Moot point akin to trump’s “good people on both sides” comment after Charlotte.
One side is deliberately taking inspiration from nazi slogans and such…
That they are rabidly pro-Israel while simultaneously glorifying Hitler and indulging in conspiracy theories of Jewish domination certainly lends credence to the idea that anti-Zionism ≠ antisemitism
Because Israel is their wet dream: an ethno-suprematist country, with right to self-determination only for the majority group, that seeks for lebensraum and shoots anyone who opposes it.
Frankly, I think their supposed "antisemitism" is a joke compared to their anti-Arab and anti-muslim attitude. Those are their real enemies now.
I think they don't know much about history but think they do, and believe that the Crusades were the West heroically coming to help oppressed people because Arabs. 'They started first', basically.
Many French would have you believe women wearing Hijab should be banned lest it destroy their "western culture" when even the most Islamophobic Americans don't care
A 5% Muslim population in UK is supposedly threatening to send them back to the dark ages when Singapore is at 15% with codified multicultural guarantees and somehow annihilates them in every measure of modernity and development
> Many French would have you believe women wearing Hijab should be banned lest it destroy their "western culture" when even the most Islamophobic Americans don't care
citation *desperately* needed
> A 5% Muslim population in UK is supposedly threatening to send them back to the dark ages when Singapore is at 15% with codified multicultural guarantees and somehow annihilates them in every measure of modernity and development
Mate, you're comparing the population of Singapore, a country among the world's strictest immigration laws and mostly local Mayal Sunnis who are cosmopolitan academics, to Britain, of which most ob its muslim inhabitants arrived there from central Africa and the ME via small boats, while also being largely uneducated *and* statistically likely to be a product of incest [1]
There's a general issue with immigrants coming from different cultures and whose values and traditions don't align with our, often in ways that go against the principles of our societies. It's something that needs to be addressed seriously, and the failure of political parties to do so has fuelled the growth of a right that profits from the issue and tries to paint it bigger than it is.
That of course has nothing to do with the fact that extreme-right parties look at Israel, with its ethnic suprematism, as an example. The only connection I see is backwards: Israel is undoubtedly doing its best to fuel racism against muslims because it wants us to believe we have a common enemy.
I don't care more or less about Islamic attitudes than I do about Catholic or Jewish attitudes. It's all the same to me, people who are unable to divorce themselves from their heritage to perceive the world in terms unrelated to their parentage or place of birth, which together explain the vast bulk of the religious affiliations.
Unfortunately, hundreds of millions of people, including queer people and women, do not have your luxury. They do in most Christian countries and Israel.
This comes after a campaign that has been going on for weeks claiming that Die Linke is antisemitic (the left-wing party that got the most votes in Berlin's most recent election). CDU (the current national governing party) has been pushing the narrative that Die Linke is comparable to AfD, because they call for human rights in Gaza and to stop the unconditional support for Israel by the German government.
A vast archive of hacked emails from the AfD was published online on Monday: 281 GB containing 421,179 internal party emails. And, for anyone who might have grown confused about claims of antisemitism while it was plastered over the German news media in the weeks following the Berlin election: here you can see what it really looks like.
In email after email, party supporters use racist slurs and share antisemitic theories of Jewish world domination; there are jokes about turning refugees into handbags and boots, discussions of whether refugees should be shot at the border, a Christmas card sent with a swastika and “Heil Hitler”, and an email thread signed off with “Heil und Sieg”.
The entire archive is available online – though it may be a criminal offence in Germany to torrent the material or distribute it online. Yet the journalists who’ve been able to examine parts of the hack consider it authentic. The methodology behind the leak is also quite interesting: the vast archive has not been published directly on the site. Instead, it is available via a series of AI summaries, which have been filtered according to severity (CRITICAL, HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW) and type, with categories including “racism_xenophobia”, “corruption_money”, “leadership_feud”, “conspiracy”, “violence_threats” and “antisemitism_extremism”.
The party itself has confirmed the hack to Bild: “In September 2026, a hacker attack targeted one of our party’s hosting service providers, during which portions of a few email accounts – most of which had not been used for years – were apparently illicitly copied.”
Many of the summaries are the party’s own internal disciplinary proceedings, with emails sent to party boards to decide whether to open expulsion proceedings against members. Here, what is shocking (though perhaps not surprising) is the depth and breadth of racist feeling from party members: slurs, fantasies of violence, and antisemitic statements appear commonplace. One email from 2016 appears to show Weidel forwarding a member’s antisemitic material to the federal board as the party weighed his expulsion, while including a warning to her colleagues that the Verfassungsschutz – Germany’s domestic intelligence service – might be reading.
There are some cases which do not appear to have drawn the ire of the party, including one Bavarian official urging party leaders to chant “Merkel croak” every day, or another thread in which staff at the party’s federal office apparently discuss luring a photographer to a party event and removing him by force.
The anonymous hackers claimed their motive behind the leak was to show the “degeneracy and hypocrisy” of the AfD. Among the countless acts of hate speech, there are also allegations of embezzlement and financial misconduct, according to DDoSecrets, a transparency collective which republished the archive: the site’s software flagged 34 documents for misuse of funds, 23 for off-the-books payments, 14 for undisclosed donations and seven for embezzlement.
The AfD party is currently polling at 29% nationally – even while they fight a designation by the Verfassungsschutz as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” party in court. That designation has already been made by state intelligence offices for some state branches, such as Sachsen-Anhalt — though it did not seem to hurt their electoral success. The party achieved 43.8% of the vote there in September.
> there are jokes about turning refugees into handbags and boots, discussions of whether refugees should be shot at the border, a Christmas card sent with a swastika and “Heil Hitler”, and an email thread signed off with “Heil und Sieg”.
> The AfD party is currently polling at 29% nationally – even while they fight a designation by the Verfassungsschutz as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” party in court.
I am no fan of the AFD (especially because I live in Poland) but mostly because I don’t like having opinions on political parties in countries where I don’t live and don’t speak the language.
But I think this kind of moral approach is precisely why right wing parties have been winning globally, in the US and elsewhere. For many voters, the overwhelmingly important thing is individual economic security and personal/familial safety. Full stop.
And so if you force them to choose between a morally off putting party that at least claims to care about their problems, and one that is ostensibly morally less bankrupt, but hand waves away those problems – they’re going to hold their nose and vote for the former. Shame and outrage doesn’t work in a society that is uncertain and scared about its future.
It seems like a handful of candidates are beginning to understand this, in the US at least, but for some reason this level of realpolitik is just beyond many center and center-left parties.
The Nazis became popular during The Great Depression (which affected Germany) and we are seeing history repeat itself. Someone is now going to tell me we aren't in a recession because "number go up!" while everything around us tells us a different story.
The great depression was just as much a wealth concentration at the cost of the 95% as is happening now, history will repeat itself. Speculation followed by wealth inequality followed by tarifs followed by reduced international trade. Sounds familiar.
The economic platform of the AfD doesn't even pretend to care about normal people. Neither does the Republican platform and Trump in particular in the US.
This argument has been repeated for decades, but I just don't see it.
> the AfD doesn't even pretend to care about normal people.
It explicitly cares about people who identify as traditional Germans, who in their own eyes are "the normal people".
On the economic side, Gemini tells me that they favour deregulation, smaller government, and reducing bureaucracy for small and medium-sized enterprises (Mittelstand). They also want to increase family support payments to incentivise having children. These are all economic policies that make sense to conservative-minded "normal people".
Deregulation, smaller government, and reducing bureaucracy aren't conservative values. Any conservative that believes that has been duped into libertarian capitalism.
> Deregulation, smaller government, and reducing bureaucracy aren't conservative values.
They're fiscally conservative values, as you likely already know. Social and fiscal conservatism are correlated, as you likely also already know.
In order for you to make this statement, you had to take a word ("conservative") that can be interpreted in one of two well-known ways ("social conservative", "fiscal conservative"), and pretend that when I used that word, I must have meant the way that doesn't make sense, instead of the way that obviously does.
Sure, fair enough, but in my defense, "conservative" used to mean fiscal conservativism is a very American concept. I wouldn't say 'conservative-minded "normal people"' in a discussion about the AfD necessarily or obviously invokes the idea of fiscal conservativism.
Exactly. The establishment doesn’t care about the people and wave them off, so populist parties took the advantage. This happened before and will happen again.
Let's be crystal clear, parties like the AfD don't care either. History is chock full of examples where far-right leaders got into power and broke most of their promises and achieved the polar opposite for most of their followers. For example Trump campaigned on "eggs too expensive" and promptly passed legislation that allowed the farms to price-fix even harder leading to "eggs even more expensive". The same has happened again and again with the "let's make the country secure again" claims, e.g. starting WW2 did not in fact make the average German's life safer.
Their propaganda is that they care so the point is that the other guys don’t care so people flock to someone who says they genuinely care. It’s hard to fix the economy so I don’t think anyone can fix it. And as history shows again and again I think whoever gets the government is going to sleep with the big corps anyway.
> I don’t like having opinions on political parties in countries where
and then proceeds with extreme opinions on that parties.
Far-right parties have increased their presence thanks to inequality created by conservative parties and well funded campaigns by billionaries.
Let's not pretend that this is the will of the people when so much money is put into moving the blame of the current state of the economy from billionaires and monopolies towards working class people of foreign origin. (Like if it was working class people the ones hoarding money and power)
It's a little condescending to treat millions of people as puppets of billionaires. Are there not billions behind the media you consume? (ycombinator...)
A lot of 'extreme views' being bandied around are not really any different to what was spoken about in the 90s, tbh. Even Tony Blair was making comments on topics like immigration which would make today's audience blush.
We've had decades of centrist governments all throughout Europe. Do they not shoulder any blame for the rise of the far-right? Or is it only the "billionaires" who have agency?
I agree somewhat. However, the fault of mainstream politics is one of failure. The fault of extraterritorial actors is one of action.
I think that mainstream governments in the rounds haven't done enough for hoi polloi in the past few decades, but also that perceptions of what they could have fine may often be unrealistic. There are many prophets - some shallow thinkers might say "just read [ Das Kapital | Friedman ] and do that", but i don't agree that ideology delivers the benefits it promises.
It was a tall order to expect the past few decades of governing parties to satisfy the people enough that they don't turn to AfD shit.
Mainstream politicians' capital comes from votes, an expensive and limited resource. Extraterritorial actors do not have this constraint.
Where i end up is: yes, we should blame tired neoliberal parties for failing the people and driving then to charlatans. But that blame should be tempered by an understanding that government is a game that never leaves everybody satisfied. But extraterritorial actors? They are somewhere between philosophically vacant and hostile, and they are fucking with us just because they can. The blame is categorically greater.
Well, this is exactly how people voted for Hitler, and I would have assumed people know from history how it ended when "moral approach" was thrown away.
> But I think this kind of moral approach is precisely why right wing parties have been winning globally
No, right wing parties have been winning globally because they are vastly more resourced both financially and media-space-ly than the opposition. If you can constantly flood the zone with bullshit, it becomes impossible for the opposition to correct the disinformation before the next flood arrives.
The right only cares about wellbeing of the rich, and is usually keen to exploit the demographic majority in the interest of the few (see what is happening in US now). I follow politics of democratic countries closely for few dozen years, but I have yet to find an example of rightist party which improved economic wellbeing of its constituents (except those who are already rich)
I have different hypothesis. How I see it democracy have 2 very good feedback loops.
Fast one - the one that used journalism (so called 4th branch of government) that enjoyed public trust and more or less was factual which in turn kept public opinion more or less in one shared and factual reality. This in turn put pressure on actual government in between elections.
And there is second one - slower - public could change government in elections based on the lived experience of last N years.
The monopolies broke 1st loop completely. And the 2nd was hindered. Now ppl cannot choose directionally in slow loop (elections) what is good for their self interest bcs they do not have factual picture of reality. So they can choose based on vibes which in turn is as good as "random move away form current status quo".
IMHO still way better then autocracy.
Case in point - ppl voted for Trump among other things bcs of gasoline prices. How it turned out...
And why right wing - bcs said monopolies put thumb on the scale - as their are capital after all. And they do have more self awareness what is best for their interest. If democracy survives next will move will be ditching current right wing for whatever else and then even monopolies thumb on scale probably will not help current regimes.
I agree with much of what you are saying. Personally, I have a distaste for far-right and far-left parties, to put it mildly. However, I think it's really telling that the term "populism" has been so vilified. Here is the definition of populism according to Merriam-Webster:
> 1. a political philosophy or movement that represents or is claimed to represent the interests of ordinary people especially against the Establishment
> 2. general concern for ordinary people
In US politics, both Bernie Sanders and Trump were put in the same bucket and derided as populists by the media.
One thing I would add is that we have the most concentrated control of media since pre-Gutenberg times. This is a huge issue, as a very small number of people have control of our politics and emotions, and use that to further their own weirdo interests.
I think part of the advantage is providing public evidence in favor of a Verbotsverfahren, e.g. the process of banning a political party for being counter to the principles of the German constitution and with that, pressure towards the state organs to stop ignoring the threat and finally do their job.
You don't need more evidence for a Verbotsverfahren. That's not the reason one wasn't already started. It's the unwillingness of the parliament to initiate one
I don't think being hacked by an anonymous entity grants much political advantage? If anything the downside is shifting the overtone window by dumping all the far right takes on the broad public and making them a bit more familiar.
They just won a state election a few weeks ago, and they're also ahead in nation-wide polls - how can you ban a party that receives the majority vote of the population?
Because Germany has laws specifically to ban parties that are shown not to be working in the best interest of the people, specifically to stop another situation where they gain a majority vote.
well for example in Romania (EU member state), they canceled the presidential elections (2024) after they were won by a person no one knew anything about.
he posted & advertised heavily nationalistic videos on tiktok and gained huge following.
court said the election had been affected by irregularities, alleged foreign interference, and problems with campaign financing and online campaigning.
Democracy is not only rule of majority. It is also protection of the constitution and minorities. So that everybody can live their life as they please. The AfD clearly is against all of that. Our constitution offers a way to defend against these forces and it is time that the process is started.
The exact purpose of a constitution is to protect people from voting their rights away. There is lots of history establishing why successful democracies need strong constitutions.
Democracy isn't two wolves and a sheep voting about what's for dinner.
Just ask yourself if you would be ok with the majority of the population voting to abolish private property. Or Islamists voting to end votes. Or men voting to remove the voting rights of women.
History tells us, that only works in shortest of terms. If anything it raises their anti-establishment reputation (see how NDSAP was banned and it did nothing to stop Hitler's rise).
EU and Germany's woes won't go away with banning a party. You can't have a single currency without a joint fiscal policy (aka federal state).
The lesson the US should have taken from that period in Germany is that if a party leader attempts a coup once, you should not let them and their party get elected to finish the job.
What makes you say that? Between being sent to prison for high treason and having his party banned, what part was kid gloves handling? Not shooting him in the head? That's how you make a martyr for someone worse to take power.
If you kill a head of a movement, without addressing resentment, you just allow that resentment to get even more radical and vicious. And resentment was built in, due to how post WW1 peace was done with punitive war repayments.
Hitler was sent to a gentlemen's prison (Festungshaft) for high treason with a sentence of five years, but released after eight months. That is completely ridiculous for high treason. The regular sentence was life, the absolute minimum in case of exonerating circumstances (in this case most likely being right-wing, sorry, "wanting the best for his country") was five years. I'm pretty sure that he would have spent life, or at least many years, in prison if he had been a communist.
Free speech in Germany is limited. Hate speech, nazi slogans, etc... are banned.
And regardless, banning a political party (the process for which is set in Germany's constitution) is not the same as banning its former members from speaking.
Voltaire never said that. However I understand your point, the truth is Europe has been on the precipice of far-right rule for decades and the only solution the European democracies found has been to push for banning, cutting funds, censoring the beast.
Anything but address the actual issues that helped catapult them to the top.
> Anything but address the actual issues that helped catapult them to the top.
The goal posts for those issues will always move.
Look at Japan for instance. For decades, its government's stances on immigration were far to the right of anything in Europe, and guess what, that still didn't stop a far-right faction and its sentiments from taking over.
You can always manufacture anxiety over literally anything, see for instance how the US republican party has made a fight over, like, 10 trans athletes a core pillar of their national culture war.
> Whatever happend to Voltares "I disprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it"?
O tempora, o mores. Back in Voltaire's (sic) days, this would have been an issue between debating gentlemen, not one of massive spreading of hate. It's the fault of media and internet, I know, but that's not so easy to stop.
We have to see this through the lens of modern German history, and the corpus of rules (and lessons from history) that allowed the German Federal Republic to become an independent state again. I think this is not about saying things, but about saying things that foreshadow an attack on the constitution, and then perhaps very likely damaging the institutions of a country in the future.
A democratic state is a suboptimal construct. Once the politcal damaged, it is not easily repaired (See: Some countries East of Germany).
Democracy is not only rule of majority. It is also protection of the constitution and minorities. The AfD clearly is against both and thus is not democratic and should be banned.
You are bending a word to mean things it has never in its entire history meant. There is absolutely nothing intrinsic about democracy that protects minorities.
There is nothing intrinsic to democracy that means you need to have a constitution. This should be obvious since many democratic states and organizations have no constitution! The UK has no formal constitution, neither does Israel. Canada also has no single constitution document. There are probably lots of non-democracies out there that have constitutions. It's completely orthogonal to whether or not a place is a democracy.
Ok, there might narrower and wider definitions of Democracy: "Under a narrow definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitive elections, while broader definitions also link democracy to guarantees of civil liberties and human rights" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy)
But Germany has a constitution and it allows to ban parties, that act against it. Would you say, that makes Germany not democratic?
Well, they aren't running any camps yet, so how can you prove they will actually run camps in the future? You can't, so internet argument rules require you must accept that the opposite is factual.
I have grown tired of people not accepting that a party can truly be far right and try to put it off as being a shift in perception of the general public.
And do you also include the forced deportation of people with non-German ethnic backgrounds, even if they are citizens of Germany, in these "mildly conservative views"?
Ruined? You mean the continent with the highest life expectancy, highest rate of higer education, lowest infant mortality, and lowest rate of child poverty (and relative poverty in general).
The world is angry, we live in the age of the predators. European youth are also disappointed, just as in north America, that higer education is no longer a highway to a better life than our parents. But ruined? No.
"Look at the conditions X is in" is a common dog whistle for anti-immigrants and racists. It's a flare sent up to say, "Hey, who else thinks all these X are ruining our country?"
The AfD became relevant precisely because the conservatives (CDU) were not far right enough. They exist to be more right wing than the conservatives. They are as blatently far right as it gets.
If a constitution had a pro slavery clause and a party is trying to change that we would consider them heroes, so why is it such a bad thing to change the system if it is failing to provide for the people?
The entire point of a constitution is to remain unchanged.
The constitution protects people from voting their rights away forever just because they look for a quick solution. This has happened in the past, and to prevent it from happening again, the constitution has been strengthened to the point of banning anticonstitutional parties.
The same question goes the other way as well. If a constitution does not have a slavery clause and now people want to add it, should they be allowed to do that?
I read into your question, that they should be allowed to do that. The question is, why should they?
There are ongoing efforts to ban the party (through constitutional instruments created specifically after 1945 to prevent a second NSDAP or other similar anti-constitutional extremists) and there is an argument to be made that this is strategical assistance for evidence-gathering.
There has been another effort [0] collecting _public_ statements that can be used in a potential future Constitutional Court case. Depending on your stance this leak complements the ban effort or undermines its legitimacy. Note, Germany has no fruit-of-the-poison-tree evidence provisions!
Not sure those efforts will lead anywhere, as the conservative CxU party is already positioning themselves to be the "rational right-wing voice", parroting the same messages but more eloquently.
If it progresses like it ALWAYS does (EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.), the center-right party copies the far-right messages in hopes of gaining the votes of the far-right voters, then enters a coalition with them as the "voice of reason to reign them in", to ultimately just achieve normalization of those narratives, a hollowed-out democracy, destroyed political discourse and an empowered far-right party.
But one can hope, that THIS time it will be different...
Welcome in current Polish politics. Konfederacja from our ground in currently playing to be buddy buddy with winning party and is treated as semi part of current government
> the center-right party copies the far-right messages in hopes of gaining the votes of the far-right voters, then enters a coalition with them as the "voice of reason to reign them in", to ultimately just achieve normalization of those narratives, a hollowed-out democracy, destroyed political discourse and an empowered far-right party.
Now imagine you had only a center-right and a far-right party, and you have the U.S. :/
While it probably feels quite safe and dry under that rock you call home you might want to have a look around every now and then to get attuned to the zeitgeist. If you do you'll notice a bunch of useful idiots calling themselves the 'Democatic Socialists of America', a group which has been successful in many races and seems to be poised to take over the 'democratic' party. They have a major in New York and one in Seattle, they have a potential presidential candidate and they seem to be growing like fungus. Their program leads right to the bread lines which always seem to be the unspoken goal of socialist movements everywhere. They are at least as far to the left in their rhetoric as e.g. the Swedish and German communist parties (which both call themselves 'the left').
The mainstream left in the USA used to be comparable to the centre-right in most western-European countries but this is no longer the case.
Hey down-voters, how about reacting instead of playing the hide-the-dissent game? The way you're acting now is somehow fitting in the context of this discussion since political extremists tend to get rid of dissent by getting rid of dissenters. We're not there yet so let's hear it, what is it you don't agree with?
In what way are they at least as far as the Swedish left? I follow Swedish politics (as a local), maybe not the American one to the same detail. From the small amount of talking points I've heard from Mamdani, Sanders etc I feel like they're more close to Social democrats (or the more left leaning wing within it) than the left. If we look at what they've implemented, some of the policies could be considered center left at worst.
From the other comment of yours, I'm a bit sceptical if your take on Social democrats in USA nor that of Europe is accurate, but I digress.
I ask this because most socialist-phobia minded Americans I know are stuck at surface rethoric. In Europe at least most of the socialist-phobias fear are already implemented long since, and many have moved the debate to a more constructive "how to implement it / do it right". The surface level conversation is therefore like being an engineer looking at clueless MBAs vague PowerPoint slides with no details at all.
But since you specifically pointed out German and Swedish left, I wager you have a bit more interesting take than the surface level and I'm curious of the perspective
That's a interesting theory. Usually what happens is the opposite: a right-wing party will pretend to be right-wing to win the election and then when in power it will do whatever the left-wing party does.
For example, they will promise you to kick one billion immigrants, and then when in power they will say that they actually can't do that because of law or economic concerns… and then they will increase the rate of immigration.
> "Usually what happens is the opposite: a right-wing party will pretend to be right-wing to win the election and then when in power it will do whatever the left-wing party does."
That's a fascinating perspective. Do you think they "do whatever the left-wing party does" because
1. they are secretly not right-wing?
2. they rallied on matters which were anyway already worked on by the existing government, and reality is not as simple as they claim it is?
3. they had no clue how to actually achieve anything they promised on the required scale, just said anything to enrage people and get their vote and now have to work in the same system as everyone else?
1. They secretly defend the interests of the wealthy, which want slave labour from the third world. This coincides with left-wing policies, even though they do it because they want to see the civilisation destroyed.
In any case, the average plain, poor person of the country gets screwed.
The AfD is clearly anti-democratic and will try to destroy our society if they are voted into power. CDU/CSU makes terrible politics but they are not fascist.
People putting those parties into the same category is a significant part of the problem.
If you read it again you may notice that I didn't put them into the same category.
CDU/CSU will try to take the same topics the AfD used to enrage its voter-base and will present itself as the "rational, conservative and experienced" alternative to the "concerns of the voter".
This is the process which will cause CDU/CSU to not publicly condemn the AfD and its narratives, will make the CDU/CSU to "sacrifice" themselves as the coalition partner who will "control" the AfD, secretly hoping to convert their voters into CDU/CSU voters while AfD destroys itself due to its lack of skills to actually deliver in government.
In the end the AfD MAY or MAY NOT actually collapse if they are forced to deliver on their unrealistic promises.
But it won't matter, because #1 the party will not die because it will present itself as the victim, and #2 the whole exercise will do such a substantial damage to political discourse and democracy that it will take decades to recover from it.
Again, one can hope that THIS TIME it will be different...
The problem in Germany has been that there was no center-right party. Center-left (SPD) and center-right parties (CDU with Merkel) met somewhere in the middle, which was a problem for right-of-center voters - there are many of them and they needed something reasonable to vote for and there wasn't. The CDU moved more to the right again, and it should because that is where it's supposed to be.
Well, someone has to represent these voters, or they will co-opt another party or put up their own candidate. And the government can’t just keep banning them, or they’ll catch bystanders (“dog-whistles”) and look super illegitimate (when you prosecute people for holding an empty sign, like Russia, you’re the baddie). Already I believe banning the AfD is stupid and would backfire egregiously in a few years at most.
Ultimately, you can’t ban ideas in a democracy, unfortunately even the idea to abolish it. What you can do it make that process harder and slower, so your opponents lose power before they succeed. Or, you know, convince people to drop the idea altogether.
> "Ultimately, you can’t ban ideas in a democracy, unfortunately even the idea to abolish it."
What you can do though, is destroy the foundation of democracy by being tolerant towards discrimination, for the sake of not "banning ideas"
--> "Why not turn people who are not able to work anymore into a nutricious paste for others? It was just a question! You can't silence me, this is a democracy!!"
It goes both ways: you can also destroy the foundation by being too intolerant, suspecting your friends (or they start suspecting you), leading to a Reign of Terror.
You can’t ban ideas, because they will hide behind other ideas, until you ban everything. If the AfD is banned and voters start holding blank pieces of paper and posting *** like in Russia, everyone knows what they mean, but will you start arresting people holding blank pieces of paper and posting *** like in Russia?
> It goes both ways: you can also destroy the foundation by being too intolerant, suspecting your friends (or they start suspecting you), leading to a Reign of Terror.
But in this case, just listening to them is enough. They're openly calling for violations of our constitution. How much longer do we have to wait before we may take their threats seriously?
If you arrest them, they will quickly stop calling for violations of the constitution, but they won’t stop. Would you rather they act in the open, or with minimal plausible deniability, still recruiting?
The first step, arresting the most obvious - I don’t agree, but it won’t lead to a Reign of Terror on its own. But I don’t think it will be effective either.
We're not talking about arrests, but about banning the party (and successor parties, which is a specific and well-defined legal concept). Since this prevents them from using their established structures and connections, new rightwing parties would have a chance to establish themselves without immediately being taken over by the extreme right again.
But what is discussed here is not banning far right parties but a specific one that goes further than what should be allowed legally. From what I’ve read AfD goes way beyond what say Le Pen or Meloni parties propose.
This is a genuine question to probe the solution space to the politcal problems in Germany: What do you think would be the right thing to do THIS time?
A bunch of AfD members self-reported their anti-constitutional statements to Zentrum für Politische Schönheit, an organization that again and again hilariously exposes AfD and their technological (and not only) illiteracy.
There has long been sufficient material to initiate the proceedings to ban the AfD party, but the conservative parties (CDU/CSU) have so far blocked this.
All the state bodies authorized to file such a request – the Bundestag, the Bundesrat, and the Federal Government – each require a simple majority to initiate the proceedings and thus rely on the votes of the CDU.
It is also important to note that this is merely a request for an examination; the final decision rests with the Federal Constitutional Court.
There is a recent comment from a very respected lawyer about the situation, citing Göbbels:
https://youtu.be/I87E0cV367I?t=11614
(use the auto-translated subtitles)
The full quote translates to something like:
"It will always remain one of the greatest ironies of democracy that it provided its own mortal enemies with the very means by which it was destroyed. As elected representatives, the persecuted leaders of the NSDAP enjoyed parliamentary immunity, a salary, and free travel passes. This shielded them from police intervention, allowed them greater latitude in what they could say compared to ordinary citizens, and—to top it all off—ensured that their activities were financed by their very enemies. This democratic stupidity could be exploited to great advantage."
Maintaining a balance of power between legislatory, judicatory, and executive organs, a system of free speech, securing fundamental constitutional citizen rights, and the enablement and guarantee of peaceful power transition is core to democracy. In addition to that, there is an federal power distribution axis in Germany.
Looking at historical precedents that tried to undermine this kind of democratic political system (e.g. PIS in Poland, NSDAP in Germany), the political systems were damaged (and are still not repaired) or outright hollowed out.
I think it is important that a dialogue exists in society, Even the radical parties have a chance to exist and represent the political opinion and direction of their voters. However, I think it is even more important than these parties stick to maintaining the very political system that they allows them to exist.
The AFD might not be such a party. In time, democratic state organs might be hollowed out, and an apartheid system might be installed in Germany.
It is worth fighting to maintain a suboptimal free political system than to succumb to madness. At least - in part - we can keep the idiots in check.
Society should be looking at why MAGA came about and what is the best solution to mitigate it (hint: spread the wealth more). Simply banning what you don't like is simply becoming what you don't like: intolerant.
“The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head
And became a Tyrant in his stead.” -- William Blake
I certainly did not intend to convey the impression that I don't think the Repugnant Party is not evil. In fact I think the opposite. I totally despise the Repugnant Party. Representatives said nothing while tRump (and his cabinet) trashed allies etc etc. Cowards.
Why banning a political party and not the political views? It seems easier to punishing people based on what they say and write and throw them into prison, rather than trying to keep the same people from assembling together as a group and having people vote for them.
Make it illegal to hold and express the view that people should not be allowed to wearing the burqa. If someone is express that they are against same-sex marriage or against circumcision for non-medical reasons, let them sit in jail for a few years. Why allow people to legally hold those view and express them but then forbid them from being political about it?
Because you need the organization to cause change. China figured this out. If everyone wanted something to happen, say the end of Covid restrictions, even the CCP wasn't capable of stopping that uprising. But if it's just a few weirdos spouting their ideas online or off, the local police can easily handle them. Looking at the videos out of France, it's not as bad as it looks, but also, organized via group messages/texts, but they're not trying to get people to get people to pass laws in a calm, diplomatic fashion.
As far as jailing people because they think or say the wrong thing? omfg no thank you! Saudi Arabia almost just beheader someone for that kind of WrongThink.
Do we have any example of a "good" country that has banned political parties for holding the wrong political views? The most recent example I can remember is Russia when they prevented a anti-war party for participating in the election, but I doubt that is example that people want Germany to follow.
The German constitution allow the legal system to limit the fundamental rights of individuals who are found to be undermining the constitutional order. It can punish people as well as preventing people to form political parties. If the political views are so bad that they are seen as undermining the constitutional order, allowing people to hold those views and express them but not to form parties seems odd and counter-intuitive. If the views are that bad they should not be expressed regardless if its done with or without a party hat.
Spain banned parties that didn't explicitly condemn terrorism (in the context of Basque independece-related terrorism, but applies to all terrorism in Spain).
Up until then, certain politicians wouldn't explicitly support, but also wouldn't condemn Basque-independence-related terrorism when asked. Thankfully we're now past this! The terror group was dissolved.
Probably the law was a good thing? The danger being 'who decides what terrorism is', but I suppose the definition in the law is fairly clear (haven't read it nor plan to).
Two examples come from Germany's past - The KDP/Communist Party was banned in 1956, and by counterexample, Germany considered banning the neo-Nazi NPD party, but decided they were too politically irrelevant to bother banning them (2017). Turkey had the Welfare Party banned in 1998 but that one's a bit stickier.
If Western Civilization prides itself on classically liberal freedoms, it cannot claim to do so while limiting them, especially for the sake of religion which is antithetical to the French forefathers of classical liberalism. The right to be "Free" from all religion is given, and therefore speech must be stronger than the right to practice any religion.
It's classically liberal to allow anyone to follow their religion, it's not classically liberal to restrict freedom of speech for the sake of religion, much less for the sake of a foreign religion.
let me introduce you to this slope, its pretty slippery but i am sure its fine. Nobody has ever slid down such a slippery slope before...
refresher course on reality: you want these views out in public so you can publicly ridicule the people expressing them. You send them to jail they learn from the real criminals how to be really criminal with their views and come out worse than before. That these views are taking hold more and more now tells you there is a legitimate problem not being addressed and either the view is some shade of correct or, more likely, the view is an incorrect solution to the actual problem that won't work. Either way you have to figure it out and fix it. Repressing the view just makes the eventual result more violent without solving the underlying issue causing the view
Or… there is an intentionally manufactured problem, amplified and misrepresented by foreign adversaries through the internet and the mouths of the complicit elite, in an attempt to subvert democracy and rot societies from the inside out.
It seems quite worrying for the government to forbid certain views. For instance, some religious groups teach that same-sex marriage is wrong; would banning such views not infringe upon their religious freedom?
If those religious groups has views that undermining the constitutional order, then Germany could prosecute them. That is the underlying legal argument. The basic law give every German the right to any belief or non-belief, but then it also limit that freedom in case it undermines the law itself. Does the religion opposes human dignity, do it support democracy, and do it support the rule of law in Germany. Teaching that say that same-sex marriage is wrong could be seen as opposing human dignity, thus not allowed under the basic law.
> There has long been sufficient material to initiate the proceedings to ban the AfD party, but the conservative parties (CDU/CSU) have so far blocked this
While this might be true, it's at least half a lie – SPD, Grüne and SED could have initiated proceedings anytime targeting one of AfD's state chapters in Saarland, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower-Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, or Berlin (2016-2023). They didn't. You should explain why their reasons to not do it have been valid, while not being valid reasons for non-leftist parties. Also, SPD isn't even trying to convince CDU/CSU right now... they benefit from the Brandmauer, because without AfD, there would be a clear majority for non-left parties and no one would need a coalition with the SPD.
> note that this is merely a request for an examination; the final decision rests with the Federal Constitutional Court.
Again, true, but also half a lie. It's not merely a request in the sense that there's no risk associated with it. The backlash of a failure to ban the AfD would be ginormous - the situation would be much worse than it is right now. That - and the fact that SPD and Green benefit from the Brandmauer - is the reason why even center left parties don't really move forward with a ban.
> While this might be true, it's at least half a lie – SPD, Grüne and SED could have initiated proceedings anytime targeting one of AfD's state chapters in Saarland, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower-Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, or Berlin (2016-2023). They didn't.
While this might be true, I'd argue it's more than half a lie:
1. The SED couldn't have initiated anything since it doesn't exist anymore, but you know that.
2. Your wording implies that between 2016-2023 your implied parties only had a chance to initiate in the states you mentioned, but you selected both the states and the timeframe around the proceedings that they did initiate.
3. Your chosen timeframe also conveniently ignores the AfD's escalations over the last 2-3 years. There are a lot of people who were convinced of the need to ban the AfD explicitly because they started calling for removing people's citizenships (both of naturalized citizens and German-born ones) for populist non-reasons, which is overstepping our constitution.
> 1. The SED couldn't have initiated anything since it doesn't exist anymore, but you know that.
This is blatantly wrong. The SED has never dissolved - all they've done was changing the name.
> 2. Your wording implies that between 2016-2023 your implied parties only had a chance to initiate in the states you mentioned, but you selected both the states and the timeframe around the proceedings that they did initiate.
The years refer to Berlin only, hence the Oxford comma. In Berlin, they can initiate proceedings again once they've formed a coalition.
> 2. (...) but you selected both the states and the timeframe around the proceedings that they did initiate
No, I didn't. I chose the states where these three parties form a government without any other party right now, with the exception of Berlin, for which I gave the timeframe.
Also, feel free to point to the proceedings "that they did initiate" before 2016, after 2023, and/or in other states. You won't find any.
> 3. Your chosen timeframe also conveniently ignores the AfD's escalations over the last 2-3 years.
Again, the timeframe refers only to Berlin. All other Länder are governed by a coalition of the mentioned parties right now, so they could initiate proceedings right now.
Landtag, Bürgerschaft, Bürgerschaft, Landtag, Abgeordnetenhaus – are you aware of the concept of division of powers? These parliamentary initiatives don't matter in any way. They are cheap talk or "Gratismut" because they have no legal consequences, and they do absolutely NOT initiate a proceeding. The government of a state must petition at the BVerfG. You had figured that out by yourselves if you had put in the effort to read any of the links you've posted: none of them creates a law that forces the state's government to act in Karlsruhe. These are "Entschießungsanträge". Nothing more than smoke shows to impress people like you who don't care about the rule of law, or don't know any better. You're really easy to impress and to mislead.
So let me ask you again: why were they willing to create Entschließungsanträge, but why weren't they willing to go to Karlsruhe?
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 28.3 ms ] threadno thanks
Frankly, I think their supposed "antisemitism" is a joke compared to their anti-Arab and anti-muslim attitude. Those are their real enemies now.
Many French would have you believe women wearing Hijab should be banned lest it destroy their "western culture" when even the most Islamophobic Americans don't care
A 5% Muslim population in UK is supposedly threatening to send them back to the dark ages when Singapore is at 15% with codified multicultural guarantees and somehow annihilates them in every measure of modernity and development
citation *desperately* needed
> A 5% Muslim population in UK is supposedly threatening to send them back to the dark ages when Singapore is at 15% with codified multicultural guarantees and somehow annihilates them in every measure of modernity and development
Mate, you're comparing the population of Singapore, a country among the world's strictest immigration laws and mostly local Mayal Sunnis who are cosmopolitan academics, to Britain, of which most ob its muslim inhabitants arrived there from central Africa and the ME via small boats, while also being largely uneducated *and* statistically likely to be a product of incest [1]
[1]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4442010.stm
That of course has nothing to do with the fact that extreme-right parties look at Israel, with its ethnic suprematism, as an example. The only connection I see is backwards: Israel is undoubtedly doing its best to fuel racism against muslims because it wants us to believe we have a common enemy.
Unfortunately, hundreds of millions of people, including queer people and women, do not have your luxury. They do in most Christian countries and Israel.
A vast archive of hacked emails from the AfD was published online on Monday: 281 GB containing 421,179 internal party emails. And, for anyone who might have grown confused about claims of antisemitism while it was plastered over the German news media in the weeks following the Berlin election: here you can see what it really looks like.
In email after email, party supporters use racist slurs and share antisemitic theories of Jewish world domination; there are jokes about turning refugees into handbags and boots, discussions of whether refugees should be shot at the border, a Christmas card sent with a swastika and “Heil Hitler”, and an email thread signed off with “Heil und Sieg”.
The entire archive is available online – though it may be a criminal offence in Germany to torrent the material or distribute it online. Yet the journalists who’ve been able to examine parts of the hack consider it authentic. The methodology behind the leak is also quite interesting: the vast archive has not been published directly on the site. Instead, it is available via a series of AI summaries, which have been filtered according to severity (CRITICAL, HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW) and type, with categories including “racism_xenophobia”, “corruption_money”, “leadership_feud”, “conspiracy”, “violence_threats” and “antisemitism_extremism”.
The party itself has confirmed the hack to Bild: “In September 2026, a hacker attack targeted one of our party’s hosting service providers, during which portions of a few email accounts – most of which had not been used for years – were apparently illicitly copied.”
Many of the summaries are the party’s own internal disciplinary proceedings, with emails sent to party boards to decide whether to open expulsion proceedings against members. Here, what is shocking (though perhaps not surprising) is the depth and breadth of racist feeling from party members: slurs, fantasies of violence, and antisemitic statements appear commonplace. One email from 2016 appears to show Weidel forwarding a member’s antisemitic material to the federal board as the party weighed his expulsion, while including a warning to her colleagues that the Verfassungsschutz – Germany’s domestic intelligence service – might be reading.
There are some cases which do not appear to have drawn the ire of the party, including one Bavarian official urging party leaders to chant “Merkel croak” every day, or another thread in which staff at the party’s federal office apparently discuss luring a photographer to a party event and removing him by force.
The anonymous hackers claimed their motive behind the leak was to show the “degeneracy and hypocrisy” of the AfD. Among the countless acts of hate speech, there are also allegations of embezzlement and financial misconduct, according to DDoSecrets, a transparency collective which republished the archive: the site’s software flagged 34 documents for misuse of funds, 23 for off-the-books payments, 14 for undisclosed donations and seven for embezzlement.
The AfD party is currently polling at 29% nationally – even while they fight a designation by the Verfassungsschutz as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” party in court. That designation has already been made by state intelligence offices for some state branches, such as Sachsen-Anhalt — though it did not seem to hurt their electoral success. The party achieved 43.8% of the vote there in September.
So, they got a bit of a clean-up.
> The AfD party is currently polling at 29% nationally – even while they fight a designation by the Verfassungsschutz as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” party in court.
The system is working
Those tricks don't work anymore.
But I think this kind of moral approach is precisely why right wing parties have been winning globally, in the US and elsewhere. For many voters, the overwhelmingly important thing is individual economic security and personal/familial safety. Full stop.
And so if you force them to choose between a morally off putting party that at least claims to care about their problems, and one that is ostensibly morally less bankrupt, but hand waves away those problems – they’re going to hold their nose and vote for the former. Shame and outrage doesn’t work in a society that is uncertain and scared about its future.
It seems like a handful of candidates are beginning to understand this, in the US at least, but for some reason this level of realpolitik is just beyond many center and center-left parties.
This argument has been repeated for decades, but I just don't see it.
It explicitly cares about people who identify as traditional Germans, who in their own eyes are "the normal people".
On the economic side, Gemini tells me that they favour deregulation, smaller government, and reducing bureaucracy for small and medium-sized enterprises (Mittelstand). They also want to increase family support payments to incentivise having children. These are all economic policies that make sense to conservative-minded "normal people".
They're fiscally conservative values, as you likely already know. Social and fiscal conservatism are correlated, as you likely also already know.
In order for you to make this statement, you had to take a word ("conservative") that can be interpreted in one of two well-known ways ("social conservative", "fiscal conservative"), and pretend that when I used that word, I must have meant the way that doesn't make sense, instead of the way that obviously does.
and then proceeds with extreme opinions on that parties.
Far-right parties have increased their presence thanks to inequality created by conservative parties and well funded campaigns by billionaries.
Let's not pretend that this is the will of the people when so much money is put into moving the blame of the current state of the economy from billionaires and monopolies towards working class people of foreign origin. (Like if it was working class people the ones hoarding money and power)
A lot of 'extreme views' being bandied around are not really any different to what was spoken about in the 90s, tbh. Even Tony Blair was making comments on topics like immigration which would make today's audience blush.
We've had decades of centrist governments all throughout Europe. Do they not shoulder any blame for the rise of the far-right? Or is it only the "billionaires" who have agency?
I agree somewhat. However, the fault of mainstream politics is one of failure. The fault of extraterritorial actors is one of action.
I think that mainstream governments in the rounds haven't done enough for hoi polloi in the past few decades, but also that perceptions of what they could have fine may often be unrealistic. There are many prophets - some shallow thinkers might say "just read [ Das Kapital | Friedman ] and do that", but i don't agree that ideology delivers the benefits it promises.
It was a tall order to expect the past few decades of governing parties to satisfy the people enough that they don't turn to AfD shit.
Mainstream politicians' capital comes from votes, an expensive and limited resource. Extraterritorial actors do not have this constraint.
Where i end up is: yes, we should blame tired neoliberal parties for failing the people and driving then to charlatans. But that blame should be tempered by an understanding that government is a game that never leaves everybody satisfied. But extraterritorial actors? They are somewhere between philosophically vacant and hostile, and they are fucking with us just because they can. The blame is categorically greater.
Apparently, everyone forgot already.
No, right wing parties have been winning globally because they are vastly more resourced both financially and media-space-ly than the opposition. If you can constantly flood the zone with bullshit, it becomes impossible for the opposition to correct the disinformation before the next flood arrives.
Fast one - the one that used journalism (so called 4th branch of government) that enjoyed public trust and more or less was factual which in turn kept public opinion more or less in one shared and factual reality. This in turn put pressure on actual government in between elections.
And there is second one - slower - public could change government in elections based on the lived experience of last N years.
The monopolies broke 1st loop completely. And the 2nd was hindered. Now ppl cannot choose directionally in slow loop (elections) what is good for their self interest bcs they do not have factual picture of reality. So they can choose based on vibes which in turn is as good as "random move away form current status quo".
IMHO still way better then autocracy.
Case in point - ppl voted for Trump among other things bcs of gasoline prices. How it turned out...
And why right wing - bcs said monopolies put thumb on the scale - as their are capital after all. And they do have more self awareness what is best for their interest. If democracy survives next will move will be ditching current right wing for whatever else and then even monopolies thumb on scale probably will not help current regimes.
> 1. a political philosophy or movement that represents or is claimed to represent the interests of ordinary people especially against the Establishment
> 2. general concern for ordinary people
In US politics, both Bernie Sanders and Trump were put in the same bucket and derided as populists by the media.
One thing I would add is that we have the most concentrated control of media since pre-Gutenberg times. This is a huge issue, as a very small number of people have control of our politics and emotions, and use that to further their own weirdo interests.
They're right-wing extremists. We know that for a fact and have known that without commiting cybercrimes. So what is there to learn?
Maybe embezzlement or similar, but.
We have to keep in mind that they have in fact become the victim of a crime, which they (best case) will spin to their advantage.
Worst case they will use it as a justification to commit such and other crimes themselves.
The laws don't work like that, otherwise we arguably would not have any parties left.
he posted & advertised heavily nationalistic videos on tiktok and gained huge following.
court said the election had been affected by irregularities, alleged foreign interference, and problems with campaign financing and online campaigning.
Democracy's definition contains no such safeguards, just as pure capitalism doesn't prevent monopolies.
Pretty much everyone agrees that "50.01% of us agreed to slaughter the rest" is not a good decision, but it is technically a democratic one.
Just ask yourself if you would be ok with the majority of the population voting to abolish private property. Or Islamists voting to end votes. Or men voting to remove the voting rights of women.
"Democracy" is not synonymous with "good".
Let's turn to an actual dictionary:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republ...
EU and Germany's woes won't go away with banning a party. You can't have a single currency without a joint fiscal policy (aka federal state).
If you kill a head of a movement, without addressing resentment, you just allow that resentment to get even more radical and vicious. And resentment was built in, due to how post WW1 peace was done with punitive war repayments.
And it also, kind of worked, from then on Hitler preferred the legal way instead of doing it like Mussolini (i.e. a putsch).
Letting bigots and racists continue to express these views is extremely problematic.
Oh dear.
Whatever happend to Voltares "I disprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it"?
And regardless, banning a political party (the process for which is set in Germany's constitution) is not the same as banning its former members from speaking.
Anything but address the actual issues that helped catapult them to the top.
The goal posts for those issues will always move.
Look at Japan for instance. For decades, its government's stances on immigration were far to the right of anything in Europe, and guess what, that still didn't stop a far-right faction and its sentiments from taking over.
You can always manufacture anxiety over literally anything, see for instance how the US republican party has made a fight over, like, 10 trans athletes a core pillar of their national culture war.
Even if the quote was correct, it is about free speech. Being elected and holding political office is beyond that.
O tempora, o mores. Back in Voltaire's (sic) days, this would have been an issue between debating gentlemen, not one of massive spreading of hate. It's the fault of media and internet, I know, but that's not so easy to stop.
We have to see this through the lens of modern German history, and the corpus of rules (and lessons from history) that allowed the German Federal Republic to become an independent state again. I think this is not about saying things, but about saying things that foreshadow an attack on the constitution, and then perhaps very likely damaging the institutions of a country in the future.
A democratic state is a suboptimal construct. Once the politcal damaged, it is not easily repaired (See: Some countries East of Germany).
There is nothing intrinsic to democracy that means you need to have a constitution. This should be obvious since many democratic states and organizations have no constitution! The UK has no formal constitution, neither does Israel. Canada also has no single constitution document. There are probably lots of non-democracies out there that have constitutions. It's completely orthogonal to whether or not a place is a democracy.
But Germany has a constitution and it allows to ban parties, that act against it. Would you say, that makes Germany not democratic?
I think journalists have to realize that crying wolf always stops working when you need it the most.
The world is angry, we live in the age of the predators. European youth are also disappointed, just as in north America, that higer education is no longer a highway to a better life than our parents. But ruined? No.
"Look at the conditions X is in" is a common dog whistle for anti-immigrants and racists. It's a flare sent up to say, "Hey, who else thinks all these X are ruining our country?"
The constitution protects people from voting their rights away forever just because they look for a quick solution. This has happened in the past, and to prevent it from happening again, the constitution has been strengthened to the point of banning anticonstitutional parties.
I read into your question, that they should be allowed to do that. The question is, why should they?
There are ongoing efforts to ban the party (through constitutional instruments created specifically after 1945 to prevent a second NSDAP or other similar anti-constitutional extremists) and there is an argument to be made that this is strategical assistance for evidence-gathering.
There has been another effort [0] collecting _public_ statements that can be used in a potential future Constitutional Court case. Depending on your stance this leak complements the ban effort or undermines its legitimacy. Note, Germany has no fruit-of-the-poison-tree evidence provisions!
[0] https://afd-gutachten.de/
If it progresses like it ALWAYS does (EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.), the center-right party copies the far-right messages in hopes of gaining the votes of the far-right voters, then enters a coalition with them as the "voice of reason to reign them in", to ultimately just achieve normalization of those narratives, a hollowed-out democracy, destroyed political discourse and an empowered far-right party.
But one can hope, that THIS time it will be different...
Now imagine you had only a center-right and a far-right party, and you have the U.S. :/
The mainstream left in the USA used to be comparable to the centre-right in most western-European countries but this is no longer the case.
From the other comment of yours, I'm a bit sceptical if your take on Social democrats in USA nor that of Europe is accurate, but I digress.
I ask this because most socialist-phobia minded Americans I know are stuck at surface rethoric. In Europe at least most of the socialist-phobias fear are already implemented long since, and many have moved the debate to a more constructive "how to implement it / do it right". The surface level conversation is therefore like being an engineer looking at clueless MBAs vague PowerPoint slides with no details at all.
But since you specifically pointed out German and Swedish left, I wager you have a bit more interesting take than the surface level and I'm curious of the perspective
For example, they will promise you to kick one billion immigrants, and then when in power they will say that they actually can't do that because of law or economic concerns… and then they will increase the rate of immigration.
That's a fascinating perspective. Do you think they "do whatever the left-wing party does" because
1. they are secretly not right-wing?
2. they rallied on matters which were anyway already worked on by the existing government, and reality is not as simple as they claim it is?
3. they had no clue how to actually achieve anything they promised on the required scale, just said anything to enrage people and get their vote and now have to work in the same system as everyone else?
In any case, the average plain, poor person of the country gets screwed.
People putting those parties into the same category is a significant part of the problem.
CDU/CSU will try to take the same topics the AfD used to enrage its voter-base and will present itself as the "rational, conservative and experienced" alternative to the "concerns of the voter".
This is the process which will cause CDU/CSU to not publicly condemn the AfD and its narratives, will make the CDU/CSU to "sacrifice" themselves as the coalition partner who will "control" the AfD, secretly hoping to convert their voters into CDU/CSU voters while AfD destroys itself due to its lack of skills to actually deliver in government.
In the end the AfD MAY or MAY NOT actually collapse if they are forced to deliver on their unrealistic promises. But it won't matter, because #1 the party will not die because it will present itself as the victim, and #2 the whole exercise will do such a substantial damage to political discourse and democracy that it will take decades to recover from it.
Again, one can hope that THIS TIME it will be different...
> parroting the same messages but more eloquently.
But you are right, that was not the point you made. To the contrary, it's about the difference if AfD and CxU.
I fear what you write might turn out to be adequate.
Ultimately, you can’t ban ideas in a democracy, unfortunately even the idea to abolish it. What you can do it make that process harder and slower, so your opponents lose power before they succeed. Or, you know, convince people to drop the idea altogether.
What you can do though, is destroy the foundation of democracy by being tolerant towards discrimination, for the sake of not "banning ideas"
--> "Why not turn people who are not able to work anymore into a nutricious paste for others? It was just a question! You can't silence me, this is a democracy!!"
You can’t ban ideas, because they will hide behind other ideas, until you ban everything. If the AfD is banned and voters start holding blank pieces of paper and posting *** like in Russia, everyone knows what they mean, but will you start arresting people holding blank pieces of paper and posting *** like in Russia?
But in this case, just listening to them is enough. They're openly calling for violations of our constitution. How much longer do we have to wait before we may take their threats seriously?
The first step, arresting the most obvious - I don’t agree, but it won’t lead to a Reign of Terror on its own. But I don’t think it will be effective either.
A bunch of AfD members self-reported their anti-constitutional statements to Zentrum für Politische Schönheit, an organization that again and again hilariously exposes AfD and their technological (and not only) illiteracy.
All the state bodies authorized to file such a request – the Bundestag, the Bundesrat, and the Federal Government – each require a simple majority to initiate the proceedings and thus rely on the votes of the CDU.
It is also important to note that this is merely a request for an examination; the final decision rests with the Federal Constitutional Court.
There is a recent comment from a very respected lawyer about the situation, citing Göbbels: https://youtu.be/I87E0cV367I?t=11614 (use the auto-translated subtitles)
The full quote translates to something like:
"It will always remain one of the greatest ironies of democracy that it provided its own mortal enemies with the very means by which it was destroyed. As elected representatives, the persecuted leaders of the NSDAP enjoyed parliamentary immunity, a salary, and free travel passes. This shielded them from police intervention, allowed them greater latitude in what they could say compared to ordinary citizens, and—to top it all off—ensured that their activities were financed by their very enemies. This democratic stupidity could be exploited to great advantage."
If the AfD were really as bad as people here pretend they are then they won’t get elected.
Personally, I suspect a lot of the hatred towards AfD is just normal political mudslinging rather than genuine reason for concern.
Looking at historical precedents that tried to undermine this kind of democratic political system (e.g. PIS in Poland, NSDAP in Germany), the political systems were damaged (and are still not repaired) or outright hollowed out.
I think it is important that a dialogue exists in society, Even the radical parties have a chance to exist and represent the political opinion and direction of their voters. However, I think it is even more important than these parties stick to maintaining the very political system that they allows them to exist.
The AFD might not be such a party. In time, democratic state organs might be hollowed out, and an apartheid system might be installed in Germany.
It is worth fighting to maintain a suboptimal free political system than to succumb to madness. At least - in part - we can keep the idiots in check.
Using this logic, please explain MAGA in the US. Arguably worse than AfD and currently holding power in all 3 branches of government.
“The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head And became a Tyrant in his stead.” -- William Blake
However, arguing that a political party isn't evil because it was elected is absurd. The idea is neither supported by history nor current events.
"Both sides" has become a pretty transparent tactic to deflect the magnitude of the difference.
The NSDAP was properly elected.
Make it illegal to hold and express the view that people should not be allowed to wearing the burqa. If someone is express that they are against same-sex marriage or against circumcision for non-medical reasons, let them sit in jail for a few years. Why allow people to legally hold those view and express them but then forbid them from being political about it?
As far as jailing people because they think or say the wrong thing? omfg no thank you! Saudi Arabia almost just beheader someone for that kind of WrongThink.
The German constitution allow the legal system to limit the fundamental rights of individuals who are found to be undermining the constitutional order. It can punish people as well as preventing people to form political parties. If the political views are so bad that they are seen as undermining the constitutional order, allowing people to hold those views and express them but not to form parties seems odd and counter-intuitive. If the views are that bad they should not be expressed regardless if its done with or without a party hat.
Up until then, certain politicians wouldn't explicitly support, but also wouldn't condemn Basque-independence-related terrorism when asked. Thankfully we're now past this! The terror group was dissolved.
Probably the law was a good thing? The danger being 'who decides what terrorism is', but I suppose the definition in the law is fairly clear (haven't read it nor plan to).
It's classically liberal to allow anyone to follow their religion, it's not classically liberal to restrict freedom of speech for the sake of religion, much less for the sake of a foreign religion.
refresher course on reality: you want these views out in public so you can publicly ridicule the people expressing them. You send them to jail they learn from the real criminals how to be really criminal with their views and come out worse than before. That these views are taking hold more and more now tells you there is a legitimate problem not being addressed and either the view is some shade of correct or, more likely, the view is an incorrect solution to the actual problem that won't work. Either way you have to figure it out and fix it. Repressing the view just makes the eventual result more violent without solving the underlying issue causing the view
While this might be true, it's at least half a lie – SPD, Grüne and SED could have initiated proceedings anytime targeting one of AfD's state chapters in Saarland, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower-Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, or Berlin (2016-2023). They didn't. You should explain why their reasons to not do it have been valid, while not being valid reasons for non-leftist parties. Also, SPD isn't even trying to convince CDU/CSU right now... they benefit from the Brandmauer, because without AfD, there would be a clear majority for non-left parties and no one would need a coalition with the SPD.
> note that this is merely a request for an examination; the final decision rests with the Federal Constitutional Court.
Again, true, but also half a lie. It's not merely a request in the sense that there's no risk associated with it. The backlash of a failure to ban the AfD would be ginormous - the situation would be much worse than it is right now. That - and the fact that SPD and Green benefit from the Brandmauer - is the reason why even center left parties don't really move forward with a ban.
While this might be true, I'd argue it's more than half a lie:
1. The SED couldn't have initiated anything since it doesn't exist anymore, but you know that.
2. Your wording implies that between 2016-2023 your implied parties only had a chance to initiate in the states you mentioned, but you selected both the states and the timeframe around the proceedings that they did initiate.
3. Your chosen timeframe also conveniently ignores the AfD's escalations over the last 2-3 years. There are a lot of people who were convinced of the need to ban the AfD explicitly because they started calling for removing people's citizenships (both of naturalized citizens and German-born ones) for populist non-reasons, which is overstepping our constitution.
This is blatantly wrong. The SED has never dissolved - all they've done was changing the name.
> 2. Your wording implies that between 2016-2023 your implied parties only had a chance to initiate in the states you mentioned, but you selected both the states and the timeframe around the proceedings that they did initiate.
The years refer to Berlin only, hence the Oxford comma. In Berlin, they can initiate proceedings again once they've formed a coalition.
> 2. (...) but you selected both the states and the timeframe around the proceedings that they did initiate
No, I didn't. I chose the states where these three parties form a government without any other party right now, with the exception of Berlin, for which I gave the timeframe. Also, feel free to point to the proceedings "that they did initiate" before 2016, after 2023, and/or in other states. You won't find any.
> 3. Your chosen timeframe also conveniently ignores the AfD's escalations over the last 2-3 years.
Again, the timeframe refers only to Berlin. All other Länder are governed by a coalition of the mentioned parties right now, so they could initiate proceedings right now.
Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony): https://www.landtag-niedersachsen.de/Drucksachen/Drucksachen...
Bremen: https://www.bremische-buergerschaft.de/dokumente/wp21/land/d...
Hamburg: https://www.buergerschaft-hh.de/parldok/dokument/102051/23_0...
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: https://www.dokumentation.landtag-mv.de/parldok/dokument/648...
And just for completeness' sake, Berlin 2025: https://pardok.parlament-berlin.de/starweb/adis/citat/VT/19/...
So let me ask you again: why were they willing to create Entschließungsanträge, but why weren't they willing to go to Karlsruhe?
A better way to deal with extremism is to spread the wealth. The Elites just want us fighting amoungst ourselves.
https://x.com/GeriPerna/status/2111988611943989382