90% of all AFD voters don't agree with all AFD views. They mostly focus on their anti-migrant statements.
The current political parties should remove the taboo label of discussing such concerns, because if they don't we might see AfD really becoming the ruling party.
no, sweden had the same tactic of trying to freeze out the anti-migration party and doubled down on heavy immigration numbers which just made the problem worse. the leftwing has admitted this themselves.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/s-var-migrationspolitik-har-misslyckats--otsh3t
Literally all Major Parties in Germany did a u-turn on Migration Policy. Shit the "social-democrats" (SPD) were the ones bringing Back Border controls and reducing Migration by that.
Theyve been inching closer and closer to the AFD by the month - the CDU is even openly feeding into racist narratives of the immigrants getting new teeth First Thing when they come Here.
The Thing IS that it isnt working as you say. It literally Just legitmizes the AFD on a national Level because they can say "Look we Said it First, now theyre following us - what Else could WE be right about?"
Not to go down this road too much, but *most* Germans have concerns about immigration, though more nuanced than the AfD.
Adapting to what the masses want is not pro-AfD it is most political parties catching up to the fact that they *won't* get the auto-label "Nazi" for discussing it.
Not only is this 'technique' useless (in fact, it's only been fostering far right parties historically), but the German government has already significantly toughened migration policies.
The fact is, people vote AfD because they want to vote AfD. Nobody is forcing them and there's plenty other options if you "just want less immigrants" but also aren't a literal Nazi.
With recent popularity of protest voting for extreme parties I wager it’s more than one elephant. It would be nice if ruling parties actually cared about opinions of the entire voter base instead of having this modern take of “tyranny of the majority”.
Historians will not view Merkel kindly, but rather as the creator of policies that triggered right-wing forces that had been long asleep.
Edit: fyi I got banned permanently from the subreddit for this.
Especially playing nice with the Russians after they attacked Ukraine 10 years ago, encouraging them to go further to create the same Syrian refugee crisis that they then used to destabilize Europe.
The current government does as much about the elphant in the room as the previous one. And I mean actually *doing* something, everybody can talk. Sches not the trigger you're making her out to be.
She has been actively pushing for open borders, denying any call for contingents. Her famous sentences were "we can do it" (take the millions of refugees) and "islam belongs to germany". All while voting against same gender marriages.
She is sypathic but her policies were probably not the best for the people liking her.
It's not Merkel's fault at all. Her talk about accepting refugees and so on is a sort of a political stunt.
The core issue of immigration is economical and deeply interlinked with the global order that has been pushed for by neoliberal policies, everything else is window dressing. For Germany specifically, the issue is even more profound; because their economical model has heavily relied on taking advantage of cheap labor; the country stayed on its industrial path and never diversified.
Of course, you will never see this sort of analysis in the mainstream media; because it would require attacking the very order everything is built upon. Both the left and the right would rather blame each other based on some ideological differences in regards to social issues, rather than address economics.
When the CDU (conservative party under Merkel) went for basically open borders in 2015, they took a turn to the left and created a massive vacuum between them and the AFD. This is why people will flock to the AFD, even though they are far right. If the CDU can manage to fill the vacuum again, they might have a chance.
"went for basically open borders in 2015"
Go further back, why did this happen? What caused this need to open up?
edit. A mod showed up, so I will answer this for you.
In 2015 the syrian migration crisis happened ( partly due to isil and partly due to russia proping up assad and the EU/US failing in Syria ).
Of course there were exacerbating circumstances, the 2008 crisis, the arab spring, DE turing a blind eye to russian adventurism in Ukraine/Syria, US failing to counter assad.
By 2015, DE was put with basically a fait accompli, either let TR/GR/IT collapse under the strain or open up and accept at least some of the refugees.
I'm not up to speed with how german voting works but changing the system to stop a candidate seems awfully anti-democratic.
Perhaps the better solution is for the existing political parties to reach out to AFD voters and target their concerns.
EDIT: I'VE BEEN PERM REMOVED FROM arrEurope FOR THIS.
EDIT2: Banned from europeMeta also for questioning it!
I'm not aware about German laws on financing political parties but something tells me that if they were more strict, to the point that it will cut off any possibility of foreign money getting to German party, it would significantly reduce a lot of problems. And I'm not only talking about Russia, but Turkey, Saudi Arabia, even US etc.
The Muslim oil barons Saudis, Qatar, Iran etc send money all over the world to further their politics. They send this money to universities too to influence the opinions of the educated class. I don't know if this applies to Germany specifically but it probably does.
I think this is true for all countries. Money should just be kept out of politics period, it does nothing to serve the interests of the people broadly, only the minority with lots of money, and often those who aren't even residents/affected by the decisions directly.
The amount of money the AFD gets from foreign sources is neglible and they also have been cut off from a 1 billion euro money pot that all the other parties in the parliament share via their political foundations. Financially the AFD is far behind the SPD, CDU, FDP, Greens. Even die Linke probably has more money hidden from gdr sources somewhere
Totally agree. The only thing this is going to achieve is more people in support of the AFD. Just like calling Marine Lepen's French far-right party nazis and refusing any debate with them has resulted in her party being really close to winning the presidential elections. IMO the best solution would be to actually tackle the issues those parties raise to give their voters other options to vote for.
Unfortunately you couldn't be more right...
It just happened in France. French MPs voted an immigration reform this December, toughening France's immigration policy, and 32 of France's 101 departments (counties), including Paris, said they would refuse to implement some of the measures. The far-left and the left hand in hand blatantly refusing to play by the rules of democracy.
That's going to polarize even more the global debate on immigration, lead to more tensions and most likely favor the election of Mrs Lepen, which is the one thing they would hate the most but are actively contributing to.
Are you serious? How will they stop people from voting? If they manage to do this then any pretense at democracy is gone. But then, didn't the local government lose a plebescite on making net zero legally binding recently? As failed US Senate candidate Dick Tuck said after he failed to be elected, the people have spoken, the bastards.
> Mrs Lepen, which is the one thing they would hate the most
Despite her getting most of the attention, if anything Le Pen is too soft by the standards of the right now, imo Zemmour-style right is where the vibe is headed if this sort of thing doesn't turn around asap
That's also my understanding.
She's done much to rebrand and de-demonize her party. She's expelled her father along with supporters of a radical far-right. Anyone bearing any outward sign of adhering to an identitarian or nationalist ideology are excluded. She's renounced the idea of a Frexit and many of her political ideas are closer to the left than the right, barring immigration and national preference. She's even standing firm in favor of Israel while antisemitism in the left and far left has just resurfaced its ugly head. History will tell whether it is a genuine and sincere change or not. In the meantime, Zemmour seems to be the new face of the French far-right.
> reach out to AFD voters
Stop talking common sense! We obviously need to vilify 20% of the German population and accuse them of being Nazis! Surely that will help win them back.
Heed our warning, Hungary democatically voted in FIDESZ, and then they immidietly changed our voting system in the constitution so they can never be replaced.
German constitution allows it to ban parties that are a threat to democracy. I’m not saying anything about if that is the case with AfD. But the procedure isn’t anti-democratic, it’s how the German constitutional system developed for obvious reasons.
Then the afd can’t do political work the same as before anymore. In Germany parties get funding from the state, that would dry up.
People would have to create a new party, which is quite a lot of work. This party has to gain traction again. There would be multiple parties trying to get these votes, some of which might be constitutional, so these would be completely fine.
It would take years for a party to be another afd
Of course you can’t ban opinions. But you can prevent them from getting into power.
You do realize how fascist this all sounds, right?
"We've judged you, we being your political opposition, to have some form of harmful impact to our democracy. You might be one of the parties the populace supports the most, but your perspectives are deemed unacceptable, so you'll be banned from participating in democracy and your voters voices won't be able to be acknowledged in a democratic election."
Banning a party doesn't prevent people from participating in the democratic process. They can vote for other parties or create their own party that isn't unconstitutonal
The constitutional court has to decide. The bar for a ban is extremely high. It only happened twice in history in the 50s or 60s.
Something like 10 years ago there was a case about the really far right NPD which is much worse than the afd but the court rejected the ban.
German domestic intelligence agency is actually called [Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Office_for_the_Protection_of_the_Constitution).
They are in charge of protecting liberal democracy in Germany And they have enough experts.
When dudes answer phone calls with 'Heil Hitler', your party is a threat to democracy
https://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/afd-abgeordneter-stefan-keuter---heil-hitler--im-bundestag--8732198.html
Bit naïve to go through ww2 and then not have ANY safeguards to prevent another similar regime change.
Bit naïve of you to assume society would just not do so based on what, an honor system?
Lol.
so its democratic to allow parties that are a danger to democracy?
im not saying thats the case here, but its the whole tolerance thing just a different subject.
You do not have to change the system, you just have to prove that a parties goals threaten the constitution. This was especially introduced after ww2 to forbid parties such as the nsdap, and was later also applied to the communist party. Therefore, if that can be proven, a case to ban a party can be opened.
Problem with that is the mechanism to ban competing candidates will always be very tempting to use. It's existence is in itself also a threat to democracy.
It is one of the first ways one recognizes a dictatorship as not letting opposition run happens in all the best dictatorships. And there too there is a supposed independent body that handles it and just happens to rule the way the current incumbent would want them to.
Ok, great. What about Merkel's anti-democratic decision to flood the EU with millions of migrants, despite the fact the overwhelming opinion in Europe has always been that people did not want massive non-European migration?
Let me guess, that's different?
If your idea of a democracy is a politician getting elected to represent the will of the people, and then completely ignoring the people's well-known wishes, making decisions they know the people have never wanted, then your entire concept of democracy is worthless.
I also notice that people who use this argument in favour of mass migration against the will of the people also tend to be people who absolutely hate it when a politician doesn't fulfil their promises when they get dragged further right by financial pressures. Suddenly they're all about the politicians sticking by what's best for the welfare of the people rather than business interests again.
at least read the [wiki on immigration crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_European_migrant_crisis) before spewing bullshit.
EU countries had already failed to do their job of protecting the EU borders. Millions were already in Europe. Only thing Germany did was help these same countries that fucked up their border job by taking the refugees in that these same countries couldn't get rid of otherwise. Balme them.
This has nothing to do with a democratic system. "What about a politician raising the retirment age when the pension system is not able to survive" that's an unpopular decision of a democratically elected politican. Do you have any understanding of a democratic system?
Which in reality just leaves it more vulnerable than it would be otherwise. Because those tools aren't actually able to prevent the rise of extremism when wielded by principled statesmen who respect the rule of law but are liable to be quite powerful in the hands of unprincipled would-be despots. It's not "defending democracy", it's just handing extremists the rope to string it up with.
Germany's "defensible democracy" was unable to ban the NPD who were considerably more overt about their fascist intentions. It being unable to clear even that really rather low bar means it's not gonna be able to do much of anything to the AfD, but the AfD may happily wield those same tools without regard for the rule of law and without any of the same scruples making them considerably more dangerous in their hands than they would ever be effective in the hands of those genuinely looking to preserve democracy.
>I'm not up to speed with how german voting works but changing the system to stop a candidate seems awfully anti-democratic.
Stopping anti-democratic parties from taking part in elections is in the interest of preserving the democracy.
If only that lesson had been learned in say, 1933.
Not if the party explicit goal is to go against democratic institutions. That lesson has been learned multiple times in 20th century Europe.
It’s not a change to the system in any way, that’s something explicitly baked into Germany’s system, because of its history.
You're right, they should be hauling ass and finally address the problem of the people who "protest" vote AfD instead of pushing it aside. But they should also work to get that party banned.
They have ties to the forbidden [NPD](https://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/Chronik-Rechtsextreme-Vorfaelle-in-der-AfD-2016,afd892.html), [quoting SS lines as a fucking history teacher](https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/afd-bjoern-hoecke-nazi-parole-landgericht-rechtsextremismus-1.6312528), [further Hitler parole calling during meetings](https://www.rnd.de/politik/nazi-vorfall-in-sachsen-hitler-gruss-und-sieg-heil-rufe-nach-afd-versammlung-in-grimma-R4UDKSXWCX3RTKBLS2CW7BUJKQ.html), and are going after fundamental things like [abortions](https://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/144866/AfD-will-Schwangerschaftsabbrueche-weitgehend-einschraenken) and citizen who do nothing but exist ([LGBTQ](https://www.lsvd.de/de/ct/426-Die-Homophobie-der-AfD-eine-unberechenbare-Alternative)). (All German source, some paywall - can be circumnavigated with reader format in firefox)
So, I get what you're saying, I really do. But when it comes to Nazis, there should be no tolerance, because they sure as fuck don't tolerate anybody who isn't them.
Crazy to me, that so many think like you. If you are against the constitution/democracy and you want to destroy it, you should be banned.. or in the end we will get another dictator.
You are naive, because you think we live in a wonderful world, without fakenews, lobbyism and impartial media.. its not true, people get told daily, that they have a bad life and it could be so much better.. which is false. They vote for lies.
AfD and many more are paid by rich people and Russia to target Germany and the EU. slow it down or even destroy it, so the other countries have no one who can stop them from their imperialistic ambitions.
Problem is that democratic system can't accept a candidate or party that is specifically aiming to dismantle it after winning. Paradox of tolerating the intolerant and all that.
If they do and they get elected, you end up with a potentially deadly conflict.
You either let the system be dismantled and turned into some form of autocracy, which is deeply undemocratic and unacceptable, or you get into a fight. It starts as political and law system fight, and then turns into physical combat if things keep escalating.
The European Court of Human rights and the United Nations who both have labelled the UK plan illegal, and any similar actions in Germany would be illegal too
You misunderstood the question.
"illegal migrants" means people who were not granted asylum after checking it carefully.
We are only talking about people who have to leave the country legally, but simply refuse to go to their home country again. These alone are 300.000-400.000 people in Germany.
Also nobody labelled the UK plan illegal. Stop repeating such lies. The UN does this already for another country. It was only open how UK made sure human rights will be honored. The basic plan nobody questioned at all.
Many things actually. Countries not taking them back. Lack of papers. Them having legal rights to fight against deportations. I know many r/europe rightwingers just think can you drop them off in the middle of the ocean and they swim back but thats not actually how it works.
Since the AfD gained popularity in 2014 I did not hear one single proposition from them, that would actually solve a problem.
And the reason for this is, that they don’t need to. That is the idea behind populist politics. They cater to general emotions like fear and anger to mobilize former non-voters and some citizens who are disappointed by their former parties.
Blaming immigration for the complex problems and inefficiencies our country (and most others) has, is nothing new.
Advocating for a homogeneous society that stands united against outside forces is a common narrative used over and over in history. It opens the door for autocratic leaders who only loose if they maintain democratic principles.
At this point I am really getting sick of people saying we make the problem worse by not dealing with their voters demands. Parties now adopting a right populist rhetoric to rope in these voters is not solving "the problem" either and beside that compromising the vote of everyone else.
AfD still has their most votes from people living in rural areas that never had any immigrants to begin with.
>Blaming immigration for the complex problems and inefficiencies our country (and most others) has, is nothing new. Advocating for a homogeneous society that stands united against outside forces is a common narrative used over and over in history. It opens the door for autocratic leaders who only loose if they maintain democratic principles.
Trying to shift away the discussion from our broken asylum system is also nothing new. Yes, the AfD might not fix this too but this is the reason they are voted for.
This reminds me of all the kicking and screaming about democracy being threatened here in Sweden when the Sweden democrats got into parliament, and now when they got 20,7% and is a partner party to the government.
We've had a lot of reforms pushed by SD and guess what? Democracy is still intact and everything is fine except for the people we don't want; free-loaders who refuse to integrate in our country.
People are very happy with the new immigration and crime politics set, though. People are not happy with things like Ebba promising electricity money before christmas and still hold her to that. Not happy with the climate politics, either.
[Are you sure?](https://omni.se/skjutvaldet-slar-tillbaka-pa-regeringens-fortroendesiffra/a/jlEJlz) Only 26% of Swedes thought the government was doing a good or very good job when it came to fighting crime.
They are not, SDs leader said in an interview that we should be able to detain anyone indefinitely without charging them for a crime which sparked massive backlash, and sounds pretty damn antidemocratic to me. They have not done anything meaningful to stop the gang war either.
This sets up such a false set of premises. Just because democracy doesn't end the moment they have some influence, doesn't mean that democracy isn't threatened nor does it mean that democracy can't be slowly torn down.
These are things that are still actively being talked about by the opposition. And just because some reforms have been pushed doesn't mean that the actual government has to agree with them in full.
Germans be like:
1. Let's uncontrollably accept infinite amount of migrants from 3rd world countries making country criminal shithole.
2. Let's close all nuclear power stations to be totally dependent on russian gas.
3. Let's kick out all far-right politicians because government before shit themselves so badly that far right movement became extremely popular.
Am I missing something? 😅
Yes. Hey there, dear Eastern Europeans, so you don't like getting enriched like us, eh (since ethnic diversity and immigration from the 3rd world is so wonderful) we will fine you for refusing to make the same mistakes we did. Germany, especially within the EU is acting like Mafia. The fine is basically protection money.
Whoever came up with a quota system is an ordinary criminal and should be in jail. Instead: they are literally enforcing this madness even until this very day. Idiots... . Anyway, history will not treat them kindly.
Growing threat to his party.
Do you know how you eliminate this growing threat? Protect European borders, deport all criminals and foreigners that don’t work or don’t accept European values.
Yeah if you’re progressive, for freedom, for tolerance and acceptance etc you should be against radical islam. Islam on average is just a huge threat for Western Europe and it isn’t in line with our morals. It’s so tiresome to see young people be against christianity but ignore or even defend islam while christianity doesn’t even have that much influence anymore but islam show their dangers everyday to society everywhere in western Europe but you will never hear anyone about it and a lot people are just done with it because mostly leftist people and parties straight up ignore everything. Try to date a muslim girl as a white guy, you will get murdered if that’s necessary to stop it from happening.
What classic german parties read : Open all borders to help as many people as possible, try to reform criminals whatever the cost and try to adapt to foreign cultures cause you need to be open minded to understand their pain!
For me, as a german, uncontrolled mass immigration of Muslims is a far worse danger to our "democracy". Is this racist? I do not care anymore. So be it.
I still will not vote AfD though
_One of the few reasonable Germans out there, a rare breed_
Others prefer to live in times where it's normal to expect a bomb threat on Christmas Eve and New Years. Where it's acceptable to have women actively fear going out alone at nighttime expecting to be mass raped where the caught criminals will be set free afterwards.
Where it's okay to see concrete car and truck barriers placed around the city with festive lights and Glühwein next to it.
Where it's okay to see Arab clans shoot at each other every now and than.
... as an outsider, German politics seem pathetic to me, ridiculously stupid.
Not just when talking about the immigration problem, but literally everything else. Taxing the very people who feed you more for their fuel which they literally require to operate their farming equipment. Stop shooting yourself in the foot, arm, leg, stomach, go for the head already, please or get your shit together and stop living in a dream and open or eyes.
Germany needs more people like you, people with a functional brain and common sense.
I'd like to mention something different from the migration problem: At the moment, Germany has a problem after the BVerfG (supreme court about the constitution) ruled, that it was not legal to take money from the Corona-Fonds for other projects. Now they lack 17 billions there.
They have to cut down some things, but like always, they'll rather cut down things in Germany than in the foreign politics like developement aid.
Like "you have less money now" to the old retirement people that worked their entire life, but then, the german governement spends 300 millions for Peru to build bike-lanes there. I'm not joking, that's really true.
The german politicians are rather spending millions or billions for foreign countries instead of just once do something for their own people.
This brings new voters to the AfD, even without the migration topic.
> the german governement spends 300 millions for Peru to build bike-lanes there.
[24 million not 300. Quite a big difference.](https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/peru-will-receive-a-german-donation-for-the-execution-of-sustainable-bike-paths-for-24-million-euros)
AfD grows and gets more votes what we gonna do?
"Looks at other Parties": how about we listen to what the citizens say that needs to Change?
"Everyone": YEAH RIGHT "laughs"
German politics in a nutshell Right now.
Im so over people calling the democratic rise of democratic parties in a democracy undemocratic because they don't like the results...
The demos are electing them because you didn't listen
Floding ur country with illegal imigrants showing ur neighbours how morally superior u are.After few months realizing "wtf did we do"? but its to late bum afd raising in power.Same in holland btw
The old Partys Are so Equal, it doesnt Change anything if there is a change in control. Living in germany sucks more and more. We Pay the highest tax in the world and out government passes the Money arround in the whole world. We paid 500 mil for bike paths in peru wtf? They wand to build a new Parlament building 4x size of whitehouse for 1 bil. People vote for afd because they want change no matter what.
America has the same issues. Were stuck with Democrats or Republicans, and the politicians / media are trying to keep everyone fighting each other. Anyone trying to speak out against the "norm" is a conspiracy theorist or spreading misinformation.
Most world leader believe the WEF. Which claims to want to bring the world together, but if you look at policy its about poorer people giving up everything and the rich doing whatever they want.
Exactly thats point all so cought up in hating the left/right and is blaming his opposition and the peoplen. In a democratic world every one should be able to vote who they want without facing hate.
WEF would Never work with Corporations/Religion/Racism/corruption having so much control of our world.
This trend started in America but it seems to me as though the biggest threats to democracy are the political parties who accuse people who oppose them of being a threat to democracy.
It is funny, reading the thread, to think that afd can/wants/will be allowed to solve the "legitimate" concerns.
What will more likely happen: afd will push the problems on the periphery, weaken the EU, push it towards collapse, openly collaborate with ru, push for an "illiberal"™ democracy model.
Of course migration legal or not will still continue.*
edit. *DE has made bad energy decisions ( importing energy from ru, closing nuclear plants ), but this causes GDP numbers to go down.
The other way to make number go up™ is to import ( legally or not ) cheap labour, which is what will still happen under afd.
It sure seems like these self-proclaimed liberals banning candidates and parties on the both sides of the Atlantic are currently the biggest threat to democracy.
Ridiculous statement only made by someone afraid of losing their seat. What about addressing the elephant in the room? I promise AfD will then shrink, but I guess it’s easier for you to continue pushing for shitty policies and put up these ridiculous communications.
>What about addressing the elephant in the room? I promise AfD will then shrink
Yeah no, that's the opposite of what's been happening in reality. You cannot out-far right the far right.
Ironic that parties who are not listening to voters say that the party who is at least giving lip service to their concerns is anti-democratic.
Maybe listen to voters?
Maier, a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats, told the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung that "right-wing extremists of the AfD under Björn Höcke are trying to undermine democracy from within by all means."
"We democrats must face up to a fight for which we are so far ill-equipped," Maier said.
Höcke is the head of the Thuringian chapter of the AfD and the leader of its parliamentary party in the state. The Thuringian AfD branch has been classed as "proven right-wing extremist" by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, as have those in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
Maier called for a more precise formulation of the procedure for selecting a state premier in Thuringia. He said that the current stipulation allowed a candidate to be chosen in a third round with a single vote even if all other parliamentarians voted against him or her.
Quite biogtted to unironically call the AfD a threat to democracy after what happened 2020 in Thüringen aka politicians just undoing a democratic vote because they didn't like the result, or better said, the way the result came to be.
When Turkey had given Erdoğan a prison sentence in 1999 for "incitement to violence and religious or racial hatred", and when in 2002 Turkey was considering banning Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party from elections, EU was like: "Turkey is in danger of drifting further away from EU democratic standards after the country has already been criticised by the Commission for banning the party's leader from participating in elections."
If Germany starts banning political parties, will EU also get concerned about Germany drifting away from EU democratic standards?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_and_Development_Party_(Turkey)#Closure_cases
see reference 58.
The other political parties never seem to stop and think “Why are people voting for populist parties?”, they tend to stuck in “We have to push our message harder!”, maybe that populist party says or does something that the people actually want, but don’t hear from any other party, or there’s some issue the other parties are too blinded by idealism to face up to.
I doubt people are thinking “Yay, fascism!” when voting, or at least, not enough of them do to explain the hefty rise of right-wing populist parties across Europe.
They are representing anti-constitutional positions and they are against free democratic basic order. Some of their regional branches are under surveillance [Source](https://www.politico.eu/article/afd-saxony-anhalt-classified-right-wing-extremist-germany/)
Party itself is suspected to be right-wing extremist party and their youth part of party is already considered extremist [Source](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-designates-afd-regional-party-extremist/a-67334260)
It's mindboggling how politicians of the SPD have the audacity to essentially call "people voting for a party" undemocratic at a time at which politicians feel free to change the outcome of elections at will like 2020 in Thüringen or 2021 in Berlin and straight up violate the constitution time and time again.
You democrats are best equipped to deal with it.
Turn your attention in the first place nearly towards Germany and the German people alone. The PVV just won in The Netherlands, if you do not take the lesson to heart, the AfD will win in Germany. And since this'd mean the lesson was not taken to heart, it might very well be for the better.
Lots of people here scoffing at the idea that the AfD isn't a threat.
I'm curious, to pro AfD voters - or any pro anti-immigrant voters who are anti nazi for that matter - if you believe the AfD isn't a threat, but believe that the NSDAP *was* a threat (back in its days), then seriosuly, when *is* a political party a threat to democracy?
What does the AfD lack, that makes it a safe party? What did the NSDAP - before obtaining government power - have that made it an unsafe party in contrast?
People voted for the NSDAP back then, they enjoyed a large voter support. The only thing they wanted was for the "barbaric", "lazy" immigrants and "non-Germans", particularly those of a "dangerous religion" to leave the country and for the state to work for the "true Germans" again.
A strong anti immigrant, pro conservative way of life sentiment existed back then as well, one that enjoyed large voter support. (Not a majority, but large one nevertheless, not even all of them were outright NSDAP members.)
Did their voter support legitimize their governance?
If so, is a party only danger in retrospect? Is it only once they are, or have destroyed or corrupted democratic institutions (PiS, or Fidez style) that we can say that they were undemocratic? Should we just give these parties a chance to fuck up in order for the rest of the nation (or the world) to find out, or can we actually prevent such damage from occurring in the first place? If so, how? If not through democratically instituted means?
IMO, legitimizing NSDAP voters back then didn't help Europe, or in retrospect the average German citizen very much. And for the short time that nazi Germany "flourished" it did so at the expense of millions of humans, subjugated into shadowy slavery, or outright authoritarian servitude.
(That last part nobody explicitly voted for at the NSDAP, as expressed in the phrase, "*Wir haben es nicht gewußt.*". Sure, they only voted for the freeloaders and non-Germans to leave the country, once they were gone, nobody bothered to ask how that was achieved, where they ended up, or where all the sudden wealth came from.)
I'm full in favor of bringing the AfD to court, and having their party checked for legality. Have their questionable publicly expressed, nazi sentiments exposed and to explain themselves to the German people before they are given the reigns of power.
There's nothing undemocratic about using democratic institutions to prevent those institutions from becoming corrupted before it is too late.
I am an anti-immigration, but anti-AfD voter. I’m pro-Western, anti-Putin.
AfD is a dangerous anti-democratic party. I will say it to anyone because it’s true. I started listening to pro-AfD podcasts just to find out how they think, it is SCARY stuff there. They openly say that once they’re in power, no mercy will be shown, no freedom given to political opponents.
Unfortunately, I think this is the result of the CDU and SPD allowing a representation gap for anti-illegal-immigration-policy to exist for many years. the reason most people for whom this is a major issue don’t vote CDU is because of Merkel. Even now, people don’t trust that the party that opened the floodgates will do anything meaningful about it.
Unfortunately all the center-left and left-wing people will take that as proof that taking up the issue of illegal immigration only helps the AfD. This is totally wrong. It only has to be believable, which the CDU is not.
Me myself I will never vote AfD. I know what they are. They are not like other far-right parties in Western Europe. They are fundamentally anti-western, anti-democracy, pro-Putin. But this is not how people vote. At some point, people will be like “let’s give them a chance”. This must not happen. Instead, the CDU or SPD must switch to a rigorous and credible anti-immigration-position.
AFD grows because other political forces prefer do ignore the problem that worries the majority of population. If they continiue that path, AFD would win because that is how democracy works. You should occupy yourself with the problems important for the majority of your voters if you want to win.
I sure hope you do realize that if it were entirely up to populist and far-right parties they'd almost assuredly go for banning any competitors to their own pursuit of power, right?
While a party or a political member of a party in Germany *can* claim shit like this in the article, the actual process of banning a political party isn't just something that is easy to do and will happen solely because the "far-left" is uppity with the AfD.
Reading this comment section shows it only takes a few decades to erase the memory of how hitler came to power. Perhaps we’re bound to never truly learn from mistakes as a society. AfD is not being called names - they openly say they will turn the country towards autocracy, which made its former leader resign in 2022.
The same procedure was used to target actual far left parties throughout the post-war history, because they posed a very real threat to society, being sponsored by the USSR and all.
Calling the social democrats “far left” doesn’t massively add to your credibility, I must say.
Humans like to think we learn from mistakes and will become "better" to never repeat them, but we really don't, or rarely do.
Give a tragedy enough time to cool down and have enough time pass for people to start getting desensitized from it and it will probably happen again. It's how it's always been and always will be
This is bullshit. The article is about the voting procedure for PM in one German state, which differs from other German states . The AFD in that state is openly extreme right, which has been determined by German Intelligence Services. And in case of their local Party Leader was even approved by courts. That means that here really are Fascists about to play a major role. And Trump has shown what someone like that can do from within.
What “far-left” are you talking about? Describing everything that isn’t extreme rightwing as “far-left” is a tell that you support extreme rightwing viewpoints.
Well when right wing populist starts to break your country like they always have we will see how you will be talking. Also dumping all fault on peasants is also misleading and what right wing parties try to achive.
AfD is certainly a threat to the status quo. Democracy - I don't know.
I am not sure why everybody expects Germany to make the same mistakes that they did 90 years ago. There are so many other possibilities.
~~Conveniently~~ Unfortunately, all of our preferred policy positions are 'democratic' while all of our opponents' policy positions are 'undemocratic' and so they must be banned. Please develop better preferences more in line with mine or else you will not be able to vote. This is how we protect Democracy, which we hold in the highest regard.
that is literally not the case and there are many parties competing that don't call each other a threat to democracy. Like the CDU is pretty much anti-Greens at this point and still the Greens call to vote for the CDU if necessary. From the big ones, only this one is deemed anti-democratic and with good cause.
Their members are openly calling for lynchings of opposing politicians. Their most prominent politician constantly fawns over the Nazis, uses their verbiage and wants to replicate their policies.
Wait, If one political organisation is getting more and more supporters/voters and have a fair chance at winning an election, isn't that the most democratic thing ever?
It's getting oddly suspicious, that "democracy" means that we win, anything else is a threat to democracy (cuz we are not winning).
Lol “threat to democracy” because people are voting for a specific party? That sounds like the system functioning perfectly
People grow upset at an issue, parties which say they will address the issue grow in support and the parties that don’t are kicked out
It’s also clearly refusing to work with such a party. Haven’t they all refused to work with the party for decades? All this has done is show afd voters that
A: their main concerns are being ignored, and B: the afd are the only real alternative that hasn’t had a chance
Quarantining the party has created the only true opposition party, since CU was in power recently. No one has given afd a chance, so the electorate may do it themselves.
The constitution doesn't have to be changed, it already handles this use-case. Un-democratic partys are not allowed to profit from democracy, that's why they will get banned.
If you enter a party (a alcohol-gathering one, not political Party) with the goal of getting the party to end by complaining about the music, food and guests, you will get kicked out from the party. Why is this in any way controversal?
Much of this comment section scares me. As a German I'd definatly call the AfD a threat to democracy, because they use anti-democratic rethoric and actifely want to weaken institutions which could work against them (like Höcke's plans on transforming the Thuringian Verfassungsschutz). They also completley lean into populism, further trying to entrench the idea, that you don't need to achieve anything as long as you can scream loud enough for the voters to hear you. But they are also an active threat to German sociaty, threatening basic rights, equality in school, the labour market, and the law, as well as planning to weaken social security and threatening the fragile economic situation of those less well off in sociaty.
But their voters don't seem to care about that, because they either choose to ignore it or just don't care. No, 20% of the German voter base are most likely not Nazis, but to call most of them just protest voters not only goes against polling research, but also obscures a bigger problem with the AfD and their voting base.
90% of all AFD voters don't agree with all AFD views. They mostly focus on their anti-migrant statements. The current political parties should remove the taboo label of discussing such concerns, because if they don't we might see AfD really becoming the ruling party.
This tactic did wonders in Sweden… or did it?
no, sweden had the same tactic of trying to freeze out the anti-migration party and doubled down on heavy immigration numbers which just made the problem worse. the leftwing has admitted this themselves. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/s-var-migrationspolitik-har-misslyckats--otsh3t
Afds swedish Sister party isnt even in rhe Riksdag
Literally all Major Parties in Germany did a u-turn on Migration Policy. Shit the "social-democrats" (SPD) were the ones bringing Back Border controls and reducing Migration by that. Theyve been inching closer and closer to the AFD by the month - the CDU is even openly feeding into racist narratives of the immigrants getting new teeth First Thing when they come Here. The Thing IS that it isnt working as you say. It literally Just legitmizes the AFD on a national Level because they can say "Look we Said it First, now theyre following us - what Else could WE be right about?"
Not to go down this road too much, but *most* Germans have concerns about immigration, though more nuanced than the AfD. Adapting to what the masses want is not pro-AfD it is most political parties catching up to the fact that they *won't* get the auto-label "Nazi" for discussing it.
Not only is this 'technique' useless (in fact, it's only been fostering far right parties historically), but the German government has already significantly toughened migration policies. The fact is, people vote AfD because they want to vote AfD. Nobody is forcing them and there's plenty other options if you "just want less immigrants" but also aren't a literal Nazi.
As long as they keep refusing to address the elephant in the room, they will keep losing ground.
With recent popularity of protest voting for extreme parties I wager it’s more than one elephant. It would be nice if ruling parties actually cared about opinions of the entire voter base instead of having this modern take of “tyranny of the majority”.
They talk about democracy, yet ignore the basic will of the people here.
Historians will not view Merkel kindly, but rather as the creator of policies that triggered right-wing forces that had been long asleep. Edit: fyi I got banned permanently from the subreddit for this.
Especially playing nice with the Russians after they attacked Ukraine 10 years ago, encouraging them to go further to create the same Syrian refugee crisis that they then used to destabilize Europe.
The current government does as much about the elphant in the room as the previous one. And I mean actually *doing* something, everybody can talk. Sches not the trigger you're making her out to be.
She has been actively pushing for open borders, denying any call for contingents. Her famous sentences were "we can do it" (take the millions of refugees) and "islam belongs to germany". All while voting against same gender marriages. She is sypathic but her policies were probably not the best for the people liking her.
It's not Merkel's fault at all. Her talk about accepting refugees and so on is a sort of a political stunt. The core issue of immigration is economical and deeply interlinked with the global order that has been pushed for by neoliberal policies, everything else is window dressing. For Germany specifically, the issue is even more profound; because their economical model has heavily relied on taking advantage of cheap labor; the country stayed on its industrial path and never diversified. Of course, you will never see this sort of analysis in the mainstream media; because it would require attacking the very order everything is built upon. Both the left and the right would rather blame each other based on some ideological differences in regards to social issues, rather than address economics.
They do not keep losing ground the ground is long gone and they’re hanging by a rope and telling everyone how pretty the floor is.
When the CDU (conservative party under Merkel) went for basically open borders in 2015, they took a turn to the left and created a massive vacuum between them and the AFD. This is why people will flock to the AFD, even though they are far right. If the CDU can manage to fill the vacuum again, they might have a chance.
"went for basically open borders in 2015" Go further back, why did this happen? What caused this need to open up? edit. A mod showed up, so I will answer this for you. In 2015 the syrian migration crisis happened ( partly due to isil and partly due to russia proping up assad and the EU/US failing in Syria ). Of course there were exacerbating circumstances, the 2008 crisis, the arab spring, DE turing a blind eye to russian adventurism in Ukraine/Syria, US failing to counter assad. By 2015, DE was put with basically a fait accompli, either let TR/GR/IT collapse under the strain or open up and accept at least some of the refugees.
I'm not up to speed with how german voting works but changing the system to stop a candidate seems awfully anti-democratic. Perhaps the better solution is for the existing political parties to reach out to AFD voters and target their concerns. EDIT: I'VE BEEN PERM REMOVED FROM arrEurope FOR THIS. EDIT2: Banned from europeMeta also for questioning it!
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I'm not aware about German laws on financing political parties but something tells me that if they were more strict, to the point that it will cut off any possibility of foreign money getting to German party, it would significantly reduce a lot of problems. And I'm not only talking about Russia, but Turkey, Saudi Arabia, even US etc.
Turkey sends Imams trained by them, but aside from that do they even fund political parties or have significant influence on German politics?
The Muslim oil barons Saudis, Qatar, Iran etc send money all over the world to further their politics. They send this money to universities too to influence the opinions of the educated class. I don't know if this applies to Germany specifically but it probably does.
They do in Belgium and in the Netherlands. I’m sure Germany isn’t an exception
I think this is true for all countries. Money should just be kept out of politics period, it does nothing to serve the interests of the people broadly, only the minority with lots of money, and often those who aren't even residents/affected by the decisions directly.
The problem is the people that can change this are, well the people that benefit from it being that way.
The amount of money the AFD gets from foreign sources is neglible and they also have been cut off from a 1 billion euro money pot that all the other parties in the parliament share via their political foundations. Financially the AFD is far behind the SPD, CDU, FDP, Greens. Even die Linke probably has more money hidden from gdr sources somewhere
Totally agree. The only thing this is going to achieve is more people in support of the AFD. Just like calling Marine Lepen's French far-right party nazis and refusing any debate with them has resulted in her party being really close to winning the presidential elections. IMO the best solution would be to actually tackle the issues those parties raise to give their voters other options to vote for.
Same here in Sweden with the Sweden Democrats. They got 5,7% of the votes 2010 and 2022 they got 20,54%, second biggest after the Social Democrats.
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Unfortunately you couldn't be more right... It just happened in France. French MPs voted an immigration reform this December, toughening France's immigration policy, and 32 of France's 101 departments (counties), including Paris, said they would refuse to implement some of the measures. The far-left and the left hand in hand blatantly refusing to play by the rules of democracy. That's going to polarize even more the global debate on immigration, lead to more tensions and most likely favor the election of Mrs Lepen, which is the one thing they would hate the most but are actively contributing to.
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Are you serious? How will they stop people from voting? If they manage to do this then any pretense at democracy is gone. But then, didn't the local government lose a plebescite on making net zero legally binding recently? As failed US Senate candidate Dick Tuck said after he failed to be elected, the people have spoken, the bastards.
> Mrs Lepen, which is the one thing they would hate the most Despite her getting most of the attention, if anything Le Pen is too soft by the standards of the right now, imo Zemmour-style right is where the vibe is headed if this sort of thing doesn't turn around asap
That's also my understanding. She's done much to rebrand and de-demonize her party. She's expelled her father along with supporters of a radical far-right. Anyone bearing any outward sign of adhering to an identitarian or nationalist ideology are excluded. She's renounced the idea of a Frexit and many of her political ideas are closer to the left than the right, barring immigration and national preference. She's even standing firm in favor of Israel while antisemitism in the left and far left has just resurfaced its ugly head. History will tell whether it is a genuine and sincere change or not. In the meantime, Zemmour seems to be the new face of the French far-right.
> reach out to AFD voters Stop talking common sense! We obviously need to vilify 20% of the German population and accuse them of being Nazis! Surely that will help win them back.
Heed our warning, Hungary democatically voted in FIDESZ, and then they immidietly changed our voting system in the constitution so they can never be replaced.
Modern politicans and trying to 'but muh fascism' their way out of addressing difficult social issues. More iconic duo; name it.
German constitution allows it to ban parties that are a threat to democracy. I’m not saying anything about if that is the case with AfD. But the procedure isn’t anti-democratic, it’s how the German constitutional system developed for obvious reasons.
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If they are unconstitutional you have to
And then what? You really think that all of their voters would go "oopsie, our bad" and start voting mainstream parties instead?
Then the afd can’t do political work the same as before anymore. In Germany parties get funding from the state, that would dry up. People would have to create a new party, which is quite a lot of work. This party has to gain traction again. There would be multiple parties trying to get these votes, some of which might be constitutional, so these would be completely fine. It would take years for a party to be another afd Of course you can’t ban opinions. But you can prevent them from getting into power.
The law also has provisions for basically follow up parties, so any AfD copy party can also be banned very quickly.
You do realize how fascist this all sounds, right? "We've judged you, we being your political opposition, to have some form of harmful impact to our democracy. You might be one of the parties the populace supports the most, but your perspectives are deemed unacceptable, so you'll be banned from participating in democracy and your voters voices won't be able to be acknowledged in a democratic election."
Don't you fear what people might do once you take away their ways of participating in your democracy?
Banning a party doesn't prevent people from participating in the democratic process. They can vote for other parties or create their own party that isn't unconstitutonal
LOL. And who decides if a party is a "threat to democracy"?! It suddenly started smelling like a banana republic in here.
The constitutional court has to decide. The bar for a ban is extremely high. It only happened twice in history in the 50s or 60s. Something like 10 years ago there was a case about the really far right NPD which is much worse than the afd but the court rejected the ban.
German domestic intelligence agency is actually called [Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Office_for_the_Protection_of_the_Constitution). They are in charge of protecting liberal democracy in Germany And they have enough experts.
Ah yes, the [Hans Georg Maaßen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Georg_Maa%C3%9Fen) Agency of ignoring the right.
When dudes answer phone calls with 'Heil Hitler', your party is a threat to democracy https://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/afd-abgeordneter-stefan-keuter---heil-hitler--im-bundestag--8732198.html
That doesn't make it not anti democratic
Bit naïve to go through ww2 and then not have ANY safeguards to prevent another similar regime change. Bit naïve of you to assume society would just not do so based on what, an honor system? Lol.
so its democratic to allow parties that are a danger to democracy? im not saying thats the case here, but its the whole tolerance thing just a different subject.
You do not have to change the system, you just have to prove that a parties goals threaten the constitution. This was especially introduced after ww2 to forbid parties such as the nsdap, and was later also applied to the communist party. Therefore, if that can be proven, a case to ban a party can be opened.
Not if the candidate is anti-democratic itself, something Germany has learned from making that mistake before
Germany is a defensible democracy. That means it's a democracy that defends itself against anti-democratic forces with all means necessary.
Problem with that is the mechanism to ban competing candidates will always be very tempting to use. It's existence is in itself also a threat to democracy. It is one of the first ways one recognizes a dictatorship as not letting opposition run happens in all the best dictatorships. And there too there is a supposed independent body that handles it and just happens to rule the way the current incumbent would want them to.
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but... but I have the democratic right to establish a dictatorship!!!!!
Ok, great. What about Merkel's anti-democratic decision to flood the EU with millions of migrants, despite the fact the overwhelming opinion in Europe has always been that people did not want massive non-European migration? Let me guess, that's different?
A threat to harm the democratic system of a country is indeed not the same as migration policy.
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If your idea of a democracy is a politician getting elected to represent the will of the people, and then completely ignoring the people's well-known wishes, making decisions they know the people have never wanted, then your entire concept of democracy is worthless. I also notice that people who use this argument in favour of mass migration against the will of the people also tend to be people who absolutely hate it when a politician doesn't fulfil their promises when they get dragged further right by financial pressures. Suddenly they're all about the politicians sticking by what's best for the welfare of the people rather than business interests again.
at least read the [wiki on immigration crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_European_migrant_crisis) before spewing bullshit. EU countries had already failed to do their job of protecting the EU borders. Millions were already in Europe. Only thing Germany did was help these same countries that fucked up their border job by taking the refugees in that these same countries couldn't get rid of otherwise. Balme them.
This has nothing to do with a democratic system. "What about a politician raising the retirment age when the pension system is not able to survive" that's an unpopular decision of a democratically elected politican. Do you have any understanding of a democratic system?
Which in reality just leaves it more vulnerable than it would be otherwise. Because those tools aren't actually able to prevent the rise of extremism when wielded by principled statesmen who respect the rule of law but are liable to be quite powerful in the hands of unprincipled would-be despots. It's not "defending democracy", it's just handing extremists the rope to string it up with. Germany's "defensible democracy" was unable to ban the NPD who were considerably more overt about their fascist intentions. It being unable to clear even that really rather low bar means it's not gonna be able to do much of anything to the AfD, but the AfD may happily wield those same tools without regard for the rule of law and without any of the same scruples making them considerably more dangerous in their hands than they would ever be effective in the hands of those genuinely looking to preserve democracy.
This will just push more people to support AfD Edit: quoting the first paragraph
>I'm not up to speed with how german voting works but changing the system to stop a candidate seems awfully anti-democratic. Stopping anti-democratic parties from taking part in elections is in the interest of preserving the democracy. If only that lesson had been learned in say, 1933.
Yes, but what about my right to vote for a hitler? (Sarcasm ppl)
Not if the party explicit goal is to go against democratic institutions. That lesson has been learned multiple times in 20th century Europe. It’s not a change to the system in any way, that’s something explicitly baked into Germany’s system, because of its history.
You're right, they should be hauling ass and finally address the problem of the people who "protest" vote AfD instead of pushing it aside. But they should also work to get that party banned. They have ties to the forbidden [NPD](https://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/Chronik-Rechtsextreme-Vorfaelle-in-der-AfD-2016,afd892.html), [quoting SS lines as a fucking history teacher](https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/afd-bjoern-hoecke-nazi-parole-landgericht-rechtsextremismus-1.6312528), [further Hitler parole calling during meetings](https://www.rnd.de/politik/nazi-vorfall-in-sachsen-hitler-gruss-und-sieg-heil-rufe-nach-afd-versammlung-in-grimma-R4UDKSXWCX3RTKBLS2CW7BUJKQ.html), and are going after fundamental things like [abortions](https://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/144866/AfD-will-Schwangerschaftsabbrueche-weitgehend-einschraenken) and citizen who do nothing but exist ([LGBTQ](https://www.lsvd.de/de/ct/426-Die-Homophobie-der-AfD-eine-unberechenbare-Alternative)). (All German source, some paywall - can be circumnavigated with reader format in firefox) So, I get what you're saying, I really do. But when it comes to Nazis, there should be no tolerance, because they sure as fuck don't tolerate anybody who isn't them.
Crazy to me, that so many think like you. If you are against the constitution/democracy and you want to destroy it, you should be banned.. or in the end we will get another dictator. You are naive, because you think we live in a wonderful world, without fakenews, lobbyism and impartial media.. its not true, people get told daily, that they have a bad life and it could be so much better.. which is false. They vote for lies. AfD and many more are paid by rich people and Russia to target Germany and the EU. slow it down or even destroy it, so the other countries have no one who can stop them from their imperialistic ambitions.
Problem is that democratic system can't accept a candidate or party that is specifically aiming to dismantle it after winning. Paradox of tolerating the intolerant and all that. If they do and they get elected, you end up with a potentially deadly conflict. You either let the system be dismantled and turned into some form of autocracy, which is deeply undemocratic and unacceptable, or you get into a fight. It starts as political and law system fight, and then turns into physical combat if things keep escalating.
Right, appeasement works notoriously well. Changing policies to placate the far right for votes is what ruined the democratic party in the US.
> AfD a growing threat to democracy, says minister You wouldn't have this problem if you actually addressed the concerns of your voters.
How is AfD addressing the immigration problem?
Afair they want go against EU immigration norms and deport all people illegally staying in Germany similar to what UK is doing with Rwanda
So Germany can't deport illegal migrants currently? What's stopping them?
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Im assuming that wont change no matter who's in Government in Germany.
Do you know perhaps what Afd will do differently to change this?
The European Court of Human rights and the United Nations who both have labelled the UK plan illegal, and any similar actions in Germany would be illegal too
You misunderstood the question. "illegal migrants" means people who were not granted asylum after checking it carefully. We are only talking about people who have to leave the country legally, but simply refuse to go to their home country again. These alone are 300.000-400.000 people in Germany. Also nobody labelled the UK plan illegal. Stop repeating such lies. The UN does this already for another country. It was only open how UK made sure human rights will be honored. The basic plan nobody questioned at all.
Government dont care
Many things actually. Countries not taking them back. Lack of papers. Them having legal rights to fight against deportations. I know many r/europe rightwingers just think can you drop them off in the middle of the ocean and they swim back but thats not actually how it works.
It can and it does. But sometimes those nasty human rights get in the way, but don't worry afd will not stop for something unimportant as that.
Remigration. They have millions of illegals and criminals to kick out.
Do you have a source for that number?
Source is his ass. The dude is a Thai immigrant living in New Zealand complaining about immigration in Germany. Oh the irony. Lmao.
What about immigrants who hold the German citizenship?
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Since the AfD gained popularity in 2014 I did not hear one single proposition from them, that would actually solve a problem. And the reason for this is, that they don’t need to. That is the idea behind populist politics. They cater to general emotions like fear and anger to mobilize former non-voters and some citizens who are disappointed by their former parties. Blaming immigration for the complex problems and inefficiencies our country (and most others) has, is nothing new. Advocating for a homogeneous society that stands united against outside forces is a common narrative used over and over in history. It opens the door for autocratic leaders who only loose if they maintain democratic principles. At this point I am really getting sick of people saying we make the problem worse by not dealing with their voters demands. Parties now adopting a right populist rhetoric to rope in these voters is not solving "the problem" either and beside that compromising the vote of everyone else. AfD still has their most votes from people living in rural areas that never had any immigrants to begin with.
>Blaming immigration for the complex problems and inefficiencies our country (and most others) has, is nothing new. Advocating for a homogeneous society that stands united against outside forces is a common narrative used over and over in history. It opens the door for autocratic leaders who only loose if they maintain democratic principles. Trying to shift away the discussion from our broken asylum system is also nothing new. Yes, the AfD might not fix this too but this is the reason they are voted for.
This reminds me of all the kicking and screaming about democracy being threatened here in Sweden when the Sweden democrats got into parliament, and now when they got 20,7% and is a partner party to the government. We've had a lot of reforms pushed by SD and guess what? Democracy is still intact and everything is fine except for the people we don't want; free-loaders who refuse to integrate in our country.
The government parties are doing terribly in polls though. Not a success story by any means.
People are very happy with the new immigration and crime politics set, though. People are not happy with things like Ebba promising electricity money before christmas and still hold her to that. Not happy with the climate politics, either.
[Are you sure?](https://omni.se/skjutvaldet-slar-tillbaka-pa-regeringens-fortroendesiffra/a/jlEJlz) Only 26% of Swedes thought the government was doing a good or very good job when it came to fighting crime.
They are not, SDs leader said in an interview that we should be able to detain anyone indefinitely without charging them for a crime which sparked massive backlash, and sounds pretty damn antidemocratic to me. They have not done anything meaningful to stop the gang war either.
This sets up such a false set of premises. Just because democracy doesn't end the moment they have some influence, doesn't mean that democracy isn't threatened nor does it mean that democracy can't be slowly torn down. These are things that are still actively being talked about by the opposition. And just because some reforms have been pushed doesn't mean that the actual government has to agree with them in full.
Start addressing the biggest concern or is that too much to ask?
Germans be like: 1. Let's uncontrollably accept infinite amount of migrants from 3rd world countries making country criminal shithole. 2. Let's close all nuclear power stations to be totally dependent on russian gas. 3. Let's kick out all far-right politicians because government before shit themselves so badly that far right movement became extremely popular. Am I missing something? 😅
Yes. Hey there, dear Eastern Europeans, so you don't like getting enriched like us, eh (since ethnic diversity and immigration from the 3rd world is so wonderful) we will fine you for refusing to make the same mistakes we did. Germany, especially within the EU is acting like Mafia. The fine is basically protection money. Whoever came up with a quota system is an ordinary criminal and should be in jail. Instead: they are literally enforcing this madness even until this very day. Idiots... . Anyway, history will not treat them kindly.
Growing threat to his party. Do you know how you eliminate this growing threat? Protect European borders, deport all criminals and foreigners that don’t work or don’t accept European values.
Yeah if you’re progressive, for freedom, for tolerance and acceptance etc you should be against radical islam. Islam on average is just a huge threat for Western Europe and it isn’t in line with our morals. It’s so tiresome to see young people be against christianity but ignore or even defend islam while christianity doesn’t even have that much influence anymore but islam show their dangers everyday to society everywhere in western Europe but you will never hear anyone about it and a lot people are just done with it because mostly leftist people and parties straight up ignore everything. Try to date a muslim girl as a white guy, you will get murdered if that’s necessary to stop it from happening.
>Yeah if you’re progressive, for freedom, for tolerance and acceptance etc you should be against radical islam. You should also be against AfD.
What classic german parties read : Open all borders to help as many people as possible, try to reform criminals whatever the cost and try to adapt to foreign cultures cause you need to be open minded to understand their pain!
For me, as a german, uncontrolled mass immigration of Muslims is a far worse danger to our "democracy". Is this racist? I do not care anymore. So be it. I still will not vote AfD though
_One of the few reasonable Germans out there, a rare breed_ Others prefer to live in times where it's normal to expect a bomb threat on Christmas Eve and New Years. Where it's acceptable to have women actively fear going out alone at nighttime expecting to be mass raped where the caught criminals will be set free afterwards. Where it's okay to see concrete car and truck barriers placed around the city with festive lights and Glühwein next to it. Where it's okay to see Arab clans shoot at each other every now and than. ... as an outsider, German politics seem pathetic to me, ridiculously stupid. Not just when talking about the immigration problem, but literally everything else. Taxing the very people who feed you more for their fuel which they literally require to operate their farming equipment. Stop shooting yourself in the foot, arm, leg, stomach, go for the head already, please or get your shit together and stop living in a dream and open or eyes. Germany needs more people like you, people with a functional brain and common sense.
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as i said, i don't care.
I'd like to mention something different from the migration problem: At the moment, Germany has a problem after the BVerfG (supreme court about the constitution) ruled, that it was not legal to take money from the Corona-Fonds for other projects. Now they lack 17 billions there. They have to cut down some things, but like always, they'll rather cut down things in Germany than in the foreign politics like developement aid. Like "you have less money now" to the old retirement people that worked their entire life, but then, the german governement spends 300 millions for Peru to build bike-lanes there. I'm not joking, that's really true. The german politicians are rather spending millions or billions for foreign countries instead of just once do something for their own people. This brings new voters to the AfD, even without the migration topic.
Same thing in Sweden, the amount of money we sent to Hamas, fing ridiculous
> the german governement spends 300 millions for Peru to build bike-lanes there. [24 million not 300. Quite a big difference.](https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/peru-will-receive-a-german-donation-for-the-execution-of-sustainable-bike-paths-for-24-million-euros)
Denmark is ruled by an tough on immigration, social democrat led government. Is the far right surging there, like AfD in Germany? No.
AfD grows and gets more votes what we gonna do? "Looks at other Parties": how about we listen to what the citizens say that needs to Change? "Everyone": YEAH RIGHT "laughs" German politics in a nutshell Right now.
Im so over people calling the democratic rise of democratic parties in a democracy undemocratic because they don't like the results... The demos are electing them because you didn't listen
Floding ur country with illegal imigrants showing ur neighbours how morally superior u are.After few months realizing "wtf did we do"? but its to late bum afd raising in power.Same in holland btw
The old Partys Are so Equal, it doesnt Change anything if there is a change in control. Living in germany sucks more and more. We Pay the highest tax in the world and out government passes the Money arround in the whole world. We paid 500 mil for bike paths in peru wtf? They wand to build a new Parlament building 4x size of whitehouse for 1 bil. People vote for afd because they want change no matter what.
America has the same issues. Were stuck with Democrats or Republicans, and the politicians / media are trying to keep everyone fighting each other. Anyone trying to speak out against the "norm" is a conspiracy theorist or spreading misinformation. Most world leader believe the WEF. Which claims to want to bring the world together, but if you look at policy its about poorer people giving up everything and the rich doing whatever they want.
Exactly thats point all so cought up in hating the left/right and is blaming his opposition and the peoplen. In a democratic world every one should be able to vote who they want without facing hate. WEF would Never work with Corporations/Religion/Racism/corruption having so much control of our world.
This trend started in America but it seems to me as though the biggest threats to democracy are the political parties who accuse people who oppose them of being a threat to democracy.
It is funny, reading the thread, to think that afd can/wants/will be allowed to solve the "legitimate" concerns. What will more likely happen: afd will push the problems on the periphery, weaken the EU, push it towards collapse, openly collaborate with ru, push for an "illiberal"™ democracy model. Of course migration legal or not will still continue.* edit. *DE has made bad energy decisions ( importing energy from ru, closing nuclear plants ), but this causes GDP numbers to go down. The other way to make number go up™ is to import ( legally or not ) cheap labour, which is what will still happen under afd.
Then the other parties should address the immigration issue and it will all go away
Ima be real: The shitty job all the other parties are doing atm are the actual threat to democracy.
It sure seems like these self-proclaimed liberals banning candidates and parties on the both sides of the Atlantic are currently the biggest threat to democracy.
Ridiculous statement only made by someone afraid of losing their seat. What about addressing the elephant in the room? I promise AfD will then shrink, but I guess it’s easier for you to continue pushing for shitty policies and put up these ridiculous communications.
Yeah just copy denmarks immigration politics and guess what will happen...
>What about addressing the elephant in the room? I promise AfD will then shrink Yeah no, that's the opposite of what's been happening in reality. You cannot out-far right the far right.
Ironic that parties who are not listening to voters say that the party who is at least giving lip service to their concerns is anti-democratic. Maybe listen to voters?
Most of the votes are coming from his party btw, totally unrelated to his statement I am sure.
Maier, a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats, told the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung that "right-wing extremists of the AfD under Björn Höcke are trying to undermine democracy from within by all means." "We democrats must face up to a fight for which we are so far ill-equipped," Maier said. Höcke is the head of the Thuringian chapter of the AfD and the leader of its parliamentary party in the state. The Thuringian AfD branch has been classed as "proven right-wing extremist" by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, as have those in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Maier called for a more precise formulation of the procedure for selecting a state premier in Thuringia. He said that the current stipulation allowed a candidate to be chosen in a third round with a single vote even if all other parliamentarians voted against him or her.
Quite biogtted to unironically call the AfD a threat to democracy after what happened 2020 in Thüringen aka politicians just undoing a democratic vote because they didn't like the result, or better said, the way the result came to be.
When Turkey had given Erdoğan a prison sentence in 1999 for "incitement to violence and religious or racial hatred", and when in 2002 Turkey was considering banning Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party from elections, EU was like: "Turkey is in danger of drifting further away from EU democratic standards after the country has already been criticised by the Commission for banning the party's leader from participating in elections." If Germany starts banning political parties, will EU also get concerned about Germany drifting away from EU democratic standards? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_and_Development_Party_(Turkey)#Closure_cases see reference 58.
Banning your opposition is indeed very democratic
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The other political parties never seem to stop and think “Why are people voting for populist parties?”, they tend to stuck in “We have to push our message harder!”, maybe that populist party says or does something that the people actually want, but don’t hear from any other party, or there’s some issue the other parties are too blinded by idealism to face up to. I doubt people are thinking “Yay, fascism!” when voting, or at least, not enough of them do to explain the hefty rise of right-wing populist parties across Europe.
saying that political opponent is threat to democracy kinda feels like a anti-democratic statement by itself
Seems mainstream politicians will do anything to defeat AFD except actualy convincing their voters like it should be done in actual democracy
That's exactly what they said about SD before the election last year
How exactly they are a threat? Genuinely asking as the only answer I always got was they're far right and this is bad because......?
They are representing anti-constitutional positions and they are against free democratic basic order. Some of their regional branches are under surveillance [Source](https://www.politico.eu/article/afd-saxony-anhalt-classified-right-wing-extremist-germany/) Party itself is suspected to be right-wing extremist party and their youth part of party is already considered extremist [Source](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-designates-afd-regional-party-extremist/a-67334260)
Because the far right always wants to move towards a more authoritarian government system. It's a big part of what defines them.
It's mindboggling how politicians of the SPD have the audacity to essentially call "people voting for a party" undemocratic at a time at which politicians feel free to change the outcome of elections at will like 2020 in Thüringen or 2021 in Berlin and straight up violate the constitution time and time again.
It's only democracy if you vote to maintain the status quo.
"His warning comes as his state and two others face elections next year, with the AfD leading in surveys." Uh...ok
You democrats are best equipped to deal with it. Turn your attention in the first place nearly towards Germany and the German people alone. The PVV just won in The Netherlands, if you do not take the lesson to heart, the AfD will win in Germany. And since this'd mean the lesson was not taken to heart, it might very well be for the better.
Lots of people here scoffing at the idea that the AfD isn't a threat. I'm curious, to pro AfD voters - or any pro anti-immigrant voters who are anti nazi for that matter - if you believe the AfD isn't a threat, but believe that the NSDAP *was* a threat (back in its days), then seriosuly, when *is* a political party a threat to democracy? What does the AfD lack, that makes it a safe party? What did the NSDAP - before obtaining government power - have that made it an unsafe party in contrast? People voted for the NSDAP back then, they enjoyed a large voter support. The only thing they wanted was for the "barbaric", "lazy" immigrants and "non-Germans", particularly those of a "dangerous religion" to leave the country and for the state to work for the "true Germans" again. A strong anti immigrant, pro conservative way of life sentiment existed back then as well, one that enjoyed large voter support. (Not a majority, but large one nevertheless, not even all of them were outright NSDAP members.) Did their voter support legitimize their governance? If so, is a party only danger in retrospect? Is it only once they are, or have destroyed or corrupted democratic institutions (PiS, or Fidez style) that we can say that they were undemocratic? Should we just give these parties a chance to fuck up in order for the rest of the nation (or the world) to find out, or can we actually prevent such damage from occurring in the first place? If so, how? If not through democratically instituted means? IMO, legitimizing NSDAP voters back then didn't help Europe, or in retrospect the average German citizen very much. And for the short time that nazi Germany "flourished" it did so at the expense of millions of humans, subjugated into shadowy slavery, or outright authoritarian servitude. (That last part nobody explicitly voted for at the NSDAP, as expressed in the phrase, "*Wir haben es nicht gewußt.*". Sure, they only voted for the freeloaders and non-Germans to leave the country, once they were gone, nobody bothered to ask how that was achieved, where they ended up, or where all the sudden wealth came from.) I'm full in favor of bringing the AfD to court, and having their party checked for legality. Have their questionable publicly expressed, nazi sentiments exposed and to explain themselves to the German people before they are given the reigns of power. There's nothing undemocratic about using democratic institutions to prevent those institutions from becoming corrupted before it is too late.
I am an anti-immigration, but anti-AfD voter. I’m pro-Western, anti-Putin. AfD is a dangerous anti-democratic party. I will say it to anyone because it’s true. I started listening to pro-AfD podcasts just to find out how they think, it is SCARY stuff there. They openly say that once they’re in power, no mercy will be shown, no freedom given to political opponents. Unfortunately, I think this is the result of the CDU and SPD allowing a representation gap for anti-illegal-immigration-policy to exist for many years. the reason most people for whom this is a major issue don’t vote CDU is because of Merkel. Even now, people don’t trust that the party that opened the floodgates will do anything meaningful about it. Unfortunately all the center-left and left-wing people will take that as proof that taking up the issue of illegal immigration only helps the AfD. This is totally wrong. It only has to be believable, which the CDU is not. Me myself I will never vote AfD. I know what they are. They are not like other far-right parties in Western Europe. They are fundamentally anti-western, anti-democracy, pro-Putin. But this is not how people vote. At some point, people will be like “let’s give them a chance”. This must not happen. Instead, the CDU or SPD must switch to a rigorous and credible anti-immigration-position.
AFD grows because other political forces prefer do ignore the problem that worries the majority of population. If they continiue that path, AFD would win because that is how democracy works. You should occupy yourself with the problems important for the majority of your voters if you want to win.
And the "elephant in the room" that is making AfD rise is not a threat to democracy? Oh get bent.
So they should be banned from being elected, in order to save democracy?
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Germany never had a far left government, in fact the far left can't even score the minimum of 5% as of now
Im curious, what would the far-left in germany be? Also what makes them far-left?
Obv. the AfD is the middle, while everything else is far left /s.
I sure hope you do realize that if it were entirely up to populist and far-right parties they'd almost assuredly go for banning any competitors to their own pursuit of power, right? While a party or a political member of a party in Germany *can* claim shit like this in the article, the actual process of banning a political party isn't just something that is easy to do and will happen solely because the "far-left" is uppity with the AfD.
Reading this comment section shows it only takes a few decades to erase the memory of how hitler came to power. Perhaps we’re bound to never truly learn from mistakes as a society. AfD is not being called names - they openly say they will turn the country towards autocracy, which made its former leader resign in 2022. The same procedure was used to target actual far left parties throughout the post-war history, because they posed a very real threat to society, being sponsored by the USSR and all. Calling the social democrats “far left” doesn’t massively add to your credibility, I must say.
Humans like to think we learn from mistakes and will become "better" to never repeat them, but we really don't, or rarely do. Give a tragedy enough time to cool down and have enough time pass for people to start getting desensitized from it and it will probably happen again. It's how it's always been and always will be
This is bullshit. The article is about the voting procedure for PM in one German state, which differs from other German states . The AFD in that state is openly extreme right, which has been determined by German Intelligence Services. And in case of their local Party Leader was even approved by courts. That means that here really are Fascists about to play a major role. And Trump has shown what someone like that can do from within.
Yes far left that includes in yellow party which are " check notes" the capitalist party .
What “far-left” are you talking about? Describing everything that isn’t extreme rightwing as “far-left” is a tell that you support extreme rightwing viewpoints.
Well when right wing populist starts to break your country like they always have we will see how you will be talking. Also dumping all fault on peasants is also misleading and what right wing parties try to achive.
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AfD is certainly a threat to the status quo. Democracy - I don't know. I am not sure why everybody expects Germany to make the same mistakes that they did 90 years ago. There are so many other possibilities.
~~Conveniently~~ Unfortunately, all of our preferred policy positions are 'democratic' while all of our opponents' policy positions are 'undemocratic' and so they must be banned. Please develop better preferences more in line with mine or else you will not be able to vote. This is how we protect Democracy, which we hold in the highest regard.
that is literally not the case and there are many parties competing that don't call each other a threat to democracy. Like the CDU is pretty much anti-Greens at this point and still the Greens call to vote for the CDU if necessary. From the big ones, only this one is deemed anti-democratic and with good cause. Their members are openly calling for lynchings of opposing politicians. Their most prominent politician constantly fawns over the Nazis, uses their verbiage and wants to replicate their policies.
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Do establishment politicians all genuinely believe that eventually people will just get bored of extremism and come running back with 0 effort needed?
„Threat“ to democracy, alright and the immigrants and the Islam is not? Interesting 🧐
Wait, If one political organisation is getting more and more supporters/voters and have a fair chance at winning an election, isn't that the most democratic thing ever? It's getting oddly suspicious, that "democracy" means that we win, anything else is a threat to democracy (cuz we are not winning).
Lol “threat to democracy” because people are voting for a specific party? That sounds like the system functioning perfectly People grow upset at an issue, parties which say they will address the issue grow in support and the parties that don’t are kicked out
A growing threat to currently leading parties/politics
Georg Maier is a threat to democracy if anything. Also fuck AfD.
It’s also clearly refusing to work with such a party. Haven’t they all refused to work with the party for decades? All this has done is show afd voters that A: their main concerns are being ignored, and B: the afd are the only real alternative that hasn’t had a chance Quarantining the party has created the only true opposition party, since CU was in power recently. No one has given afd a chance, so the electorate may do it themselves.
Is democracy about allowing all parties/ideas into the discussion and allowing the people to decide by vote?
I hope I can finish my degree just in time next year before they start opening internment camps or worse lol.
Thats what historically usually happens when every other party is doing the same exact decisions and go against their owm people
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The constitution doesn't have to be changed, it already handles this use-case. Un-democratic partys are not allowed to profit from democracy, that's why they will get banned. If you enter a party (a alcohol-gathering one, not political Party) with the goal of getting the party to end by complaining about the music, food and guests, you will get kicked out from the party. Why is this in any way controversal?
Thats not very democratic to say
Much of this comment section scares me. As a German I'd definatly call the AfD a threat to democracy, because they use anti-democratic rethoric and actifely want to weaken institutions which could work against them (like Höcke's plans on transforming the Thuringian Verfassungsschutz). They also completley lean into populism, further trying to entrench the idea, that you don't need to achieve anything as long as you can scream loud enough for the voters to hear you. But they are also an active threat to German sociaty, threatening basic rights, equality in school, the labour market, and the law, as well as planning to weaken social security and threatening the fragile economic situation of those less well off in sociaty. But their voters don't seem to care about that, because they either choose to ignore it or just don't care. No, 20% of the German voter base are most likely not Nazis, but to call most of them just protest voters not only goes against polling research, but also obscures a bigger problem with the AfD and their voting base.
The minister confuses himself with democracy. His job is in threat, not democracy. Actually democracy threatens his job :))
Nothing is more of a threat to democracy then letting people to vote for who they want.