Both the US and Germany want to return to their fascist roots it seems
Decades of capitalist decay and anti-communist propaganda will do that.
The see the US and realize it’s possible to do it all over again.
No surprise considering CDU/CSU fucking up shit for the broad population from day one. They even suggested a 1000€ deductible for the health insurance.
Well well… here we go again. I’m ready to give up my life.
Why hasn’t the German government shut them down? I thought they had anti-fascist laws on their books.
There are multiple factors at play.
- The government is incompetent and the Nazis are playing them like a fiddle by setting the public agenda aided by incompetent and complicit media. (That the Nazis’ economic agenda, more money for the rich, isn’t all that differnet from that of the established parties helps with this, because this renders them unable of countering the Nazis’ lies about foreigners being to blame for the economic hardships of the masses without harming themselves)
- The government consists of greedy, power hungry bastards who think they can use the Nazis to their advantage. (Some lie to themselves that they can steal votes from them by parroting their rhetoric, some use the spectre of cooperating with the Nazis to pressure other parties into cooperation with them instead)
- The government consists of opportunistic cowards who are afraid of angering the Nazi voters and/or losing the court case for a ban of the Nazi party.
It’s similar in the UK currently. The UK’s equivalent of AfD is Reform UK who are apparently the leading party in the polls (source):
Reform UK in front on 25%, Labour on 23% and the Conservatives on 20%, with the Lib Dems on 16% and Greens on 10%
The next UK election must be held in about four years. The only elections this year will be by-elections (notorious for elevating micro-parties due to protest votes) and local government elections (where Reform has done poorly, since they don’t really have more than a handful of candidates who aren’t local cranks and Nazis). Where I live, the local-government protest votes has swung seats from Labour to the Greens, and to a lesser extent, the LibDems; the right hasn’t had much success.
It should also be noted that the UK press is very rightwing and is constantly promoting Fromage.
True, it’s a long time until the next UK general election. Maybe Reform’s vote will suffer before then. Alternatively the local elections and by-elections could be a boost for them, I dunno.
Anyway, maybe we should have proportional representation in the UK. Even if Reform had 25% of the vote and therefore 25% of the seats in parliament, that would mean that 75% of parliamentarians wouldn’t be Reform members.
Our current system allows a party with minority support (potentially Reform in the future) to win a majority of parliamentary seats. In 2019, the Conservatives won 44% of the vote, which gave them 56% of seats. Last year, Labour won 34% of the vote, which gave them 63% of seats.
Many reform voters are old men. Many will die between here and 4 years with the state of the NHS
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.
“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” – Franklin Leonard
They want to return to 1950s, but they will return to 1930s. And not only in Germany. Stupid people have no clue what dictators always do.
Specifically, 1939.
I’m genuinely sorry your boss said that to you, but it sounds so fucking ridiculous I laughed. Jesus. Imagine being so stupid that someone might die.
Well, to bring some darker thoughts to the topic: Most fascist movements are also very, very inclined on their interpretation of darwinism, so… “weak” people dying off may for them be more a feature than a bug
You know what the worst thing is? He wasn’t the only one by far. Later at a different company another Teamleader told me I have to go out to eat with everybody. When I said the restaurant isn’t save for me (lots of nuts on the menu), he just said I HAVE to come and that’s what the Epipen is there for. I complained to HR and the HR lady asked why I don’t just do a therapy against allergies. Told me about some esoteric bullshit that’s supposed to cure all allergies and advised me to do that so I can better fit in with the company culture.
Bavaria?
This has to be the most toxic employer in Germany. I had some shut jobs, especially when I was younger, but this is insane.
I want to come throw hands on all these people for you!
Also highlights we don’t live in a meritocracy if this clown is in charge of others.
You guys gotta be more like America on the bike lanes one.
Just have crippling, insane traffic, where it takes you three hours to move five (5) city blocks (this has actually happened to me).
Suddenly, a new bike lane gets you across the city in 26 minutes.
It made the bike lanes very popular, haha.
This is such a U.S. way of reporting things.
74% of people don’t want to be part of AfD.
It’s not. 74% are also not working on convincing disgruntled voters that AfD is just a shitsandwich and not an alternative that would improve anything. 26% for a single party that didn’t exist for long is huge and just shows how sick Germans are of the usual cdu/csu/spd/green/fdp bullshit.
The infuriating thing is that AfD voters would probably be better off with dieLinke.
Ive really been trying but every time theres a worse quagmire of information to wade through. “Like literal Trump fans. Jews own everything. Democracy is cool and all but really… sometimes we need other measures.” Theres just no way to talk back. Or even interact when in comes to politics.
One out every four people you meet being a literal nazi is tough tho
I disagree. The nazis leading the polls is very disturbing.
I read 50% of the men in Germany died in ww2 ….but yea cool Nazis what could go wrong.? Fuck around and find out I guess
And 60 million others.
Yep nothing good ever comes from supporting facists
It’s baffling how those self proclaimed patriots can celebrate a bunch of traitors who ruined their country by killing off a significant part of its population and starting an unwinnable war that left the country in ruins.
I mean, why vote CDU if they are doing the same shit as AFD but are not as good at it?
We don’t know how good AFD would be at doing, what they claim. But none of the parties who have been in power over the last 20-30 years have done anything significant to improve the average workers economic status (e.g. make housing affordable, guarantee a reasonable pension, lessen the fear of unemployment, etc.). AFD claims, “if we get rid of the immigrants, everything will be better again” and people are believing it.
tja
Ha! Suck it Germany! America isn’t the only shitty fascist country now.
But they aren’t even the ruling party, what are you on about
*In an opinion poll
I mean lets not confuse an opinion poll with the truth. These things regularly get things a couple points off. In fact that’s the norm.
a couple points off
Yes so they’re first or a close second, that’s hardly better.
That’s what people have been saying for years and yet the AfD is already the second strongest in the last election…
And stil the state refuses to ban them, refuses to arrest and sentence their leaders.
It will be Weimar 2.0 with liberals being either too incompetent or too unwilling to stop fascism.
Fascism is not stopped at the podium or in parliament. It is stopped with bullets and bombs. The longer you wait the more bullets and bombs it will take and the more lives it will cost. We need a new, this time thorough, denazification.
Liberal does not mean leftist outside of the USA. Liberal actually means what is called libertarian in the USA.
bullets and bombs
I think it’s enough to just do: arrests of leaders (and banning them from public speaking but for life) + breaking up the party + outlawing the party + banning people who decide to take up the mantle of/act as a declared proxy for the party and attempt to visibly pick up where they left off.
That last one I learned from my own country’'s current situation: in Romania, a crazy far right candidate came out of nowhere (on the wings of illegal undisclosed campaign donations) to win the first round, and as soon as that happened our mainstream far right party’s candidate started supporting him. Then they canceled the election because of the undisclosed donations (he literally declared 0 campaign spending!) so now, in the redo of the election, this other guy is basically running as his proxy and will likely try to appoint him PM if he wins.
Weimar was a small civil war between soldiers who returned from WW1. That’s why both the left and the right had fighters. Where should the fighters who shoot the bullets come from now?
The fascists came to power because the elite feared that the communists could win. Otherwise, despite massive manipulation, the fascists never got an absolute majority.
There are many issues that other parties simply ignore. There would be far less voteres for the AfD if the other parties would listen. The AfD started with the demand that the rules about euro stability shouldn’t be ignored. That’s not a fascist position.
The other parties are not taking up AfDs made up causes because they are made up.
For example:
A sack of potatoes falls.
AfD: Foreigners are causing the sacks to fall! We must gas them! And the jews!
Other parties: This is so stupid it doesn’t even warrant a response.
General public: but the foreigners!!111!1!!!11 and the potatoes!!1! I am outraged!!!111!!!
I don’t think that you make a good point if you yourself make up your point. Please quote the AfD to avoid all doubt.
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.
Just so we’re clear - you’re calling for an end to democracy in Germany? You’re asking for the will of the people to be ignored and actually outlawed?
There can be no tolerance against intolerance, it’s a paradox.
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So according to you, the people who want everyone with the wrong kind of mustache to be deported, who want citizenships revoked, who want to “remove the outmoded political party system”, who are already obstructing the judicial system in Thurinigia, who want to defund public media because it’s “too woke”, who want to gut universities because they are “too woke”, who want to fuck up the environment because - guess what - also “woke”, and who want to overthrow the constitutional order are not the fascists?
Fwiw, German law explicitly allows the government to ask the constitutional court to check whether a party behaves consistently with constitutional order, and if not, outlawing them based on that. The German constitution includes some learnings from WWII: This includes a paragraphs on non-discrimination, on the individual right to asylum, on outlawing parties that threaten to overthrow the constitutional order.
I am not the one you are asking, but personally, in my honest opinion: An “emergency government”, lets say with a 20 year term, removing far right parties, doing the necessary changes to massively reduce our climate impact and prepare for the ineviteable fallout from climate change and doing other reforms wouldn’t be THAT bad of an idea…
Yeah, “emergency powers” have never caused any problems in the past …
What else can you do when > 50% of the population is unwilling to help solving the single most dangerous problem in human history?
Not sure, but installing an unelected goverment and abolishing elections for 20 years is literally fighting fascism with fascism, so let’s not do that.
I am a bit fatalistic and perhaps a bit on the doomer side, but i am pretty sure we will get fascism one way or the other soon… and if this is ineviteable, i am very much in favour of installing ecofascism instead of other forms.
But starting and organizing a violent opposition seem like so much effort. And I really have to finish some shows I’ve been watching.
Using bullets and bombs would make the rest not better than the fascists, so lets not use them.
Once they take power, the only thing that can stop them is bullets and bombs. And Fascists do have a nasty habit of shooting first, if you let them.
We don’t need to be tolerant to the intolerant.
No it wouldn’t, it would make you smart enough to speak to the fascists in the only language they understand. Words don’t work against fascists because they don’t care what words mean. Better to defend yourself now while you still can.
War and violence have existed long before fascism. It’s not their invention or monopoly.
True. But I don’t want the world to be that bad. I want to live without war and violence.
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.
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Is the proper response: Well shit.
This is why I keep telling people we are fucked by focusing in increasing military power in europe even if it appears and is obviously needed. We are going to put all the power at the hands of insane lunatics ready to wage war and put people in ovens.
It’s happening in all countries in Europe. I think in mine we’ll have elections next month or something like that and the extreme right is at 2nd or 3rd position ready to take first or will join hands with another to win. It was so close already last time. No matter how many crimes all their members do and show up in the news every week.
It’s what the people want. Most people everywhere are ok and want homicidal narcissist and sociopathic people in charge of them.
These polls don’t matter much. Next major election in Germany is in 2029.I’d argue these assholes didn’t win the battle just yet. Anti lobby work, Investments in military power, education and quality of life for people are just some of the things to convince more people. Four years is plenty.
I have no trust in the current coalition to make that happen…
I see you, it’s upsetting. The least we can do in the meantime is to keep shaming and calling the losers out. Here’s my recommendation, if you have an hour to spare: Fascists will waste your time. on YouTube
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If the government doesn’t fall like it does here regularly 😮💨
Best of luck to you and your country staying sane-ish a little longer.
Did you not realize that they performed incredibly well in the elections? Social media is how they will overthrow the last remaining democracies. France, UK and Canada are next. All the young folks are increasingly more conservative and within 2-6 years, it’s going to be game over.
We really should stop using the term “conservative” for what the self proclaimed “conservative” parties are doing. Because they don’t conserve anything. They do the exact opposite. They exploit and destroy.
The correct term is reactionary.
Just call it what it is. It’s fascist. It’s the fascist party. All of these - afd, maga, same unimaginative shit.
Inventing new terms is what these fuckers want. Remind them they’re not new and been wrong before.
It’s not a new term, it has been around for a few centuries now. People who want to revert change, go back to the perceived good old times. Fascist is overused these days, and I’d argue reactionary hits a nice descriptive middle ground between conservative (which they are not, any more) and fascist (which many of them aren’t yet). Hit them where they are, not where they move to
It’s bizarre that I have to explain this, but “conservative” in political terms does not mean “to conserve” as in “we need to conserve water” etc. It means favoring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas.
I don’t disagree, but when one part of society uses word A and the other part uses word B that would only further increase polarization, which already is a serious problem. I think it’d be better it we continue using the name they use for themselves, but point out what a weird name it is for them. So we could tell them for example that we find it strange they consider themselves “conservative” parties because they don’t conserve anything. They do the exact opposite. They exploit and destroy.
The problem is that more simple minded people who are actually conservative, as they want to conserve society as it is, will easily fall for the propaganda and vote for a party that is out to destroy what they want to conserve.
The self proclaimed standing of a party is part of its propaganda. Unfortunately the media are complicit with the parties on perpetuating their propaganda, by calling parties by their chosen adjectives, rather than by what would be more fitting. Conservatives should rather be called “Destructives”, and in many countries, “Social Democrats” are rather Neoliberals, for they have long sold out social democracy to the highest bidder and now follow an extremist free market ideology, their only remaining difference to the “Conservatives” being not wanting to return to societal norms from 60 years ago.
You’re calling other people “more simple minded” when you don’t understand the difference between the different meanings of the word conservative lol. The political meaning of “conservative” is different than “conservative” as in “we need to conserve water”. Completely different things.
Populist intentionally choose words that attract potential voters, they will continue to do that. But calling them out for not being real conservatives because they act different is definitely helpful.
The problem is that more simple minded people who are actually conservative, as they want to conserve society as it is, will easily fall for the propaganda and vote for a party that is out to destroy what they want to conserve.
The real problem is that “conserve society as it is” was always a lie, unless the “as it is” you’re talking about happened to be monarchy. Conservatism, as an ideology, was founded in support of monarchism. A society run by an aristocratic elite has always been the thing they’re trying to conserve.
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No, I didn’t. I’ve been drowning in depression keeping up with what is happening in the US.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, maybe people just don’t like to hear it. You’re not wrong.
To add, these people generally have more kids, and raise them to be conservative. It’s depressing. It might take some severe hardship on people to shift left again? Not sure what that is, hopefully not another world War.
The shift left is not happening until theres a major (most likely violent) crisis. As it is, America will become Russia 2.0 and this will probably be the staus quo for a while.
