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.
Strangely quiet from all those who are pissing on the US “YOU GUYS DO SOMETHING”, yeah?
Well, here’s your chance, for the ones of those who are like the above but who are in Germany: DO SOMETHING NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN. OR at least shut the fuck up about the US and our struggles to overcome fascism.
(I’m venting about those specific assholes, not Germans struggling to fight against this rightwing surge, I hope that’s clear)
The bigger they get, the harder they will be to remove until it’s too late. All the deadlock over the last few years about whether they should or shouldn’t ban them has allowed them to balloon to this size. The best time for action was yesterday, the second best is today. Don’t let the Nazis take over again.
You can ban the group, but you can’t ban the ideas or support that led to it.
The other parties need to take an honest look at themselves and ask why people would support a party like that over themselves.
This x1000. Instead of taking a step back and trying to figure out how they lost to an orange cheeto, the dems in the U.S. decided to blame everyone except themselves.
Maybe the other parties in Germany should think about how they could lose to a nazi party, and make adjustments.
So it goes…
Aye, I’ve fought those assholes on Lemmy. They are a poison to us all.
We’re in this together, all of us. Every citizen in this world. The fascists must be defeated.
This is a global class war.
“Fought”, lol
Well, i’m out at every opportunity to join any protest against the far-right in my region, even if i have to drive half an hour to get to it or take a day off from work. Last time i marched with a wild mix of people through half the town, blocking most of a major entry road to the inner city, in protest against the AfD having their meet and greet. I’m also member of a union.
And i’m still gonna criticise 'Muricans for not doing enough. At this point protesting alone might not be enough. I’m not saying you should turn to violence, but you absolutely should unionise more and coordinate massive shutdowns all over the country. People managed to do that in the past, and at that time they didn’t even have the convenience of instant communication across the globe. Those worker’s rights didn’t come for free.
HALF AN HOUR! I’m laughing I’m sorry. Half an hour! Holy fuck half an hour is like a trip to the grocery store in America.
https://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/202408-AAAFTS-American-Driving-Survey-2023.pdf
Fuck off with protests. Holy fuck. They don’t do jack shit except give the opportunity for the organizers to fill their CV and collect them like those marathon running stickers on the back of a Volvo.
Fuck
This entire time the strategy was and only ever was to protest online. You protest by building networks and creating memes and identifying when people are paying millions to convince people on the left to go commit to the most high energy low retard efforts like it described where all of us have to drive 3 hrs just to get arrested and beat up.
The internet has literally been here the whole time. Turns the fuck out that the goal is protesting is actually what is done online every single fucking day. Go figure. Meanwhile we all left social media and chose the smallest corner of the internet to exist in crying about how bad everything is. Fucking hate it here. The left fucking suck.
And that’s the reason why i think that American propaganda not only effects the Maga cult. Because that’s exactly what they want you to think. They don’t want you to realise that you’re not alone. Going out to the streets can be an effective peaceful way to make your voice heard up until the point where more drastic actions are inevitable. In 2024 it lead to a significant drop in the polls for the AfD when massive protests erupted all over Germany due to their “remigration” plans. These protests should have kept going on, but sadly they didn’t. And sadly, certain media outlets kept pushing more propaganda in the time after.
One major reason for protests is to show the fellow countrymen and women what is acceptable in the society and what not. If you don’t react, you give them basically a free pass on being massive assholes. Turns out that Nazis don’t like it if they’re outed as Nazis. They tend to go back into their dark little shithole corners and cry about it.
Protesting online isn’t enough. Not by far. Especially if that place is absolutely filled to the brim with propagandists and bots. And politicians certainly don’t give a flying fuck about a bunch of basement dwellers crying on social media. They do care, if those people are out on the streets. That’s where people are the most inconvenient, because if people are on the streets, they have to spend time and money for organisation and police work. It binds resources. It blocks entry ways. If done right, it can shut down entire cities. And if those town’s leaders are smart, they join in on the protest, because that makes them being seen. That’s how my home town turned into a SPD stronghold in a state full of CSU voters.
Action starts at the lowest level in the immediate area. Not some fucking website filled with Russian, Chinese and Israeli bots.
Hey buddy, it’s me from that other comment about population density. I’m not going to get too detailed in this comment cause you’ve got a whole other thing going with that Melvin guy, but I just wanted to say congrats on seeing some success against the AfD and Nazis and I envy your opinion that peaceful protesting can still bring great short- and long-term benefits.
Unfortunately, I still think America is too far(-right) gone for something like that to work. 7 of the 10 largest protests in American history can be directly linked back to protesting against Trump (4 of the top 5 occurred just within the last 12 months, with the last one being the Women’s March of 2017 aka right as Trump’s first term started) and all of these have accomplished… well, nothing. Not a single damn thing. That’s 33 million people (if you do like I did and assume the highest estimate was 100% correct and there were no overlaps, so a highly unrealistic skew in their favor), just under 10% of the entire country peacefully protesting Trump at some point aaaaand nothing happened. Hell, most people probably don’t even remember a single one of the three seperate No Kings protests.
On the other hand, the Maga cult managed to storm the Capitol building with only about 2,000 protesters on Jan 6th 2021 (something like 0.0005% of the population) and even though they technically failed in their goal at the time, it had (and continues to have) FAR reaching effects on American politics. Several people died, hundreds injured, and exactly 0 negative consequences for the man who started it; Hell, he even managed to get reelected afterwards and pardon almost all of them anyway so it was really a net-positive for him by far.
We could have a good, long discussion about the ethics/morals of protesting peacefully in a vacuum, but at the end of the day, in reality, force speaks volumes. I’m not advocating we do the same and go all-in on violence right off the bat, but rather “force” which I’m defining here as “the willingness to defend one’s self or ideals with violence if necessary,” should not be shied away from. If we go in ‘protesting’ by standing on sidewalks with cardboard signs, nothing gets accomplished except leaving the road open for them to roll over us later. It is no coincidence that many of the greatest changes brought through history began as “civil disobedience” that began peacefully only to end in violence when (surprise) the State wanted to maintain the status quo. We may be hesitant to use force, they will not be so kind-hearted
Trump has spent the previous decade proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he cares only for himself, his power, and his image. He will stop at nothing to gobble up as much as he can which is why we muat be prepared to stop him by any means necessary. In the words of one of our greatest Presidents, “Speak softly, but carry a big stick”
It hasn’t worked in half a century. Protest had a greater effect before the global village. But now we have a better understanding of numbers making a show of force almost useless. We have shown up 700,000,000 for causes with practically no effect. It is a new world and it’s time to let go. We need to adapt yet there is an old guard holding us all back. It’s about spreading a message, it’s about beliefs and ideas and network and power. None of that can be achieved with protests. I would bet good money that behind many of these modern protests is actually the opposition. It is such a waste of time and effort and there is no argument in recent times that can show other wise.
You’re whole argument is detailing the internet when you actually read between the lines.
We should be choosing lower effort and maximizing for effect. Protests are high effort low effect. Online culture jamming is low effort, high effect. It is logic to anyone who thinks about this honestly
Half a century? Guess the Arab spring and the Euromaidan don’t count (just examples off the top of my head)
The Arab spring is what it could have been. Do you think the people who control our channels just went back to work the next work? They closed all the holes that allowed arab spring to happen and you didn’t even notice.
It’s a long line of ‘you should just protest/vote harder’ countries, unfortunately
It’s a state election, in a relatively small state, it’s bad, but it’s not the end of democracy in Germany just yet. There are two more state elections in two weeks, AfD is predicted to be strongest in one of those states (MV) too, but not nearly as bad, as there is still a possibility for a stable government there. I’m not too worried about the other election in Berlin.
American reading a global News story: “how can I make this about me, while also justifying my inaction?”
Yeah the last years I always thought it is just a matter of time until far right gets majorities in Germany/all over Europe as well.
Greetings from germany
Welcome to the Assholocene.
…so BadEmpanada WAS right! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-H5m_BeJoQA&pp=ygUiIGJhZCBlbXBhbmFkYSBhbWVyaWNhbnMgZG9tdCBmaWdodA%3D%3D
I recommend reading more than watching youtubers.
For example, there’s a book that should be available online too (an older edition). I can’t mention it here for some reasons, so the ISBN is: 9781629630373
I typed it into google and cant find it. Can you bastardize the name of it please so that then Ill just put the name back together and tyoe that into google? Do you mind DMing me please if it doesnt work?
You have to understand the brief history of Germany since the WWII to grasp the full picture. In a nutshell, once East and West Germany were formed, that locked people in to essentially different systems. Once the wall fell, Germany was reunited. However, the East vs West dynamic in terms of poverty and voting, the West is largely paid more and has is liberal leaning, while the east side of Germany is still quite impoverish, so they vote for the AfD because they seem to be telling the people what they want to hear.
It’s essentially very similar to how the US is blue vs red. Cites are blue, while the rural parts are red. Germany is blue on the west, and red on the east due to Germany splitting and reunifying.
Also similar to how the Union and the Confederacy split and reformed and those problems never got fixed because we didn’t hold anyone accountable and didn’t invest in improving the lives of average citizens.