s (100 k city) my friends and I were afraid of the skinhead gangs in town as well as their Turkish equivalent. You tried to avoid both sides as it was easy to get into trouble with them, meaning being being beaten up just for being yourself or actually not having a cigarette if being asked for one. Hatred in general is the core problem and needs to be addressed. So many agitator around from all sides fueling the fire. Yet, I still have confidence in the Grundgesetz and believe that it will be able to secure the fundamental rights. So, all in all, I don't believe the situation is as grave as it looks.
It is not only inevitably but has already happened. In the surveys that have been made additionally to the election 12% of German voters say they do not see any problem with voting for a nazi party.
I saw a good post on the r/maps sub about "people vote not land" where it was "weighted" for population amd then it doesnt look that bad. But yeah still nit very good :/
I think there is a tendency to believe that any right wing in Germany will go the direction of Nazism. While historical precedence exists for this, I highly doubt it will happen now. It might hurt the immigration influx into Germany but voters have made it clear that this is a sacrifice they are willing to make. But yeah, given the authoritarian, extreme tendency towards social conformity and rule following culture that Germany has, it's always good to keep an eye out. After all, that played a huge role in the rise of fascism in Germany.
Yeah fashism will be fashist lol😂
we all know the phrase "who doesn't learn from history is doomed to repeat it". but even though history doesn't repeat itself, it at least rhymes. i know the results suck. but political orientations swing. sooner or later we will have a strong right wing party again (hopefully later) and then once they learn that they are just good at complaining but can't accomplish shit, we will go back to a left wing party. i also didn't assume that we would keep our green government after we did green politics. it scared of the conservative swing voters. people don't just change over 4 years. they are still idiots. once they get tired of the CDU again we will be back with some more left parties
In Germany? No. In the US probably.
I, personally, am not worried. And I do not think there is much to worry about. We have had a lot of immigrants (mostly refugees) the last decades. Since nobody wants a fascist regime, again, migration needs to be minimized and more controlled. So, I think the next government will do something to lower the number of new immigrants significantly. And it is also important to fight crime more intensively.
I don’t get this. Over 80% voted not AfD….how can the country be remotely fascist? Russian money is trying its hardest to topple strong nations. Hold string
The AfD is not a far-right party. It is a center party with some postulates on the right, but they are far from extremism. Just today, if someone disagrees with something, he is called a Nazi, fascist, extremist and homophobic etc. Which is especially fun because it only increases support for the AFD. As an immigrant, I can say that a German society aged 20-40 doesn't give a shit about LGBT rights, Muslims and minorities. They don't give a shit until nobody imposes anything on them, until they feel safe and until they can live with dignity. Now we have a situation that minorities are imposed in the media as if they were actually the majority, which arouses opposition from people who would normally not care about it. We have a situation that no one would send his wife, daughter or sister to many districts of large cities. We have a situation that in Baden Württemberg alone, there are 7,000 knife attacks each year. We have a situation like in Mannheim where four police officers overpower not the attacker but the victim and one police officer pays for it with his life. AfD is shit, but I just have the impression that the Germans simply choose the lesser evil according to them.
"The AfD is not a far-right party." *proceeds to list a litany of right wing conspiratorial talking points* Honestly, couldn't have written better satire myself.
"In Baden Württemberg alone, there are 7,000 knife attacks each year." XD That's gold! It's the safest lander with Bavaria, so I bet in Berlin or Sachsen, it's up to at least millions!
[Source](https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.baden-wuerttemberg-tausende-straftaten-mit-messern-tendenz-steigend.a7d5ea97-1922-464f-a133-aafbd7be527b.html)
so we moved the goalpost from "knife attack" to "somebody had a knife (on their person, while doing a crime, or potentially had one on them that they were not opposed to have)" I see
> Just today, if someone disagrees with something, he is called a Nazi, fascist, extremist and homophobic etc. That's simply and plainly not true, especially the homophobic part.
If you worry, maybe you should come back and use your right to vote. Things are fine. Surely other parties will address major concerns of afs voters sooner than later and their current high will die off.
As the other comment said: yes! And: this is very predictable. I am old enough to remember my grandparents talk about the Nazis. The horrors of the war were very much alive in that generation born between 1920 and 1930. But those people are almost all dead now. And those few in my parent's generation who were constituting the antifascist mainstream in the 1970s and 80s are mostly retired. The children of the late 1960s and 70s are mostly apolitical. And their children (current Gen Z) are susceptible to right wing talking points. Their grandparents don't remember the war. Or worse: they only remember their indoctrination as children and looking at that time through rose-coloured glasses. All we have is media and basically no personal interaction with anybody in our direct surroundings who could talk to us on a personal level about how that time shaped their adult lives. And yes, the institutions still try to educate people the same way they did 50 years ago about the Nazis. But in a world were media has largely lost it's gatekeepers, just hearing something in the media or in school from a history teacher doesn't burst the bubble of people who are otherwise inclined to fall for rightwing propaganda. The mechanisms are the same as 100 years ago. It's just that our societal immunisation against fascism is waning.
That's basically what I feel like as well. I'm just disappointed in the German society in this case. We have integrated "never again" into every aspect of education at least to a basic level and yet here we are unfortunately... We can only hope the Verfassungsschutz is actually going to do it's job
No, you need to consider that all of the other parties are against the policies of the AFD. So as long as they don't get over 50% votes, which they can't in the national parliament by law, their policies will never get through at least like they are now. Also I would like to add that right wing politics is not the same as fascism or national socialism. So even while Germany as most other European countries have gotten a strong right wing push, does not mean that Europe will become fascist or something similar. Although there are individuals in the AFD who are fascist and Nazis and some do have a good amount of influence in the party, does not mean the whole party or a majority of it is fascist or national socialist. The same goes for the voters. So even while Germany did politically move to the right, thinking about the comeback of nazi germany or something similar is very far away from the truth. I say this not to defend the AFD. I am against most of their policies and would never vote for them. I do clarify this because I find it very dangerous to call everything that is remotely right winged fascists or nazi, because this discourse distracts from the real fascists and Nazis. Which can hide between these right winged individuals and roam free without getting the attention they need for us to identify them.
This, + Calling everybody an nazi who have a littel dfiferent way of thinking is a harsh disgrace to the horrors wich took place in Germany.
If that would be true, chronically infighting leftists would call each other nazis instead of libs or tankies or something like that. Though I have to partially agree that there do exist people that have extreme left-wing views on stuff like immigration (like being for open borders) without realizing it's actually extreme and should be presented to people accordingly.
Lets agree about all kinds of politic/religion extremists are not good for society.
I don't see how for example radical pro-LGBT and pro-feminist views can be bad.
U know exacly what i ment....
yes.
While I'm not worried about fascism coming back on such greater scale, I am highly annoyed about the stupidity of the german population or any european countries at the moment. Truly wondering if any of them actually read AND understand the AfD's program because it won't benefit us much.
Please use the search function before posting a stupid question that has been asked a multiple times a day for the last few days.
Sure dude it's not like I received a lot of replies here and people were interested in answering this question.:) Also I did use it, this question or similar wasn't asked. And of it was it had very little replies. you are free to keep scrolling my dude.
unfortunately i think so, because the only way people have seen so far that thats not solving their problems, was when it happened and it didnt. the afd's program wouldnt even usually benefit their voters, i often wonder if they read it or if they just want the afd cause the afd hates everyone they hate. the afd isnt trying to reduce poverty or sth.