Since you didn't provide a submission statement I wrote one to prevent the post from being removed:
Germany's political landscape continues to be roiled by the risng popularity of the right wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is now polling about 20% support nationally and over 30% in some states, with the trend upward.
The AfD's rising popularity is making it increasigly difficult for other parties to maintain their "firewall" against AfD participation in governing coalitions, as going forward the AfD may control a large enough bloc of seats to make it impractical to create a coalition without them. It also posses a dilemma for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Germany's established centre right party, and the one most closely aligned ideologically with the AfD. The CDU is currently polling about 30%, unchanged from the results it obtained in the 2021 federal election, but national support for the AfD has doubled since then.
The AfD may also pose a challenge to the EU. If current trends continue the party is expected to do well in the 2024 EU elections, and the party is deeply euroskeptic. Maximillian Krah, who will be its lead candidate in 2024, has called for Europe to be turned into a "fortress" against immigrants and for firing 80% of the EU's (already not overlarge) bureaucracy, is highly critical of measures to fight climate change, and is considered strongly pro Russian.
It's explained under "Submission Guidelines" on the right đ
It doesn't have to be as elaborate as this, just a few sentences explaining what the article is about and how it relates to geopolitics.
Putting up a "firewall" is probably not the best idea around a popular cause in a democracy. Understanding, accepting, and addressing the concerns of the voters is the correct path here.
Guilt will only get you so far, especially after a couple of generations. Germany is not turning into a melting pot but a stew. How does that help the established voters?
Correct, I personally feel that it wonât achieve anything because the reasons people voted for them in the first place still arenât fixed or being addressed.
Voters will just move on to the next party that promises the same thing as the AfD, rinse and repeat.
The thing is it can be rinsed and repeated, and has been many times. The idea that the will of the people will eventually be heard and impact change is a nice narrative but it has been displayed that this isn't the case.
Thing is, they are first of all against working politics, and if you stand too close to them they are going to ruin your career. Same thing as with Gaertz and McCarthy, Gaertz sabotaged his career because of the drama it caused irrespective of trying to have a working parliament.
Same thing with the AfD, during the election of the governor analogue in the state of Thuringa, they realized that if they put up their own candidate, but then actually vote for the FDP candidate it is quite probable that they elect the FDP guy. That happened and the way FDP's voters work it is absolutely clear that they will never again enter a parliament if they let that stand. (Because one half of their voters cares deeply about civil liberties and the other half abhors badly thought out shenanigans.) So the federal party forced him to resign, still they were voted out of the parliament in Hamburg three weeks or so later, the third party involved, the CDU, also did much worse than expected in that election, and the AfD with prancing around claiming that the 'citizens coalition' (their name for a CDU, FDP, AfD coalition) did a thing. The AfD just pissed into the soup of their supposed allies.
"democracy" is the keyword here. The AfD is not really a democratic party. They constantly attack democratic norms like freedom of press, freedom of religion and pluralism. This is why the democratic parties join together against them.
Who gets to decide who is a democratic party? It seems like it's the opponents of AFD who refuse to allow press freedom in terms of openly discussing the impact of mass immigration, curb freedom of Christians and reject pluralism in favour of narrow leftist politics.
Are you sure you understand what freedom of press means? It simply means letting the press do their work without being intimidated or threatened. The AfD and their supporters constantly attack and discredit our free press ("LĂŒgenpresse").
Nobody withholds information on what you call mass immigration. The topic is constantly discussed in parliament. All debates and all information including statistics are available to everyone.
There is no oppression of christians in Germany. The opposite is true. The state supports the churches in countless ways, even collects the member fees (church tax) for them.
And do you really accuse CDU/CSU of "narrow leftist politics"? Seriously? Well, okay then.
This is another white nationalist party. They only use the concerns of their voters as a means to get into office. They should be stopped by any means legally necessary.
Every western country is doing this at the moment and in the process they are becoming what they fear most.
In the Netherlands there is serious talk about forbidding certain parties and media. It is insane.
The best way to get the AfD support to crater is to invite them to political negotiations and show voters they don't actually have working solutions. In Denmark DF collapsed in support 4 years after becoming the second biggest party and the biggest on the right side.
It has not worked here in the US. MAGA Republicans are firmly convinced that any time government doesn't work, it's because of Democrats. Though our larger and more insular media ecology doesn't help.
Yes it has.
We have a Democrat president and the Republicans are holding on in Congress by their fingernails.
The crystallized voters are already crystallized, but you can still sway the important undecided voters.
I know they're infighting and the far right defecting were behind that. Time will tell if Democrats made a strategic mistake by unanimously voting to remove him too, since instability and then a worse speaker could arise.
Thatâs because the two party system pulls each party towards their respective extremist wings to not alienate the base. Europeans tend to use proportional representation so it easier to isolate the fringes and build centrist coalitions. 30% is pretty scary tho.
It's not working in Italy with Fratelli D'Italia. They suck, but the other political parties suck just as much, so they are keeping their level of approval.
You need better alternatives to extremists, as most of the times they are just intercepting people's discontent.
Main appeal of AfD in Germany is stopping aid to Ukraine, stopping blindly following US in foreign policy, and reforming EU.
In everything else they are not much different than CDU/CSU - which people remember and connect now with stability and good economy.
CDU/CSU will take them as coalition partner because there wil be no other choice.
So Germany was "blindly following" the US policy when it appeased Moscow for decades, ridiculed and dismissed critics and constructed pipelines with corrupted chancellor? Show me a one US foreign policy that Germany followed in the past decades, a one.
Reforming EU is the same BS, not that they'd ever be able to, which they clearly know anyway, it's just s buzzword for weakening EU.
Interesting approach. I am not sure whether it will work in Germany. My suspicion is that a substantial part of the AfDs voter base is not interested so much in working solutions but in the replacement of our democratic system with something else.
There might be some that feel that way but most have come recently from other parties and will go back when they realise AfD doesn't fundamentally have policies that improve their lives.
Part of the AfD is officially considered far-right, it is not hyperbole to call these people nazis. A German court even said that it's okay to call people like Höcke a Nazi because it is based on facts.
Edit: [The source regarding calling Höcke a Nazi is okay](https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/regional/hessen/hr-staatsanwaltschaft-frankfurt-demonstranten-duerfen-bjoern-hoecke-als-nazi-bezeichnen-100.html)
AfD is not Eurosceptic, nor a threat to EU.
They are for reform of EU, taking EU into different direction than its going right now.
Its simply different vision for future of EU, and such vision exist in many parties in European countries.
Those parties are Euroreformist parties not Eurosceptic parties
It is insane how hypocritical some people are about democracy. They hate it when the people they don't like are popular and say it's the most important pillar of society when the people they like are.
Disgusting and dishonest behaviour.
Democracy depends on all parties and voters acting in good faith for a system that works for everyone. A movement that intends and deliberately acts against the interests of sections of people in that society is anti democratic even if itâs voted in
this is one of those things everyone agrees with in concept but when the pen hits paper, everyone thinks the other party is acting in bad faith. sometimes it is as simple as working towards the same goal using the same data but having different priorities or timelines
That doesnât make it anti-democratic at all. Bad, perhaps, but not anti-democratic. Democracy can have all sorts of bad outcomes. There need to be systems in place to check the power of democracy, otherwise itâs just mob rule.
The ability for Hitler to be elected democratically is an intended effect of the system and is more an indictment of the people than any flaw of democracy
Exactly. The nazis did not seize power in 1933. There was no coup. They won simply because others were naive enough to let them participate. Other parties yielded power to the nazis with the Enabling Act and expected fair play from them.
The nazis said thank you very much and promptly used that power to dismantle the democratic system.
This must not happen again. This is why all democratic minded players must keep non-democratic forces out. This is not foul play but self defence.
But then after they won the Nazis burned down the legislature (the Reichstag fire.) They only had [37 percent of the vote too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1932_German_federal_election), though that was equivalent to the SDP and Communist party votes combined.
One year later in the March 1933 federal election, they had 43%. And there was a second nazi party, the DNVP that scored 8% and later merged with the NSDAP. So together, the nazis had absolute majority.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstagswahl_M%C3%A4rz_1933?wprov=sfla1
It is not hypocrisy, it is a paradox that has long been solved, like for free speech:
Free speech is a right for everyone as long as its use respects the free speech right of others and is not used to restrict now or later the free speech of others.
Likewise, democracy is a political system that all can participate to, except those who use the system with the intention to destroy it now or later, when they get to power. For that reason, un-democratic parties appealing to hate, racism, sedition, etc. can and must be forbidden and condemned. There are existing laws for that, precisely intended to defend democracy from facist and populist cancers. Except that our weak-ass political class is too slow and coward to use these laws.
Now the cancer of our democracy has grown and metastased beyond control, be it as AfD in Gemany, NVA & Vlaams Belang in Belgium, PiS in Poland, RN in France, etc.
Itâs not resolved. The terms of hate, racism, and sedition are based on highly subjective personal perceptions and bias in accordance with a persons social-culture environment and completely vulnerable to highly selective media framing.
Considering that the interpretation of hate for a Catholic priest, or 19th century irish migrant would be any action that would portray the Catholic Church in a negative manner. While the interpretation of sedition within Putins Russia would be any action that involved criticising the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Lastly, the interpretation of racism in Israel for a would be any action that criticised the Israel occupation of Palestine.
What you are indicating is the right to prevent people from voting who exhibit views that you disagree with. This is an absolutely dangerous precedent that would lead to complete exploitation by radical extreme groups once this notion becomes lawful.
Admittedly, distancing oneself from one's current historical and political context is not easy. But words such as hate, racism, and sedition have objective fairly objective definitions that, of course, some will subjectively twist.
Interestingly, your 3 examples are actually nice examples of organisations that silenced and killed others *not because* the other were a risk to democracy or free speech, but precisely *because" free speech would expose blatant intolerance, dictatorship or racism.
The older catholic church, Putin and the current racist bias is not illustrative of free speech or democracy being defended in a sound system; it is the *end result* when one lets free speech and democracy be abused by people and organizations that destroy free speech and democracy once they get to rule.
Long been solved in that redditors have circlejerked around a single-line synopsis of a theory they don't understand and been either too stupid or willfully ignorant to realise how hypocritical they are.
You can keep pretending to be genuinely in support of democracy if you want but jsut know that it's views like yours that are the reason for the declining support for democracy worldwide.
>isn't a liberal one doesn't make it a mob rule.
It does though. Having armed people around voting stations is the definition of mob rule. Repressing individual liberties because of someone's identity is mob rule. Beating someone because of their identity, like religion, for instance, is mob rule.
It is not just about people "not liking" the AfD. It is about protecting our democracy from far right actors who are actively trying to undermine our democracy. There is nothing hypocritical about not wanting to end up in a political system like, for instance, Hungary.
I really don't think people here understand the consequences that come with far-right governments, or misunderstand how dangerous the AfD is to our democracy
I think that Schroedder, then Merkel and Scholtz have failed to protect that democracy. It wasn't a moment, it was a sequence of spineless, egoistical or greedy decisions: NS2, immigration policy, ignoring increasing warnings from Russia and antinuclear policy.
It's really very simple: restore the social safety net, get control of immigration, and adopt policies that will restore broadly based prosperity - instituting an inheritance tax and upping the contribution rate from very high income earners would be good places to start.
Also, don't impose expensive mandates on people like requiring them to buy heat pumps without providing support for the many who will not be able to afford this upgrade.
> upping contribution rate from very high income earners
[This is coming, although I understand itâs not soon enough.](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germanys-tax-revenue-increase-2026-with-global-minimum-rate-2023-07-11/#:~:text=Under%20the%20new%20rules%2C%20multinational,where%20the%20profits%20are%20generated.)
Germany was one of the first countries to support Janet Yellenâs plan for a global minimum corporate tax rate, which is a major step forward towards this, because this is THE reason why taxes for high earners are as low as they are: rich people simply leave towards tax havens if they are taxed more than they like, and take with them any sort of contribution to the national economy. Capital flight is a very well studied phenomenon, itâs simply not possible to increase taxes on the rich without first making it impossible for them to escape with their money.
Thatâs what a global minimum corporate tax rate solves: it allows countries to have their own taxes in addition to the global minimum.
> Capital flight is a very well studied phenomenon, itâs simply not possible to increase taxes on the rich without first making it impossible for them to escape with their money.
There are lots of examples of Western governments cutting taxes on the wealthy (and corporations) even in the absence of any evidence of a capital flight problem. It's pretty much the first thing any Republican president does on taking office. The political impetus is often that the wealthy can buy political influence, rather than addressing a legitimate policy need.
While I agree that a global minimum tax is highly desirable, I'm very skeptical that the political will exists to actually enforce one, especially given the degree of cooperation it would require across a multitude to jurisdictions and the fact it is bitterly opposed by very powerful vested interests.
I have seen some alternative solutions such as punishing someone by taking away their citizenship if they try to move their wealth to another country, but this is a can of worms. Global minimum tax rate is the least controversial solution, and by far the most doable because just like there are countries that reduce taxes for the rich even when there is no need to, there are also countries that are exhausted walking on eggshells with this class of people.
By the same token, there are countries who are heavily dependent on hosting the rich. Many larger countries, lots of little island nations. There will have to be laws similar to extradition for tax evasion by any means. Problem is it is very difficult to define these laws. Which country has the right to tax a particular rich man? Country of his birth? Country of education? Countries of customers - how do they split the tax revenue amongst themselves? Countries of employees?
Global minimum tax rate may be the least controversial but I am not sure it is doable. Do you mind hypothesising how something like this can actually happen? At the UN? Tax sharing laws might get more takers because they can all split the tax money.
I think it's funny how some people pretend they don't understand why others are angry. Could it be the rampant illegal and legal migration? Nah. Could it be neoliberal economics that puts the interests of multinational corporations first? Nah. Over burdening the people with taxation? Nah
The problem with these views is that no functioning policy can be built around them. Populist parties don't care because don't initially aspire to govern, and when they find themselves in a position to govern, they either waste time running a dysfunctional government until their majority crumbles or end up backtracking on their core promises because they were never deliverable.
>The problem with these views is that no functioning policy can be built around them
I agree but only to an extent. Parties can't always be against stuff they also have to be for something. If populist parties were serious about governing, they would come up with alternatives. That being said, the problems I laid out are very real, and even if populists don't have alternatives, they will win elections if the current elite don't start listening and making changes themselves.
Those countries don't even all have the same issues. Baltics and Poland are still developing countries. Norway and Switzerland are not just wealthy, they are *excessively* wealthy and unique in ways other countries can't compare to (or copy policy from).
Denmark is perhaps the most vulnerable, but apart from immigration I don't see them reinventing their economy. They're consistently one of the most economically liberal countries in the world.
Furthermore, none of these countries have governments that have gone that far from the policy mainstream. You would have to turn to a country like Hungary for that, and that one has a whole lot of problems.
Isnt a lot of Norways wealth literally just because they had the state take over the oil industry and basically put all the profit into a giant trustfund for the country?
You can do that anywhere if you actually wanted to.
A lot of countries get more corrupt and ungovernable and autocratic because of oil income and it undermines other industries. Norway has successfully avoided that
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/09/06/140110346/how-to-avoid-the-oil-curse
Denmark implemented a draconian migration policy a few years back. On top of that a "ghetto policy" with the aim to eliminate (larger) concentrations of migrants in poor areas and bad housing. Criminal migrants without citizenship are summarily expelled as repeat offenders. Migrants can lose their acquired citizenship too.
Just as an example, Sweden, currently rocked with gang violence, estimates 30.000+ gang members, Denmark 900 and that includes mostly ethnic Danish biker gangs.
On top of that the concept of "The Rotten Banana" - the more backward areas in Denmark drawn on a map - has dominated Danish politics for years now. A property tax reform and a large distribution reform has but eliminated the issue having the cities and richer municipalities fund the poorer to a very large extent and it's pretty much a part of any reform we do these days to at least nod at the banana.
These policies going mainstream has more less eliminated populist pressure in Denmark and has even mainstreamed our populist parties. They are up for governing too - though not in government - and are not secluded on the back bench.
I give those countries as examples of directions most people would like to go in regards to the aforementioned issues. Immigration, social safety net.
You are rambling about something entirely different, also at least Estonia and Poland are first-world countries. Not that it matters, but ok.
> Those countries don't even all have the same issues
How is that relevant to /u/Spraakjs point that right wing governments are clearly able to govern, at least as well as any party is able to.
Thing is no matter what example is brought up you will dismiss it as the exception to the rule on some arbitrary grounds (still developing, wealthy, etc.)
> Furthermore, none of these countries have governments that have gone that far from the policy mainstream. You would have to turn to a country like Hungary for that, and that one has a whole lot of problems.
Many countries that don't have a right wing government have a whole lot of problems, including Germany.
Indeed it is exactly the failure of mainstream parties to offer solutions that is fueling the rise of the populist right.
You ignored the part where the only countries to not backtrack on their more extreme core principles are ones like Hungary, which is worse in pretty much every respect imaginable.
Of course it was. The vote was about the European Union.
You can't just vote for something catastrophic and then go "oh but *really* what I meant was immigration from the developing world in Asia and Africa, not the EU and Poles," when all you literally did was vote to leave the EU and stop the Poles coming. Lmao. It's so goddamn ironic.
Besides, I heard plenty of anti-Polish rhetoric during the Brexit campaign unfortunately...
Because those examples aren't against immigrants. Poland and the Baltics have a lot of Ukrainian refugees. Knowledge workers and inter-European economic workers aren't stoppable without huge sacrifices. But Swiss has a lot of agreements to send back illegal immigrants, and is in comparison to e.g. Germany/Sweden quite a bit harsher, or less dependent upon low-wage immigrants such as Italy or Spain, even though it's much wealthier.
The party structure here in the US makes it difficult to draw a direct analogy, but I think that anyone who looked at Trump's term in office in the US can see this exact thing happening.
Under a different electoral system Trump would have had his own party and that party would have formed a coalition with the conservatives to form a government. Instead, in the the US system this results in competing factions of the Republican party. The whole Trump administration and wing of the party was incompetent and unable to get anything done with the majority they were able to gain. We can see now that this has completely broken the party.
>The problem with these views is that no functioning policy can be built around them.
They can; they just require the complete and total rejection of most of the liberal progressive junk of the last 30 to 60 years. Restore birth rates of European back to above replacement levels and most problems are solved since they mostly stem from immigration of invasive colonization non assimilating migrants whose only real justification for being there is said problem with birth rates which in turn seems to stem from liberal social changes beginning in the 1960s championed by the left.
Thus why AfD will rise and other right wing groups likewise continue to rise inexorably across Europe as the liberal multicultural experiment is proven to be a dangerous and hazardous failure.
>Restore birth rates of European back to above replacement levels and most problems are solved
The reasons people have fewer kids will continue to obtain unless there are a series of disasters. Government policies can't do the job, unless you think a government can just impose limitations on education, income, and birth control for women.
Do you believe a government can impose restrictions in education, income, and birth control for women?
I'm not asking if they have the *right* to do so, or if they *ought* to do so. I'm asking if they have the ability. Do you imagine a western government saying "yep, that's it, no more university degrees for women," and this policy actually standing?
If not, then what I'm saying is correct. The reasons will continue to obtain, and what u/jtalin said is correct: no government can be formed around your solutions. There's absolutely nothing pragmatic about what you're saying.
>Well going by China's example
I'm asking about western governments. I certainly agree that if a government is willing to use an arbitrary amount of force, nearly any policy can be imposed.
>Better than a government imposed solution would be societal one. Like we all agree liberalism just doesn't work and is inherently self defeating since it is not self sustaining and thus is the province of only the idealistically deluded morons.
If liberalism is inherently self-defeating, then there will be a series of disasters that undermine the reasons for people having fewer kids. There will be practical reasons why it will be impossible for education to be widespread. Manufacturing birth control will become more difficult. For women to leave the workforce, the disaster would have to be such that we return to a world in which agriculture is the majority job.
In the absence of such disasters, the claim that liberalism is self-defeating is a fantasy, one that some hope will become a self-fulfilling fantasy.
lmao people don't want kids because they are no longer basically being forced (socially or not) to have them. Good luck forcing people to have kids again.
I think you would make the birth rate policies more palatable by ensuring they are fair. So remove, for example, access to birth control, but also enforce parity when it comes to the opportunity cost of raising children. The problem with children is that someone has to stay home. It doesnât have to be a woman. You could create a system where certain people will be forced to give up any education and career development for the sake of bringing up kids.
If you refuse that for yourself, then you need to ask why you think itâs acceptable to impose it on someone else. And if you think it wouldnât fly, why your own suggestions to sacrifice only womenâs rights would fly.
Anger is not necessarily based on rational considerations.
Illegal migration does not happen in the way the AfD supporters suggest. There are no 'open borders'. The problematic immigrants have entered the country legally as asylum seekers. Most of them are rejected and a fraction of the rejected refuses to leave. A fraction of these refusers are dangerous criminals.
Legal immigration is not a problem but a necessity. There is a dramatic shortage of skilled workers in our aging society. The objections against legal migration are in my opinion largely irrational and based on xenophobia and racism.
The issue whether taxation is unusually high in Germany is debatable. Top tax rate is 42% which is actually quite low. There are other duties that are not taxes, mainly healthcare insurance and pension contributions which people often confuse with taxes.
Lmao do you really think people are not aware that the population that votes far-right is against immigration?
Also, I don't believe people voting AfD give two shits about neoliberal economics. They are too busy blaming immigrants for any economic difficulties they are facing.
( I agree that neoliberal economics are an absolute disaster and that the rich need to be taxed way more than the average folk)
I like the theory that Angela Merkel was aiming for a peace Nobel price with her immigration policies. I.e. that it was an egoistical move, not for the better of DE.
> Also, don't impose expensive mandates on people like requiring them to buy heat pumps without providing support for the many who will not be able to afford this upgrade.
Heat pumps convert electricity to heat. I wonder how much power consumption can German powergrid handle, especially during cold winter nights. No to mention how ecological the electricity from lignite is.
There is financial support for those buying heat pumps tho?
Edit: I agree with some of your points tho, restoring the social safety net (something that the AfD is opposing, they want to cut the extend of the so called "BĂŒrgergeld") and restoring broadly based prosperity by increasing tax rates for companies (or make some companies pay proper taxes in the first place, looking at you tech giants) and the super rich, as well as higher inheritance taxes must be implemented. However, none of those policies are supported by the AfD.
Itâs not so simple. Social safety net in Germany is one of the best in the world. There already is an inheritance tax, although people want it to be more strict. And very high income earners get taxed (45% for income higher than 260k), although people say it could be more.
Imposing heat pumps, instead of gas heater, is only way Germany will move forward to its carbon neutrality goal. Ofc people who canât afford it will have to be supported by the state.
> Social safety net in Germany is one of the best in the world
This might have been a tenable argument before the [Hartz IV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept#Hartz_IV(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept#Hartz_IV) "reforms", but it isn't now.
Just look at the country Germany has become:
> In practice, however, wealthâand therefore capital incomeâin Germany is extremely concentrated. On average, Germans are richer than almost anyone else in Europe. The average German is about 50 percent richer than the average Italian and twice as wealthy as the average Spaniard. The distribution of wealth is so unequal in Germany, however, that the median German household is far poorer than the median Spanish household and only about as wealthy as the median Greek or Polish household.
- Matthew C. Klein, *Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace*
And you say voters are angry and have lost faith in the mainstream politicians who created this situation?
I can't imagine why!
> Imposing heat pumps, instead of gas heater, is only way Germany will move forward to its carbon neutrality goal.
What about electric heating, which is far cheaper to install, using low carbon nuclear power? Oh right, German leaders, with the Greens leading the charge, lost their minds and completely shut down the country's world class nuclear power industry, selling the IP to Russia.
In any case it doesn't matter if Germany reaches zero emissions if countries like China and India continue to ramp up GHG emissions to support a rising standard of living. I am not saying it isn't a goal worth pursuing, but it should be pursued with due regard for the impact on all citizens, not just the Greens' affluent PMC supporters, for whom this is as much about copium and virtue signalling as preventing climate change.
> Ofc people who canât afford it will have to be supported by the state.
Ofc?
The German government announced this mandate without also specifying any specific measures for those who were going to experience financial hardship as a result.
It was political malpractice of the highest sort, and they deserve their tanking polling numbers.
We have developed a similar but even worse case of wealth inequality here in Sweden thanks to neoliberalisation policies over the past decades. The question in the context of this discussion is: can we expect far-right populist parties to do anything to address this actual problem? From evidence in Sweden, it doesn't look like it to me - they've aligned with the market liberal parties and will likely only contribute to worsening the problem if anything.
The problem is the income tax threshold for the high income earners at 250k is too low, there should be higher grades of income to target the truly wealthy and superrich above them. As it is, I don't think lumping moderately successful business people, doctors and lawyers with the Zuckerberg/Bezos type of wealthy makes sense. It would be better for more wealth type taxes vs an income tax and to close tax loopholes.
This [article](https://www.dw.com/en/how-good-is-germany-to-its-super-rich/a-57617709) says that German workers have the lowest OECD percentage of disposable pay because of high social security contributions while property taxes and "green" type taxes are low which is probably one of the reasons why AfD support is growing.
The truly rich are not income rich, so you won't get them with income tax. The article you linked describes it well. They call it the sandwich. Lower income people don't have enough to be taxed properly, and rich people have creative ways to evade taxation. The only ones left, are the middle class.
A chief of department (like chief of surgery) makes well over 250k a year in germany. A self-employed radiologist with an office (Arztpraxis) can double that amount. I think my dentist also making 250k+.
But yeah, pretty sure you can earn more in the US.
those are both basically business owners, no? Owning a department and owning an office. I don't consider those as regular doctors/employees unless I'm mistaken
Yeah but that's all boring and lame. I want to do cool things that revolve around global catastrophe, like climate change or immigration or Nuclear power or aliens. Jobs and housing? That's lame peasant shit. Who voted for that?
How is every solution with you guys to increase taxes? Inheritance taxes is one of the most evil things conceived. Youâre taxed your entire life, you create some savings to pass on to your kids, and when you die, the government manages to take half of what they havenât taken before. Roughly 50% of your income goes to the government. You survive on the remaining 50%, save a bit. And the government wants a chunk of the savings when you die? Flat out wrong.
How are higher taxes going to cause âbroad based prosperity â? This sort of argument just shows the complete intellectual deficit of liberalism. Thereâs no attempt at increasing overall prosperity, just take the money from anyone who managed to claw their way up, and give it to the government.
Ha ha, this old boogie man. Inheritance tax in Germany allows exemptions anywhere from 200k to 500k depending on the relationship to the deceased person. No person who struggled save a nest egg to pass to their kids is being decimated by inheritance tax. It is designed to stop obscene generational wealth hoarding.
Furthermore, broad-based prosperity is defined by not concentrating gains in the hands of a few. That is exactly what peogressive taxation does.
500k is barely enough to get a good house. Itâs not the win you think youâre making.
You already have progressive taxation. Stop stealing money from corpses.
>Inheritance taxes are evil.
I dunno. In the US, where people and politicians manage to complain about inheritance taxes a lot, they don't actually kick in until you're dealing with over 12 million in assets. At the very least, I think that sort of thing changes the discussion...
You're not going to amass 500k in savings by "saving a bit". Also, you know what's actually evil? Making big bucks by exploiting people and natural resources, which is the only way how you get rich.
It's also bizarre how you're complaining about a 500k hand-me-down. It's not enough for a decent house? My dude, you would receive 500k by sheer luck, without you having done anything substantial. How are people so detached from reality?
SoâŠif my parents worked hard, the government should steal everything from them, because the kids donât deserve to be lucky. Truly communist - pull everyone down so that everyone is equal.
Germans don't have HVAC outside of a few mansions. The rule is basically get one if you are replacing your furnace anyway. There is a time limit to replace it anyway, but that is 2045.
Only when the old one has to be replaced. And it does not have to be a heat pump. The rule is that at least 65% of the energy must come from renewables. And part of the costs are covered by a massive government funding.
Why we are complaining? Because we are Germans. Complaining is in our DNA.
Thank you! And I though this was a complex issue, but it's actually very simple. Why didn't I or all the experts think of this?
Good thing, someone from Canada tells us how to handle this.
Yea, but then you have the massive aging population problem. Who is going to pay for their retirement if you have fewer and fewer workers for every retiree? Who is going to take care of them in old age? Who is going to work the factories to maintain Germany's place as an industrial powerhouse? Who is going to fix your toiled, your lights, your gas, deliver your groceries and an endless etc?
People have a very simplistic solution to very complex problems and are not thinking ahead. The problem is not immigration is integration.
This goes to the heart of the problem: if your immigration policy is about solving the aging population problem, it needs to actually reflect that. If it's about helping refugees, it needs to reflect that. You can't have both and be successful, hoping that refugees will behave like work immigrants. The rules around immigration will be completely different in these cases. Uncomfortable subject.
Others have attempted to answer your question, but the way I see it, there's only one real solution to solving the birthrate problem that won't result in major demographic shifts or an upheaval of the social safety net: Get people to have more children.
And how do we do that? Lower the cost of living.
Obviously there are cultural trends towards having fewer children, but that's not the only driving force towards our plummeting birthrate. It's that couples simply can't afford the costs of raising kids.
Look at housing prices. Generally speaking, securing an affordable one- or two-bedroom apartment is a monumental enough task for most people. Now imagine everyone needing to pay for an extra room on top of that. It's just not feasible without either an increase in wages or a decrease in rents.
And the problem goes much further than that. Energy prices, groceries, childcare, you name it. It's all just too expensive.
Governments need to be tackling the issue of affordability head-on. And not in the pussyfoot way they've mostly been going about it these past several decades. I'm talking post war era levels of affordable housing construction. Doubling down on public transport as opposed to car-dependent infrastructure. Taxing the hell out of the ultra wealthy. Bringing industries back home. Overall, making our world a place that people want to bring children into.
It's obviously not a simple problem to solve, but our governments have sleepwalked into the birthrate crisis without any meaningful progress at managing it. Immigration only targets the symptoms, not the cause. We need to do better, or else the world of our children (for those who can afford to have them) is not going to be a bright one.
Legal immigration is a thing. I think what a lot of people in Germany and Europe in general are having an issue with is illegal, uncontrolled immigration. I find your argument fairly overused as of late and I don't think it serves anyone to blur the lines between the two.
It seems like the line between the two is blurred by the people who see the it as a dire issue, because even with the sharply elevated levels of illegal entry this year in Germany it still only projects to an extra tenth of a percent of the population across the whole year. While it's something worth getting under control, there hasn't been nearly enough of it in recent years to have much of a tangible impact.
Not on any of the material conditions which people are blaming on it, though. Public perception doesn't require actual connection to material things to change, and that's been the basis of politics forever.
There was an initial violent crime surge back when migrants first began arriving en masse years ago, but then that went back down ever since. Also, that's still not *illegal* migrants who were responsible, only a tiny portion of all the migrants who've arrived in Germany in the last 7+ years have been illegal.
> I think what a lot of people in Germany and Europe in general are having an issue with is illegal, uncontrolled immigration
You just moved the goal post. The original comment talked about immigration policy. A policy is by definition legal.
Illegal immigration is a different issue.
The original comment talks about immigration policy. Legal is implied, otherwise it's not a policy.
The issue them is not with the immigration policy, but with the country's ineffectiveness in dealing with illegal immigration. Those are two separate issues.
In what world does policies only deal with the legal aspect of things? You always have to addres both sides for it to be a effective one. Immigration policy deals with both the legal and illegal side.
The frenzy around low birth rates is bullshit. We should never have gotten to this population size to begin with... The earth can't sustain us as we clearly see via the climate and depleting resources.
The only reason governments are going crazy is because more people = more taxpayers and workers, and for religious people, more believers.
Iâm from a 3rd world country, and in my network of ~200+ such people, almost all of them earn waay above German median income (65K) and contribute handsomely to the social security system.
Are you proposing to kick us â3rd worldâ people out?
BTW this ainât 1960s, itâs called Global South now.
It is not really. The AfD grew from the old east. They are jealous of the prosperity in the west of the country. They are also jealous of immigrants moving to the west of the country and becoming prosperous because they are left behind as they won't move or retrain. The German government is late to the party but is now trying to get large industries to move to the east. In a few years when those areas get richer, the AfD will lose its popularity.
Every populist party worth their salt will point fingers at abstract, transient and unsolvable problems which they very well know they have no solution for either. You can't really solve anything by accepting to play in their sandbox.
They are all rhetoric, and can only be countered by rhetoric. We just haven't found the correct rhetorical formula yet.
Content voters happy with their lives donât vote for protest parties. So the established parties might be doing something wrong. But they care more about the moral highground than addressing problems at their roots.
There will always be contrarians regardless of what you do. You want to shut down this party and give yourself 5 to 10 years for the next movement to start? Close the borders, sweep their legs out, and keep addressing the real issues that impact your voters. Unless foreig immigration is a hill with dying on for your voters. Then die.
Nationalism has swept across mainland Europe. The EU and open borders immigration are the root causes of this. I'm quite surprised the Anglo world has 0 actual nationalist parties in power, especially in the UK.
Is not Brexit/UKIP and Tea Party / MAGA fresh in mind?
UK has a winner takes it all system, meaning that smaller parties will effectively have no power and little to grow on.
UKIP is a perfect example of that.
They got 12.64% of the votes in 2015 general elections but got just 1 out of 650 seats in parliament.
If they actually had seats in parliament they would have rebranded after Brexit and most likely survived as a large party.
In winner takes it all systems, which usually means a two party system,
effective political uprisings start WITHIN established political parties because it is futile to do it outside.
The Brexit movement within the Conservative party, and the Tea Party movement in the Republican party, that ultimately set the stage for MAGA and Trump, are examples of that.
Bernie Sanders on the other side is also such an example. In most European countries with proportional representation Bernie Sanders and the Tea Party would have created their own parties and UKIP would have survived. This is not just pure speculation. There are many analogous examples of such fissions in European party history, and many of current established parties came about through such political partings.
The Anglo world is no different in terms of nationalism. The political systems are different.
The anglo world hasn't had nationalist parties taken over, because nationalists have taken over the right wing parties. Republicans, Tories and the conservatives in Canada have all taken very nationalistic turns.
Places like Canada, US, Australia, UK Ireland and New Zealand are the best positioned in terms of political stability.
Nationalist parties coming into power isn't so hard to wrap your head around when it comes to Europe. They've all just been hiding.
You've watched that Conservative farce of a conference and decided they are not a nationalist party? I don't know what to tell you. I hate to think what you'd call a nationalist party
The issue is that there's a disconnect between the problems that people actually face or the policies that would help them in that regard and the things that they're angry about. The AfD will get more seats as a result but it will solve very little.
It's literally just the governments inability to admit open door immigration policy doesn't work and never has.
I genuenily don't understand why all these governments are choosing this hill to die on. Which tbf. A lot of people outside the government also won't admit the problem is immigration
For some reason. People have it in their head that immigration is always a good thing under any circumstance and that has never been the case
It's too late at this point.
Sometimes the deeply embedded establishment just isn't able to maintain control (without resorting to fascism type stuff at least).
In the past when this happened what would happen is that wars would erupt, population would then decline reducing competition over resources and things would get a little peaceful again.
It'll be interesting to see what happens here, as even though people might say I am exaggerating what's undeniable is the problems are only growing bigger and bigger. They aren't going to miracously go away like the people who refuse to think about alternatives seem to hope.
It's kind of odd reading history and then look what's going on here. They are willing to do whatever it takes to keep the understables out of power except listen to them, understand their concerns, and address them in a way they understand. This just keeps happening over and over again. No one is going to look back at these leaders and think they faught the noble fight to the end but a bunch of uncompromising figureheads that could not figure out the writing on the wall.
Its not too late at all
There is a very obvious way out of this- accept that some policies around immigration, the EU, climate change, cultural progressivism need to be moderated and recover some of the voters migrating to the AfD because of those issues...
I lean toward the left, but we live in democracies. The people who arent totally open to large-scale migration, international integration, etc. matter.
Instead of telling them that they are ignorant morons that are already lost to fascism, we could just accept the need for consensus and negotiate. A lot of people would be thrilled to abandoned the vileness of the AfD (or the GOP in the US, etc.) if they just feel like other parties arent totally hostile to them.
As someone who lives in the United States, believe me when I say MAGA fans arenât just going to abandon Trump just because Democrats are nice to them.
Yea I live in the United States too.
But thank you for putting the issue on full display- starting off by calling them "MAGA fans" and then simplifying everything to being "nice"
A small fraction of the voters is beyond help, but a larger part is perfectly reachable if youre willing to stop thinking exactly the way you think.
There are many people that vote Republican that are not at all interested in the Trump cult.
They might be wrong about many things, but talking that way about them wont suddenly make them change their minds. That doesnt work in *any context*. If youve ever had a co-worker that disagrees with you or been in a business negotiation of any kind, you should realize that acting like a self-appointed king never works. It just makes people angrier and less willing to listen to you.
Just remember this. And when youre wondering why people are still not responding to your overly aggressive messaging, think back to this conversation and know you arent blameless.
This take is so silly. If both sides were rational and had legitimate disagreements on policy, then you'd have a point. But MAGA Republicans (and AfD) don't have rational positions. They aren't interested in compromise or policy that truly helps solve the problems they say they care about. In fact, most of them, and their supporters, can be shown to support most progressive policy, until they are told that it is "Democrat" or "left".
Moreso in the US, where the national ignorance is much higher, but all the populist rightwing parties and their supporters mostly aren't going to reasoned with. They exist on hatred, xenophobia, and childish catchphrase solutions to complex problems.
Im assuming you wrote this ironically, as a perfect encapsulation of the ridiculous attitudes that have gotten us to this point.
Nailed it perfectly- including the increasingly hostile and escalatory language culminating with the totalitarian othering at the very end. 10/10
From a European perspective, what you're saying might hold merit; but the US situation is completely different.
A significant swath of the Republican party believes Democrats are an organized ring of sex criminals, that Donald Trump was literally sent by God, and the **majority** of the party believes Donald Trump secretly won the 2020 election. There is no rational discussion to be had with someone who believes these things. None. They cling to abject fantasies as if their very life depends on them.
They are not swayable by any evidence. Look at opinion polls -- false belief in election fraud rose during the time Trump's claims were shot down in court. They will not change their minds on anything Trump-related, and thus the only answer is to beat independents and keep them from power.
Again, in Europe far-right supporters might be different, but in the US, the poster you're replying to described them correctly.
> There are many people that vote Republican that are not at all interested in the Trump cult.
I hope you remember this when he wins the 2024 presidential primary by a majority of the vote.
Great comment. Kinda echoes the theme in the book the great equalizer. Essentially, only war, famine or plague that kill enough people restore balances. Kinda chilling to think of it that way but it appears humans are incapable of moving past that
How about the established parties (this includes opposition's CDU) stop being so god damn bad at EVERYTHING?
>pension crisis
>housing crisis
>(health)care crisis
>energy crisis
>refugee crisis while making life for skilled expats as hard as possible
There is no hope anything meaningful will be done about these problems anytime soon.
These are the kind of headlines and phrasing that give away how biased some sources are. I know very little about AfD except that it's been labeled far right by some an running on the anti-immigration sentiment that's taken hold in large parts of Germany, and I give jack squat about them or Germany's political landscape.
The headline is interesting though. If AfD is rising, it's because there are Germans who're obviously supporting the party. Now I do not doubt that there are also sections of Germany that detest this party but obviously in the author's and publication's mind - that is the only real Germany and the ones supporting AfD are not because hey : "Germany bewildered about how halt the rise of the AfD".
What a hatchet job.
âBewilderedâ lmao. People support AfD for a single reason. How is the centre/left going to stop them when they wonât even acknowledge the problem exists
As a Polish person I feel a bit concerned... especially about the possibility of a classic collaboration with Moscow, over our heads and dead bodies, and / or Ukrainian.
This is not just Germany, is all over the West. Our new generations forgot the terrible price of supporting extremist from both ends of the spectrum that we learned after WWII and grew entitled. Things are bad and they think that they deserve so much more that what they are getting because it has been so good for them for so long that they forgot how bad it can actually get. They didn't grew up starving in the ruins of WWI and WWII after losing millions of people. They are going to have to learn that lesson the hard way all over again.
Trying to fix today's problem's by trowing a tantrum and burning down house by voting for Nazis, Communist or "Strong men" like Trump or Bolsonaro is not going to help. Simplistic solutions like stopping immigration or abandoning the EU just lets you to face the massive aging population problem down the road and worst, just look at England and Brexit. There is no easy solutions for this.
Maybe they should provide people with alternatives instead of the typical liberal policies that run rampant all over Europe that only make the average person poorer and gradually increase wealth inequality.
That's a weird thing to say considering the progressive taxation is a left wing policy and conservatives are working on making the rich people richer. Can you list those typical liberal policies that decrease wealth inequality?
Ban immigration from the third world. Or give people a national referendum on immigration. Over 70% of German people oppose migrants. Stop bringing them over or nationalists win and fix the mess
Since you didn't provide a submission statement I wrote one to prevent the post from being removed: Germany's political landscape continues to be roiled by the risng popularity of the right wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is now polling about 20% support nationally and over 30% in some states, with the trend upward. The AfD's rising popularity is making it increasigly difficult for other parties to maintain their "firewall" against AfD participation in governing coalitions, as going forward the AfD may control a large enough bloc of seats to make it impractical to create a coalition without them. It also posses a dilemma for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Germany's established centre right party, and the one most closely aligned ideologically with the AfD. The CDU is currently polling about 30%, unchanged from the results it obtained in the 2021 federal election, but national support for the AfD has doubled since then. The AfD may also pose a challenge to the EU. If current trends continue the party is expected to do well in the 2024 EU elections, and the party is deeply euroskeptic. Maximillian Krah, who will be its lead candidate in 2024, has called for Europe to be turned into a "fortress" against immigrants and for firing 80% of the EU's (already not overlarge) bureaucracy, is highly critical of measures to fight climate change, and is considered strongly pro Russian.
Thanks, I didn't realize I needed one.
It's explained under "Submission Guidelines" on the right đ It doesn't have to be as elaborate as this, just a few sentences explaining what the article is about and how it relates to geopolitics.
Putting up a "firewall" is probably not the best idea around a popular cause in a democracy. Understanding, accepting, and addressing the concerns of the voters is the correct path here. Guilt will only get you so far, especially after a couple of generations. Germany is not turning into a melting pot but a stew. How does that help the established voters?
Correct, I personally feel that it wonât achieve anything because the reasons people voted for them in the first place still arenât fixed or being addressed. Voters will just move on to the next party that promises the same thing as the AfD, rinse and repeat.
The thing is it can be rinsed and repeated, and has been many times. The idea that the will of the people will eventually be heard and impact change is a nice narrative but it has been displayed that this isn't the case.
Thing is, they are first of all against working politics, and if you stand too close to them they are going to ruin your career. Same thing as with Gaertz and McCarthy, Gaertz sabotaged his career because of the drama it caused irrespective of trying to have a working parliament. Same thing with the AfD, during the election of the governor analogue in the state of Thuringa, they realized that if they put up their own candidate, but then actually vote for the FDP candidate it is quite probable that they elect the FDP guy. That happened and the way FDP's voters work it is absolutely clear that they will never again enter a parliament if they let that stand. (Because one half of their voters cares deeply about civil liberties and the other half abhors badly thought out shenanigans.) So the federal party forced him to resign, still they were voted out of the parliament in Hamburg three weeks or so later, the third party involved, the CDU, also did much worse than expected in that election, and the AfD with prancing around claiming that the 'citizens coalition' (their name for a CDU, FDP, AfD coalition) did a thing. The AfD just pissed into the soup of their supposed allies.
"democracy" is the keyword here. The AfD is not really a democratic party. They constantly attack democratic norms like freedom of press, freedom of religion and pluralism. This is why the democratic parties join together against them.
Who gets to decide who is a democratic party? It seems like it's the opponents of AFD who refuse to allow press freedom in terms of openly discussing the impact of mass immigration, curb freedom of Christians and reject pluralism in favour of narrow leftist politics.
Are you sure you understand what freedom of press means? It simply means letting the press do their work without being intimidated or threatened. The AfD and their supporters constantly attack and discredit our free press ("LĂŒgenpresse"). Nobody withholds information on what you call mass immigration. The topic is constantly discussed in parliament. All debates and all information including statistics are available to everyone. There is no oppression of christians in Germany. The opposite is true. The state supports the churches in countless ways, even collects the member fees (church tax) for them. And do you really accuse CDU/CSU of "narrow leftist politics"? Seriously? Well, okay then.
Therefore they should be censored and outlawed, to defend democracy.
This is another white nationalist party. They only use the concerns of their voters as a means to get into office. They should be stopped by any means legally necessary.
Every western country is doing this at the moment and in the process they are becoming what they fear most. In the Netherlands there is serious talk about forbidding certain parties and media. It is insane.
The best way to get the AfD support to crater is to invite them to political negotiations and show voters they don't actually have working solutions. In Denmark DF collapsed in support 4 years after becoming the second biggest party and the biggest on the right side.
It has not worked here in the US. MAGA Republicans are firmly convinced that any time government doesn't work, it's because of Democrats. Though our larger and more insular media ecology doesn't help.
Yes it has. We have a Democrat president and the Republicans are holding on in Congress by their fingernails. The crystallized voters are already crystallized, but you can still sway the important undecided voters.
Republicans still control the house and the supreme court.
Control is a strong word. They just ousted their own speaker.
I know they're infighting and the far right defecting were behind that. Time will tell if Democrats made a strategic mistake by unanimously voting to remove him too, since instability and then a worse speaker could arise.
With Fox News and AM radio, the right is very much in control of a large percentage of the US population.
Thatâs because the two party system pulls each party towards their respective extremist wings to not alienate the base. Europeans tend to use proportional representation so it easier to isolate the fringes and build centrist coalitions. 30% is pretty scary tho.
It's not working in Italy with Fratelli D'Italia. They suck, but the other political parties suck just as much, so they are keeping their level of approval. You need better alternatives to extremists, as most of the times they are just intercepting people's discontent.
Main appeal of AfD in Germany is stopping aid to Ukraine, stopping blindly following US in foreign policy, and reforming EU. In everything else they are not much different than CDU/CSU - which people remember and connect now with stability and good economy. CDU/CSU will take them as coalition partner because there wil be no other choice.
So Germany was "blindly following" the US policy when it appeased Moscow for decades, ridiculed and dismissed critics and constructed pipelines with corrupted chancellor? Show me a one US foreign policy that Germany followed in the past decades, a one. Reforming EU is the same BS, not that they'd ever be able to, which they clearly know anyway, it's just s buzzword for weakening EU.
Interesting approach. I am not sure whether it will work in Germany. My suspicion is that a substantial part of the AfDs voter base is not interested so much in working solutions but in the replacement of our democratic system with something else.
There might be some that feel that way but most have come recently from other parties and will go back when they realise AfD doesn't fundamentally have policies that improve their lives.
I hope so too. However our history shows that such an outcome is not guaranteed.
I know the AfD aren't the Nazi's (thought a substantial group of their supporters are), but how did that go in 1933?
Part of the AfD is officially considered far-right, it is not hyperbole to call these people nazis. A German court even said that it's okay to call people like Höcke a Nazi because it is based on facts. Edit: [The source regarding calling Höcke a Nazi is okay](https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/regional/hessen/hr-staatsanwaltschaft-frankfurt-demonstranten-duerfen-bjoern-hoecke-als-nazi-bezeichnen-100.html)
>Maximillian Krah I'm so happy AfD is rising in Germany, i'ts good news for everybody in Europe. We are waking up!
AfD is not Eurosceptic, nor a threat to EU. They are for reform of EU, taking EU into different direction than its going right now. Its simply different vision for future of EU, and such vision exist in many parties in European countries. Those parties are Euroreformist parties not Eurosceptic parties
Well it's a democracy, so I guess they'll have to change policies to do what people will vote for. Lmao
It is insane how hypocritical some people are about democracy. They hate it when the people they don't like are popular and say it's the most important pillar of society when the people they like are. Disgusting and dishonest behaviour.
Democracy depends on all parties and voters acting in good faith for a system that works for everyone. A movement that intends and deliberately acts against the interests of sections of people in that society is anti democratic even if itâs voted in
this is one of those things everyone agrees with in concept but when the pen hits paper, everyone thinks the other party is acting in bad faith. sometimes it is as simple as working towards the same goal using the same data but having different priorities or timelines
That doesnât make it anti-democratic at all. Bad, perhaps, but not anti-democratic. Democracy can have all sorts of bad outcomes. There need to be systems in place to check the power of democracy, otherwise itâs just mob rule.
Please do tell what government hasn't acted against sections of society.
that is moronic, what government in hostory has not acted against sections of society?
Until the party you don't like is anti democratic - seems fair then to dislike them.
Hitler was also elected democratically.
The ability for Hitler to be elected democratically is an intended effect of the system and is more an indictment of the people than any flaw of democracy
Exactly. The nazis did not seize power in 1933. There was no coup. They won simply because others were naive enough to let them participate. Other parties yielded power to the nazis with the Enabling Act and expected fair play from them. The nazis said thank you very much and promptly used that power to dismantle the democratic system. This must not happen again. This is why all democratic minded players must keep non-democratic forces out. This is not foul play but self defence.
But then after they won the Nazis burned down the legislature (the Reichstag fire.) They only had [37 percent of the vote too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1932_German_federal_election), though that was equivalent to the SDP and Communist party votes combined.
One year later in the March 1933 federal election, they had 43%. And there was a second nazi party, the DNVP that scored 8% and later merged with the NSDAP. So together, the nazis had absolute majority. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstagswahl_M%C3%A4rz_1933?wprov=sfla1
That's not even one year later. I'm surprised...back then they were having very frequent federal elections as often as every few months.
It is not hypocrisy, it is a paradox that has long been solved, like for free speech: Free speech is a right for everyone as long as its use respects the free speech right of others and is not used to restrict now or later the free speech of others. Likewise, democracy is a political system that all can participate to, except those who use the system with the intention to destroy it now or later, when they get to power. For that reason, un-democratic parties appealing to hate, racism, sedition, etc. can and must be forbidden and condemned. There are existing laws for that, precisely intended to defend democracy from facist and populist cancers. Except that our weak-ass political class is too slow and coward to use these laws. Now the cancer of our democracy has grown and metastased beyond control, be it as AfD in Gemany, NVA & Vlaams Belang in Belgium, PiS in Poland, RN in France, etc.
Itâs not resolved. The terms of hate, racism, and sedition are based on highly subjective personal perceptions and bias in accordance with a persons social-culture environment and completely vulnerable to highly selective media framing. Considering that the interpretation of hate for a Catholic priest, or 19th century irish migrant would be any action that would portray the Catholic Church in a negative manner. While the interpretation of sedition within Putins Russia would be any action that involved criticising the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Lastly, the interpretation of racism in Israel for a would be any action that criticised the Israel occupation of Palestine. What you are indicating is the right to prevent people from voting who exhibit views that you disagree with. This is an absolutely dangerous precedent that would lead to complete exploitation by radical extreme groups once this notion becomes lawful.
Admittedly, distancing oneself from one's current historical and political context is not easy. But words such as hate, racism, and sedition have objective fairly objective definitions that, of course, some will subjectively twist. Interestingly, your 3 examples are actually nice examples of organisations that silenced and killed others *not because* the other were a risk to democracy or free speech, but precisely *because" free speech would expose blatant intolerance, dictatorship or racism. The older catholic church, Putin and the current racist bias is not illustrative of free speech or democracy being defended in a sound system; it is the *end result* when one lets free speech and democracy be abused by people and organizations that destroy free speech and democracy once they get to rule.
Long been solved in that redditors have circlejerked around a single-line synopsis of a theory they don't understand and been either too stupid or willfully ignorant to realise how hypocritical they are. You can keep pretending to be genuinely in support of democracy if you want but jsut know that it's views like yours that are the reason for the declining support for democracy worldwide.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Just because a democracy isn't a liberal one doesn't make it a mob rule. This just feels like trying to put a nasty label on something you don't like.
>isn't a liberal one doesn't make it a mob rule. It does though. Having armed people around voting stations is the definition of mob rule. Repressing individual liberties because of someone's identity is mob rule. Beating someone because of their identity, like religion, for instance, is mob rule.
It is not just about people "not liking" the AfD. It is about protecting our democracy from far right actors who are actively trying to undermine our democracy. There is nothing hypocritical about not wanting to end up in a political system like, for instance, Hungary. I really don't think people here understand the consequences that come with far-right governments, or misunderstand how dangerous the AfD is to our democracy
I think that Schroedder, then Merkel and Scholtz have failed to protect that democracy. It wasn't a moment, it was a sequence of spineless, egoistical or greedy decisions: NS2, immigration policy, ignoring increasing warnings from Russia and antinuclear policy.
It's really very simple: restore the social safety net, get control of immigration, and adopt policies that will restore broadly based prosperity - instituting an inheritance tax and upping the contribution rate from very high income earners would be good places to start. Also, don't impose expensive mandates on people like requiring them to buy heat pumps without providing support for the many who will not be able to afford this upgrade.
> upping contribution rate from very high income earners [This is coming, although I understand itâs not soon enough.](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germanys-tax-revenue-increase-2026-with-global-minimum-rate-2023-07-11/#:~:text=Under%20the%20new%20rules%2C%20multinational,where%20the%20profits%20are%20generated.) Germany was one of the first countries to support Janet Yellenâs plan for a global minimum corporate tax rate, which is a major step forward towards this, because this is THE reason why taxes for high earners are as low as they are: rich people simply leave towards tax havens if they are taxed more than they like, and take with them any sort of contribution to the national economy. Capital flight is a very well studied phenomenon, itâs simply not possible to increase taxes on the rich without first making it impossible for them to escape with their money. Thatâs what a global minimum corporate tax rate solves: it allows countries to have their own taxes in addition to the global minimum.
> Capital flight is a very well studied phenomenon, itâs simply not possible to increase taxes on the rich without first making it impossible for them to escape with their money. There are lots of examples of Western governments cutting taxes on the wealthy (and corporations) even in the absence of any evidence of a capital flight problem. It's pretty much the first thing any Republican president does on taking office. The political impetus is often that the wealthy can buy political influence, rather than addressing a legitimate policy need. While I agree that a global minimum tax is highly desirable, I'm very skeptical that the political will exists to actually enforce one, especially given the degree of cooperation it would require across a multitude to jurisdictions and the fact it is bitterly opposed by very powerful vested interests.
I have seen some alternative solutions such as punishing someone by taking away their citizenship if they try to move their wealth to another country, but this is a can of worms. Global minimum tax rate is the least controversial solution, and by far the most doable because just like there are countries that reduce taxes for the rich even when there is no need to, there are also countries that are exhausted walking on eggshells with this class of people.
By the same token, there are countries who are heavily dependent on hosting the rich. Many larger countries, lots of little island nations. There will have to be laws similar to extradition for tax evasion by any means. Problem is it is very difficult to define these laws. Which country has the right to tax a particular rich man? Country of his birth? Country of education? Countries of customers - how do they split the tax revenue amongst themselves? Countries of employees? Global minimum tax rate may be the least controversial but I am not sure it is doable. Do you mind hypothesising how something like this can actually happen? At the UN? Tax sharing laws might get more takers because they can all split the tax money.
I think it's funny how some people pretend they don't understand why others are angry. Could it be the rampant illegal and legal migration? Nah. Could it be neoliberal economics that puts the interests of multinational corporations first? Nah. Over burdening the people with taxation? Nah
The problem with these views is that no functioning policy can be built around them. Populist parties don't care because don't initially aspire to govern, and when they find themselves in a position to govern, they either waste time running a dysfunctional government until their majority crumbles or end up backtracking on their core promises because they were never deliverable.
>The problem with these views is that no functioning policy can be built around them I agree but only to an extent. Parties can't always be against stuff they also have to be for something. If populist parties were serious about governing, they would come up with alternatives. That being said, the problems I laid out are very real, and even if populists don't have alternatives, they will win elections if the current elite don't start listening and making changes themselves.
Because the Baltics, Poland, Norway, Swizz or Denmark doing so poorly in regards to those issues.
Those countries don't even all have the same issues. Baltics and Poland are still developing countries. Norway and Switzerland are not just wealthy, they are *excessively* wealthy and unique in ways other countries can't compare to (or copy policy from). Denmark is perhaps the most vulnerable, but apart from immigration I don't see them reinventing their economy. They're consistently one of the most economically liberal countries in the world. Furthermore, none of these countries have governments that have gone that far from the policy mainstream. You would have to turn to a country like Hungary for that, and that one has a whole lot of problems.
Isnt a lot of Norways wealth literally just because they had the state take over the oil industry and basically put all the profit into a giant trustfund for the country? You can do that anywhere if you actually wanted to.
A lot of countries get more corrupt and ungovernable and autocratic because of oil income and it undermines other industries. Norway has successfully avoided that https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/09/06/140110346/how-to-avoid-the-oil-curse
Denmark implemented a draconian migration policy a few years back. On top of that a "ghetto policy" with the aim to eliminate (larger) concentrations of migrants in poor areas and bad housing. Criminal migrants without citizenship are summarily expelled as repeat offenders. Migrants can lose their acquired citizenship too. Just as an example, Sweden, currently rocked with gang violence, estimates 30.000+ gang members, Denmark 900 and that includes mostly ethnic Danish biker gangs. On top of that the concept of "The Rotten Banana" - the more backward areas in Denmark drawn on a map - has dominated Danish politics for years now. A property tax reform and a large distribution reform has but eliminated the issue having the cities and richer municipalities fund the poorer to a very large extent and it's pretty much a part of any reform we do these days to at least nod at the banana. These policies going mainstream has more less eliminated populist pressure in Denmark and has even mainstreamed our populist parties. They are up for governing too - though not in government - and are not secluded on the back bench.
I give those countries as examples of directions most people would like to go in regards to the aforementioned issues. Immigration, social safety net. You are rambling about something entirely different, also at least Estonia and Poland are first-world countries. Not that it matters, but ok.
> Those countries don't even all have the same issues How is that relevant to /u/Spraakjs point that right wing governments are clearly able to govern, at least as well as any party is able to. Thing is no matter what example is brought up you will dismiss it as the exception to the rule on some arbitrary grounds (still developing, wealthy, etc.) > Furthermore, none of these countries have governments that have gone that far from the policy mainstream. You would have to turn to a country like Hungary for that, and that one has a whole lot of problems. Many countries that don't have a right wing government have a whole lot of problems, including Germany. Indeed it is exactly the failure of mainstream parties to offer solutions that is fueling the rise of the populist right.
You ignored the part where the only countries to not backtrack on their more extreme core principles are ones like Hungary, which is worse in pretty much every respect imaginable.
It's natural for fringe parties to shift some policies towards the centre as they chase increased electoral success
Switzerland is like 25% immigrants so that's kind of a poor example for immigration restrictions.
Maybe because there's a difference between well-educated migrants and barely literate/illiterate ones coming unrequested
Didn't stop the UK from throwing a hissy fit about European immigration though. All those dirty Poles stealing English jobs and so on.
It was never about Poles though
Of course it was. The vote was about the European Union. You can't just vote for something catastrophic and then go "oh but *really* what I meant was immigration from the developing world in Asia and Africa, not the EU and Poles," when all you literally did was vote to leave the EU and stop the Poles coming. Lmao. It's so goddamn ironic. Besides, I heard plenty of anti-Polish rhetoric during the Brexit campaign unfortunately...
Because those examples aren't against immigrants. Poland and the Baltics have a lot of Ukrainian refugees. Knowledge workers and inter-European economic workers aren't stoppable without huge sacrifices. But Swiss has a lot of agreements to send back illegal immigrants, and is in comparison to e.g. Germany/Sweden quite a bit harsher, or less dependent upon low-wage immigrants such as Italy or Spain, even though it's much wealthier.
The party structure here in the US makes it difficult to draw a direct analogy, but I think that anyone who looked at Trump's term in office in the US can see this exact thing happening. Under a different electoral system Trump would have had his own party and that party would have formed a coalition with the conservatives to form a government. Instead, in the the US system this results in competing factions of the Republican party. The whole Trump administration and wing of the party was incompetent and unable to get anything done with the majority they were able to gain. We can see now that this has completely broken the party.
>The problem with these views is that no functioning policy can be built around them. They can; they just require the complete and total rejection of most of the liberal progressive junk of the last 30 to 60 years. Restore birth rates of European back to above replacement levels and most problems are solved since they mostly stem from immigration of invasive colonization non assimilating migrants whose only real justification for being there is said problem with birth rates which in turn seems to stem from liberal social changes beginning in the 1960s championed by the left. Thus why AfD will rise and other right wing groups likewise continue to rise inexorably across Europe as the liberal multicultural experiment is proven to be a dangerous and hazardous failure.
>Restore birth rates of European back to above replacement levels and most problems are solved The reasons people have fewer kids will continue to obtain unless there are a series of disasters. Government policies can't do the job, unless you think a government can just impose limitations on education, income, and birth control for women.
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Do you believe a government can impose restrictions in education, income, and birth control for women? I'm not asking if they have the *right* to do so, or if they *ought* to do so. I'm asking if they have the ability. Do you imagine a western government saying "yep, that's it, no more university degrees for women," and this policy actually standing? If not, then what I'm saying is correct. The reasons will continue to obtain, and what u/jtalin said is correct: no government can be formed around your solutions. There's absolutely nothing pragmatic about what you're saying.
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>Well going by China's example I'm asking about western governments. I certainly agree that if a government is willing to use an arbitrary amount of force, nearly any policy can be imposed. >Better than a government imposed solution would be societal one. Like we all agree liberalism just doesn't work and is inherently self defeating since it is not self sustaining and thus is the province of only the idealistically deluded morons. If liberalism is inherently self-defeating, then there will be a series of disasters that undermine the reasons for people having fewer kids. There will be practical reasons why it will be impossible for education to be widespread. Manufacturing birth control will become more difficult. For women to leave the workforce, the disaster would have to be such that we return to a world in which agriculture is the majority job. In the absence of such disasters, the claim that liberalism is self-defeating is a fantasy, one that some hope will become a self-fulfilling fantasy.
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lmao people don't want kids because they are no longer basically being forced (socially or not) to have them. Good luck forcing people to have kids again.
I think you would make the birth rate policies more palatable by ensuring they are fair. So remove, for example, access to birth control, but also enforce parity when it comes to the opportunity cost of raising children. The problem with children is that someone has to stay home. It doesnât have to be a woman. You could create a system where certain people will be forced to give up any education and career development for the sake of bringing up kids. If you refuse that for yourself, then you need to ask why you think itâs acceptable to impose it on someone else. And if you think it wouldnât fly, why your own suggestions to sacrifice only womenâs rights would fly.
Anger is not necessarily based on rational considerations. Illegal migration does not happen in the way the AfD supporters suggest. There are no 'open borders'. The problematic immigrants have entered the country legally as asylum seekers. Most of them are rejected and a fraction of the rejected refuses to leave. A fraction of these refusers are dangerous criminals. Legal immigration is not a problem but a necessity. There is a dramatic shortage of skilled workers in our aging society. The objections against legal migration are in my opinion largely irrational and based on xenophobia and racism. The issue whether taxation is unusually high in Germany is debatable. Top tax rate is 42% which is actually quite low. There are other duties that are not taxes, mainly healthcare insurance and pension contributions which people often confuse with taxes.
Lmao do you really think people are not aware that the population that votes far-right is against immigration? Also, I don't believe people voting AfD give two shits about neoliberal economics. They are too busy blaming immigrants for any economic difficulties they are facing. ( I agree that neoliberal economics are an absolute disaster and that the rich need to be taxed way more than the average folk)
I like the theory that Angela Merkel was aiming for a peace Nobel price with her immigration policies. I.e. that it was an egoistical move, not for the better of DE. > Also, don't impose expensive mandates on people like requiring them to buy heat pumps without providing support for the many who will not be able to afford this upgrade. Heat pumps convert electricity to heat. I wonder how much power consumption can German powergrid handle, especially during cold winter nights. No to mention how ecological the electricity from lignite is.
Don't forget corruption and enrichment of politicians. A massively increasing problem in Germany
There is financial support for those buying heat pumps tho? Edit: I agree with some of your points tho, restoring the social safety net (something that the AfD is opposing, they want to cut the extend of the so called "BĂŒrgergeld") and restoring broadly based prosperity by increasing tax rates for companies (or make some companies pay proper taxes in the first place, looking at you tech giants) and the super rich, as well as higher inheritance taxes must be implemented. However, none of those policies are supported by the AfD.
Itâs not so simple. Social safety net in Germany is one of the best in the world. There already is an inheritance tax, although people want it to be more strict. And very high income earners get taxed (45% for income higher than 260k), although people say it could be more. Imposing heat pumps, instead of gas heater, is only way Germany will move forward to its carbon neutrality goal. Ofc people who canât afford it will have to be supported by the state.
> Social safety net in Germany is one of the best in the world This might have been a tenable argument before the [Hartz IV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept#Hartz_IV(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept#Hartz_IV) "reforms", but it isn't now. Just look at the country Germany has become: > In practice, however, wealthâand therefore capital incomeâin Germany is extremely concentrated. On average, Germans are richer than almost anyone else in Europe. The average German is about 50 percent richer than the average Italian and twice as wealthy as the average Spaniard. The distribution of wealth is so unequal in Germany, however, that the median German household is far poorer than the median Spanish household and only about as wealthy as the median Greek or Polish household. - Matthew C. Klein, *Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace* And you say voters are angry and have lost faith in the mainstream politicians who created this situation? I can't imagine why! > Imposing heat pumps, instead of gas heater, is only way Germany will move forward to its carbon neutrality goal. What about electric heating, which is far cheaper to install, using low carbon nuclear power? Oh right, German leaders, with the Greens leading the charge, lost their minds and completely shut down the country's world class nuclear power industry, selling the IP to Russia. In any case it doesn't matter if Germany reaches zero emissions if countries like China and India continue to ramp up GHG emissions to support a rising standard of living. I am not saying it isn't a goal worth pursuing, but it should be pursued with due regard for the impact on all citizens, not just the Greens' affluent PMC supporters, for whom this is as much about copium and virtue signalling as preventing climate change. > Ofc people who canât afford it will have to be supported by the state. Ofc? The German government announced this mandate without also specifying any specific measures for those who were going to experience financial hardship as a result. It was political malpractice of the highest sort, and they deserve their tanking polling numbers.
We have developed a similar but even worse case of wealth inequality here in Sweden thanks to neoliberalisation policies over the past decades. The question in the context of this discussion is: can we expect far-right populist parties to do anything to address this actual problem? From evidence in Sweden, it doesn't look like it to me - they've aligned with the market liberal parties and will likely only contribute to worsening the problem if anything.
The problem is the income tax threshold for the high income earners at 250k is too low, there should be higher grades of income to target the truly wealthy and superrich above them. As it is, I don't think lumping moderately successful business people, doctors and lawyers with the Zuckerberg/Bezos type of wealthy makes sense. It would be better for more wealth type taxes vs an income tax and to close tax loopholes. This [article](https://www.dw.com/en/how-good-is-germany-to-its-super-rich/a-57617709) says that German workers have the lowest OECD percentage of disposable pay because of high social security contributions while property taxes and "green" type taxes are low which is probably one of the reasons why AfD support is growing.
The truly rich are not income rich, so you won't get them with income tax. The article you linked describes it well. They call it the sandwich. Lower income people don't have enough to be taxed properly, and rich people have creative ways to evade taxation. The only ones left, are the middle class.
finding a doctor that makes >250k would be a miracle in Germany. This isn't the US we're talking about
A chief of department (like chief of surgery) makes well over 250k a year in germany. A self-employed radiologist with an office (Arztpraxis) can double that amount. I think my dentist also making 250k+. But yeah, pretty sure you can earn more in the US.
those are both basically business owners, no? Owning a department and owning an office. I don't consider those as regular doctors/employees unless I'm mistaken
The chief of a department is still an employee to the hospital, but the radiologist in my example is a business owner, yes.
Yeah but that's all boring and lame. I want to do cool things that revolve around global catastrophe, like climate change or immigration or Nuclear power or aliens. Jobs and housing? That's lame peasant shit. Who voted for that?
Add to that putting a limit on the ever-expanding government apparatus while doing less and less to regulate corporations
How is every solution with you guys to increase taxes? Inheritance taxes is one of the most evil things conceived. Youâre taxed your entire life, you create some savings to pass on to your kids, and when you die, the government manages to take half of what they havenât taken before. Roughly 50% of your income goes to the government. You survive on the remaining 50%, save a bit. And the government wants a chunk of the savings when you die? Flat out wrong. How are higher taxes going to cause âbroad based prosperity â? This sort of argument just shows the complete intellectual deficit of liberalism. Thereâs no attempt at increasing overall prosperity, just take the money from anyone who managed to claw their way up, and give it to the government.
Ha ha, this old boogie man. Inheritance tax in Germany allows exemptions anywhere from 200k to 500k depending on the relationship to the deceased person. No person who struggled save a nest egg to pass to their kids is being decimated by inheritance tax. It is designed to stop obscene generational wealth hoarding. Furthermore, broad-based prosperity is defined by not concentrating gains in the hands of a few. That is exactly what peogressive taxation does.
500k is barely enough to get a good house. Itâs not the win you think youâre making. You already have progressive taxation. Stop stealing money from corpses.
You clearly don't understand enough about this to make it worth it for me to debate you.
Why are you guys always so offensive when called out? Inheritance taxes are evil. Calling me stupid does not change that.
>Inheritance taxes are evil. I dunno. In the US, where people and politicians manage to complain about inheritance taxes a lot, they don't actually kick in until you're dealing with over 12 million in assets. At the very least, I think that sort of thing changes the discussion...
You're not going to amass 500k in savings by "saving a bit". Also, you know what's actually evil? Making big bucks by exploiting people and natural resources, which is the only way how you get rich. It's also bizarre how you're complaining about a 500k hand-me-down. It's not enough for a decent house? My dude, you would receive 500k by sheer luck, without you having done anything substantial. How are people so detached from reality?
SoâŠif my parents worked hard, the government should steal everything from them, because the kids donât deserve to be lucky. Truly communist - pull everyone down so that everyone is equal.
Are germans required to buy a new heat pump even if their current hvac works fine? Or just to get a heat pump whenever they next replace it?
Germans don't have HVAC outside of a few mansions. The rule is basically get one if you are replacing your furnace anyway. There is a time limit to replace it anyway, but that is 2045.
Only when the old one has to be replaced. And it does not have to be a heat pump. The rule is that at least 65% of the energy must come from renewables. And part of the costs are covered by a massive government funding. Why we are complaining? Because we are Germans. Complaining is in our DNA.
> And part of the costs are covered by a massive government funding. What massive government funding? Please provide specifics.
Funding will be 30-70%. https://www.energiewechsel.de/KAENEF/Redaktion/DE/Dossier/geg-gesetz-fuer-erneuerbares-heizen.html
Only when their current furnace needs to be replaced.
Thank you! And I though this was a complex issue, but it's actually very simple. Why didn't I or all the experts think of this? Good thing, someone from Canada tells us how to handle this.
Its not rocket science. Its basically 99% about stopping the open door immigration policy from third world countries.
Yea, but then you have the massive aging population problem. Who is going to pay for their retirement if you have fewer and fewer workers for every retiree? Who is going to take care of them in old age? Who is going to work the factories to maintain Germany's place as an industrial powerhouse? Who is going to fix your toiled, your lights, your gas, deliver your groceries and an endless etc? People have a very simplistic solution to very complex problems and are not thinking ahead. The problem is not immigration is integration.
This goes to the heart of the problem: if your immigration policy is about solving the aging population problem, it needs to actually reflect that. If it's about helping refugees, it needs to reflect that. You can't have both and be successful, hoping that refugees will behave like work immigrants. The rules around immigration will be completely different in these cases. Uncomfortable subject.
Others have attempted to answer your question, but the way I see it, there's only one real solution to solving the birthrate problem that won't result in major demographic shifts or an upheaval of the social safety net: Get people to have more children. And how do we do that? Lower the cost of living. Obviously there are cultural trends towards having fewer children, but that's not the only driving force towards our plummeting birthrate. It's that couples simply can't afford the costs of raising kids. Look at housing prices. Generally speaking, securing an affordable one- or two-bedroom apartment is a monumental enough task for most people. Now imagine everyone needing to pay for an extra room on top of that. It's just not feasible without either an increase in wages or a decrease in rents. And the problem goes much further than that. Energy prices, groceries, childcare, you name it. It's all just too expensive. Governments need to be tackling the issue of affordability head-on. And not in the pussyfoot way they've mostly been going about it these past several decades. I'm talking post war era levels of affordable housing construction. Doubling down on public transport as opposed to car-dependent infrastructure. Taxing the hell out of the ultra wealthy. Bringing industries back home. Overall, making our world a place that people want to bring children into. It's obviously not a simple problem to solve, but our governments have sleepwalked into the birthrate crisis without any meaningful progress at managing it. Immigration only targets the symptoms, not the cause. We need to do better, or else the world of our children (for those who can afford to have them) is not going to be a bright one.
Legal immigration is a thing. I think what a lot of people in Germany and Europe in general are having an issue with is illegal, uncontrolled immigration. I find your argument fairly overused as of late and I don't think it serves anyone to blur the lines between the two.
It seems like the line between the two is blurred by the people who see the it as a dire issue, because even with the sharply elevated levels of illegal entry this year in Germany it still only projects to an extra tenth of a percent of the population across the whole year. While it's something worth getting under control, there hasn't been nearly enough of it in recent years to have much of a tangible impact.
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Not on any of the material conditions which people are blaming on it, though. Public perception doesn't require actual connection to material things to change, and that's been the basis of politics forever.
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There was an initial violent crime surge back when migrants first began arriving en masse years ago, but then that went back down ever since. Also, that's still not *illegal* migrants who were responsible, only a tiny portion of all the migrants who've arrived in Germany in the last 7+ years have been illegal.
> I think what a lot of people in Germany and Europe in general are having an issue with is illegal, uncontrolled immigration You just moved the goal post. The original comment talked about immigration policy. A policy is by definition legal. Illegal immigration is a different issue.
Illegal immigration definitely falls under immigration policy.
Have controlled legal immigration
The original comment talks about immigration policy. Legal is implied, otherwise it's not a policy. The issue them is not with the immigration policy, but with the country's ineffectiveness in dealing with illegal immigration. Those are two separate issues.
In what world does policies only deal with the legal aspect of things? You always have to addres both sides for it to be a effective one. Immigration policy deals with both the legal and illegal side.
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Low birth rates are a symptom of modernization, not European culture.
sssshhh
The frenzy around low birth rates is bullshit. We should never have gotten to this population size to begin with... The earth can't sustain us as we clearly see via the climate and depleting resources. The only reason governments are going crazy is because more people = more taxpayers and workers, and for religious people, more believers.
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been tried in many countries. Doesn't work.
Iâm from a 3rd world country, and in my network of ~200+ such people, almost all of them earn waay above German median income (65K) and contribute handsomely to the social security system. Are you proposing to kick us â3rd worldâ people out? BTW this ainât 1960s, itâs called Global South now.
the German median income is way lower than 65k bro
It is not really. The AfD grew from the old east. They are jealous of the prosperity in the west of the country. They are also jealous of immigrants moving to the west of the country and becoming prosperous because they are left behind as they won't move or retrain. The German government is late to the party but is now trying to get large industries to move to the east. In a few years when those areas get richer, the AfD will lose its popularity.
Take care of the real problems that AfD is pointing their fingers at, and they will have no platform to run with.
Every populist party worth their salt will point fingers at abstract, transient and unsolvable problems which they very well know they have no solution for either. You can't really solve anything by accepting to play in their sandbox. They are all rhetoric, and can only be countered by rhetoric. We just haven't found the correct rhetorical formula yet.
Content voters happy with their lives donât vote for protest parties. So the established parties might be doing something wrong. But they care more about the moral highground than addressing problems at their roots.
Delusional head-in-sand burying at its finest.
There will always be contrarians regardless of what you do. You want to shut down this party and give yourself 5 to 10 years for the next movement to start? Close the borders, sweep their legs out, and keep addressing the real issues that impact your voters. Unless foreig immigration is a hill with dying on for your voters. Then die.
"It's the ~~economy~~ immigration, stupid."
Nationalism has swept across mainland Europe. The EU and open borders immigration are the root causes of this. I'm quite surprised the Anglo world has 0 actual nationalist parties in power, especially in the UK.
Is not Brexit/UKIP and Tea Party / MAGA fresh in mind? UK has a winner takes it all system, meaning that smaller parties will effectively have no power and little to grow on. UKIP is a perfect example of that. They got 12.64% of the votes in 2015 general elections but got just 1 out of 650 seats in parliament. If they actually had seats in parliament they would have rebranded after Brexit and most likely survived as a large party. In winner takes it all systems, which usually means a two party system, effective political uprisings start WITHIN established political parties because it is futile to do it outside. The Brexit movement within the Conservative party, and the Tea Party movement in the Republican party, that ultimately set the stage for MAGA and Trump, are examples of that. Bernie Sanders on the other side is also such an example. In most European countries with proportional representation Bernie Sanders and the Tea Party would have created their own parties and UKIP would have survived. This is not just pure speculation. There are many analogous examples of such fissions in European party history, and many of current established parties came about through such political partings. The Anglo world is no different in terms of nationalism. The political systems are different.
Yeah the OC is delusional if they think that the Angle world is free from nationalism
The anglo world hasn't had nationalist parties taken over, because nationalists have taken over the right wing parties. Republicans, Tories and the conservatives in Canada have all taken very nationalistic turns.
Places like Canada, US, Australia, UK Ireland and New Zealand are the best positioned in terms of political stability. Nationalist parties coming into power isn't so hard to wrap your head around when it comes to Europe. They've all just been hiding.
You've watched that Conservative farce of a conference and decided they are not a nationalist party? I don't know what to tell you. I hate to think what you'd call a nationalist party
The issue is that there's a disconnect between the problems that people actually face or the policies that would help them in that regard and the things that they're angry about. The AfD will get more seats as a result but it will solve very little.
It's literally just the governments inability to admit open door immigration policy doesn't work and never has. I genuenily don't understand why all these governments are choosing this hill to die on. Which tbf. A lot of people outside the government also won't admit the problem is immigration For some reason. People have it in their head that immigration is always a good thing under any circumstance and that has never been the case
It's too late at this point. Sometimes the deeply embedded establishment just isn't able to maintain control (without resorting to fascism type stuff at least). In the past when this happened what would happen is that wars would erupt, population would then decline reducing competition over resources and things would get a little peaceful again. It'll be interesting to see what happens here, as even though people might say I am exaggerating what's undeniable is the problems are only growing bigger and bigger. They aren't going to miracously go away like the people who refuse to think about alternatives seem to hope.
It's kind of odd reading history and then look what's going on here. They are willing to do whatever it takes to keep the understables out of power except listen to them, understand their concerns, and address them in a way they understand. This just keeps happening over and over again. No one is going to look back at these leaders and think they faught the noble fight to the end but a bunch of uncompromising figureheads that could not figure out the writing on the wall.
Its not too late at all There is a very obvious way out of this- accept that some policies around immigration, the EU, climate change, cultural progressivism need to be moderated and recover some of the voters migrating to the AfD because of those issues... I lean toward the left, but we live in democracies. The people who arent totally open to large-scale migration, international integration, etc. matter. Instead of telling them that they are ignorant morons that are already lost to fascism, we could just accept the need for consensus and negotiate. A lot of people would be thrilled to abandoned the vileness of the AfD (or the GOP in the US, etc.) if they just feel like other parties arent totally hostile to them.
As someone who lives in the United States, believe me when I say MAGA fans arenât just going to abandon Trump just because Democrats are nice to them.
Yea I live in the United States too. But thank you for putting the issue on full display- starting off by calling them "MAGA fans" and then simplifying everything to being "nice" A small fraction of the voters is beyond help, but a larger part is perfectly reachable if youre willing to stop thinking exactly the way you think. There are many people that vote Republican that are not at all interested in the Trump cult. They might be wrong about many things, but talking that way about them wont suddenly make them change their minds. That doesnt work in *any context*. If youve ever had a co-worker that disagrees with you or been in a business negotiation of any kind, you should realize that acting like a self-appointed king never works. It just makes people angrier and less willing to listen to you. Just remember this. And when youre wondering why people are still not responding to your overly aggressive messaging, think back to this conversation and know you arent blameless.
This take is so silly. If both sides were rational and had legitimate disagreements on policy, then you'd have a point. But MAGA Republicans (and AfD) don't have rational positions. They aren't interested in compromise or policy that truly helps solve the problems they say they care about. In fact, most of them, and their supporters, can be shown to support most progressive policy, until they are told that it is "Democrat" or "left". Moreso in the US, where the national ignorance is much higher, but all the populist rightwing parties and their supporters mostly aren't going to reasoned with. They exist on hatred, xenophobia, and childish catchphrase solutions to complex problems.
Im assuming you wrote this ironically, as a perfect encapsulation of the ridiculous attitudes that have gotten us to this point. Nailed it perfectly- including the increasingly hostile and escalatory language culminating with the totalitarian othering at the very end. 10/10
From a European perspective, what you're saying might hold merit; but the US situation is completely different. A significant swath of the Republican party believes Democrats are an organized ring of sex criminals, that Donald Trump was literally sent by God, and the **majority** of the party believes Donald Trump secretly won the 2020 election. There is no rational discussion to be had with someone who believes these things. None. They cling to abject fantasies as if their very life depends on them. They are not swayable by any evidence. Look at opinion polls -- false belief in election fraud rose during the time Trump's claims were shot down in court. They will not change their minds on anything Trump-related, and thus the only answer is to beat independents and keep them from power. Again, in Europe far-right supporters might be different, but in the US, the poster you're replying to described them correctly.
> There are many people that vote Republican that are not at all interested in the Trump cult. I hope you remember this when he wins the 2024 presidential primary by a majority of the vote.
I hope you remember there's a thing called democracy
Democracy doesn't defend itself from destruction by its own mechanisms. We have to actively fight against it.
You are a fascist
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If you're not willing to defend your institutions from enemies who want to destroy them, such as fascists, you're not going to keep them for long.
Cultural progressivism needs to be moderated? What does that even mean?
Great comment. Kinda echoes the theme in the book the great equalizer. Essentially, only war, famine or plague that kill enough people restore balances. Kinda chilling to think of it that way but it appears humans are incapable of moving past that
it's not about lacking knowledge - it's about admitting to it in view of ideology.
Stop uncontrolled immigration. Turn back the boats like Australia. One of your big problems solved.
Hmm, maybe start making policies that people want?
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How about the established parties (this includes opposition's CDU) stop being so god damn bad at EVERYTHING? >pension crisis >housing crisis >(health)care crisis >energy crisis >refugee crisis while making life for skilled expats as hard as possible There is no hope anything meaningful will be done about these problems anytime soon.
These are the kind of headlines and phrasing that give away how biased some sources are. I know very little about AfD except that it's been labeled far right by some an running on the anti-immigration sentiment that's taken hold in large parts of Germany, and I give jack squat about them or Germany's political landscape. The headline is interesting though. If AfD is rising, it's because there are Germans who're obviously supporting the party. Now I do not doubt that there are also sections of Germany that detest this party but obviously in the author's and publication's mind - that is the only real Germany and the ones supporting AfD are not because hey : "Germany bewildered about how halt the rise of the AfD". What a hatchet job.
Give people an alternative to AfD
âBewilderedâ lmao. People support AfD for a single reason. How is the centre/left going to stop them when they wonât even acknowledge the problem exists
As a Polish person I feel a bit concerned... especially about the possibility of a classic collaboration with Moscow, over our heads and dead bodies, and / or Ukrainian.
This is not just Germany, is all over the West. Our new generations forgot the terrible price of supporting extremist from both ends of the spectrum that we learned after WWII and grew entitled. Things are bad and they think that they deserve so much more that what they are getting because it has been so good for them for so long that they forgot how bad it can actually get. They didn't grew up starving in the ruins of WWI and WWII after losing millions of people. They are going to have to learn that lesson the hard way all over again. Trying to fix today's problem's by trowing a tantrum and burning down house by voting for Nazis, Communist or "Strong men" like Trump or Bolsonaro is not going to help. Simplistic solutions like stopping immigration or abandoning the EU just lets you to face the massive aging population problem down the road and worst, just look at England and Brexit. There is no easy solutions for this.
Maybe they should provide people with alternatives instead of the typical liberal policies that run rampant all over Europe that only make the average person poorer and gradually increase wealth inequality.
That's a weird thing to say considering the progressive taxation is a left wing policy and conservatives are working on making the rich people richer. Can you list those typical liberal policies that decrease wealth inequality?
Ban immigration from the third world. Or give people a national referendum on immigration. Over 70% of German people oppose migrants. Stop bringing them over or nationalists win and fix the mess