Mainstream politicians express alarm while lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt welcomes congratulations from Elon Musk
Mainstream politicians around Europe have expressed alarm after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) swept to a historic state election victory in Germany, while nationalist figures cheered the result as a mandate for change.
While falling just short of an absolute majority, the AfD surged into first place in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on Sunday, exit polls showed, putting the far right within reach of power at the state level for the first time since the second world war.
Now watch as “liberals” continue to do nothing to stop the fascist propaganda machines causing the spread of the mental illness, because they are bankrolled by the fascists in the corporate economic elite.
They’ll also continue sowing the seeds of fascism by colluding with the elite to extract wealth from the population. Buckle up. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.
The Weimar Republic did the same god damn thing.
As usual, the conservatives are given a pass and then liberals assigned all the blame.
This place is absolute fucking joke.
Nobody is giving conservatives a pass. But we aren’t going to solve the problem if we don’t spend time understanding why people are voting the way they’re voting in an international trend, and it isn’t that everyone just became a lot more racist overnight; it’s because in many countries, the reality has become choosing between a more social liberal or social conservative neoliberal party, and one would need to be blind at this point to see it’s the second part of that descriptor people are done with.
I’m saying this as someone who is absolutely a lesser of the evils voter and advocated for such; but I also understand what’s actually driving support for people like Trump, AfD, and the like, and it isn’t a surge in intolerance; it’s material conditions, like it almost always is.
The criticism gets directed at the center left more than the center right because they are the ones more politically viable to change, or at least that’s been the view. Conservatives concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few is itself a conservative position in the traditional sense. Any party claiming to be left should be antithetical towards that.
Don’t mistake that for giving conservatives a pass. They’re worse, I’ll absolutely vote center left neoliberal if they are the only alternative; but convincing them is to fundamentally change their views more than a center left party.
When the home team who is on defense just allows goal after goal with no defense, and scoring no goals of their own… that’s a bad team and deserves criticism if they’re the bulwark defenders who are supposed to oppose fascism. Fascists are winning and that is the fault of liberals for a lack of opposition.
There may be a gap here in the definition of “liberal”. Liberalism is a political philosophy that also encompasses most traditional conservatives. It is different from the colloquial usage. It’s loosely defined as the belief in individual freedoms, including the right to private property. It is inherently capitalist and therefore socialists, communists and anarchists generally do not consider them to be of the left.
It’s their go to.
Like yeah, milquetoast policies ultimately lead us here but they have more fury for the people doing moderately OK but ultimately unsatisfactory things than the people actually going hog wild, robbing everyone blind, instituting fascism, etc.
The person breaking the lock and leaving deserves about as much blame as the burglar.
because liberals are the prime reason of fascists rise in power. They pretend to be good while oiling the fascist machine
Sometimes I think it must be a psyops by the billionaires to divide and demoralize the left. Then I remember some people are just so dumb.
you seriously think liberals are part of left? lol.
This comment is so ignorant about the reality it hurts.
There are many actual legal actions taken against AfD and AfD members already, including a period of time where AfD was not allowed to receive briefings regarding national security, something that is a right for all members of the Bundestag.
Personally I’m sad they didn’t get a majority, because that’s probably the best cure, people need to see how damaging their policies are, and how stupid they really are. AfD is a protest party, people vote for because they are unhappy with the current situation. Caused by Covid, Ukraine War, Russian energy sanctions against EU before the Ukraine war that was very damaging to German industries, and now Eu sanctions against Russia that have similar effect. Followed by the damage on energy supplies like wood pellets from the Ukraine war, and on top of all that Trumps ridiculous tariffs and the effects of the Iran war.
This is at the same time we have increased competition from China.
Europe has been in a perfect storm for nearly a decade now caused by outside forces. Except of course Brexit can be argued to not be outside when that happened. And although Brexit was far worse for UK, it was also damaging to EU.
AfD is by far the strongest in the old Communist Eastern Germany, because despite massive support from the old Western Germany they feel cheated, and some accuse the politicians of privatizing only to the advantage of West Germany. They simply refuse to realize how far behind they were economically at the time.
On top of all the above Putin has made a massive effort of misinformation in Germany, to promote the extreme right, and dissatisfaction. Despite we are actually doing pretty well in EU considering the circumstances this past decade.
But nothing to actually solve ordinary people’s problems and show that there’s a way other than fascism. In the absence of that, defensive democracy is nothing more than theater.
Yeah, it’s all those evil foreigners. It can’t be the awful mismanagement of the political establishment. Housing crisis? No way.
PS: The impact of Ukraine on energy prices is a direct consequence of EU countries slow-walking decarbonization.