this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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I had somewhat hoped that my fellow countrymen in Germany would not fall for the obtuse populism of the right, but that is exactly what has happened.
I'm afraid there's nothing left to counter this, because voters obviously no longer care about rational arguments and don't even want to acknowledge the real problems of our time. They make it easy for themselves and just blame everything on illegal migration or whatever - just as the right-wingers tell them to do.
In this reality characterized by stupidity and false attributions of blame, it is hardly surprising that important but somewhat abstract topics such as data protection are no longer of interest to the masses. It's enough to make you cry.
As an American, it's really sad to see the EU fall into this trap.
The saddest thing about this is that the Europeans and especially the Germans should really know better. But no, all the lessons from our dark history seem to have been forgotten - or they are simply ignored so that one can once again live in the comfortable world of simple explanations where there is always some minority to blame.
Tagesschau has a graph showing AFD being the highest % voted party all over eastern Germany and second highest voted nearly everywhere else, following CDU/CSU. You really only see green or red in the larger cities.
The second highest voted thing is mildly misleading because left parties are a lot more fractured, especially in EU elections. The afd could have 11% while 9 left wing partirs have 9.8% and be the most voted party, but that would be a better result than we have now with it being the second most voted.
The results are bad, but 16% is at least nowhere nesr a majority. I'm honestly more concerned about the CDU moving closer to the afd and still ending up with 30%, seems almost like many people don't like the afd because they've been told afd bad, but still agree with much of their ideology.
It's not surprising though, the EU has been wanting to become the United States of Europe for a long time...
Maybe if you (in the generic sense) stop to say that the people who vote for a certain party is (basically) stupid, we all can start to solve problems. The people who voted AfD, like the people who voted for the Right in every other country, are simply saying that they have (or they think to have) a set of problems. Are they real problems ? Maybe, maybe not. But not even acknowledge what these people are saying cannot end in nothing different.
Voters don't care for rational arguments because the Left throw them out o the window.
Speaking for Italy, the right wing is in government exactly because the Left wing tried way too hard to lose. If the only thing the Left wing can offer is a multi-gender (whatever it means) leader who dont' even speak about what the people's problems are (or, again, what the people perceive as a problem) why someone should vote for them ? Rationally, why I should vote for a person that don't even talk about what I see as a problem instead of a person that at least talk about it ?
And I think that in Germany it is the same thing, even if for different reasons.
Yeah, and the problem is that when the right wing say "the illegal migration is a problem" and people say "the illegal immigration is a problem" the only thing the left wing say is "we need to get more illegal migration". See how the left wing is basically let the right wing win and on easy mode ?
Ok but the AfD is literally just modern Nazis.
Calling people who voted for them stupidity is the extremely charitable label, because malicious and vile would be more accurate in that case.
Comparing Italy and Germany here just isn't equivalent.
True, but people (and politicians) still don't understand (or don't want to admit) that like the Nazis, AfD are the consequence, not the cause.
Why ? Just because they voted for the Right wing that promise to solve what they see as a problem while the Left wing call them bigot, racist and homophobe, if they even acknowledges what people see as a problem ?
Yeah, maybe the problem is only perceived and I am pretty sure that AfD has no way, other the easy slogan, to solve their problems, but do you really think that ignoring (or worse, insulting) the people who ask you to solve a problem is the right way to get their vote ?
It is not that all the people who voted for the right wing became suddently fascist, it is simply that the other side has no answer to what people are asking, so people go for the only side that has an answer, even if stupid.
They didn't just vote for the right wing though, they voted for Nazis. So yes, they are literally bigoted, racist, homophobes. If you support people who admired Hitler, guess what? You're a fucking asshole of a very high degree. Being poor or troubled doesn't make you an asshole. My parents grew up in extreme poverty in El Salvador, and they didn't become extreme racists. I was in extreme poverty in university in the USA, I didn't suddenly start voting right wing either, let alone extremely far right. I hated the democrats over there, but knew the right wing wouldn't solve it because bad people don't go good things.
You don't end up voting for genuinely bad people who admire one of the most atrocious regimes in human history because of frustration. You only do so because you either already have a broken moral compass, or are extremely ignorant and stupid. In Germany though, it's more likely to be the former rather than the latter considering their history. And it's that recent history that makes it that much more shameful for Germany, and that shows that Nazism was still not extinguished.
You don't deal with an intolerant group like Nazi or AfD by excusing them or reaching out to them. You don't tolerate the intolerant (paradox of tolerance), because otherwise it'll only be a matter of time before you or someone else is no longer tolerated. And that's something history has proven repeatedly.
Listen here, as long as people like you don't understand that AfD (and all the other extreme right wings) are the consequence and not the cause, you will never solve any problem.
People voted AfD because they are the only one, as bad as it is, that at least aknowledge the problems people have (or think to have).
Do you really think that when someone tells you that they see [something] as a problem the better course of action is to insult them, consider them as part of the problem and then call them nazis when they voted for someone else ? Because that is what everyone else except the extreme right is doing.
Yeah, it is bad, but do you really think that people will always continue to vote for the side that they see as the cause of what they see as a problem ?
True
The point is how much you should endure before you become an idiot. Yeah, to vote for the bad guys do not solve the problems, but also to continue to vote for the cause of the problem do not solve it.
True, you end up voting for genuinely bad people because the supposed good people are the one that in your view are the cause of the problem and you do not see any other option (if not do not vote).
Nazism will never be extinguished, you cannot. But you can relegate it to the point that it is irrelevant. But what are you still missing is the cause.
True. You deal with intolerant groups like Nazi and AfD removing the causes that make them rise before they can rise.
What I mean is that the right-wing parties in Germany have focused their entire election campaign on the issue of migration - even the moderate conservatives (CDU). I think this one-sided explanatory approach is wrong and dangerous. On the one hand, I think it is a case of problem shifting. Important issues such as economic and energy policy or climate protection take a back seat to this one, disproportionately presented issue. On the other hand, I think that the isolationist policy advocated by the extreme right (in Germany, the AfD) is an outdated approach, as it does not solve the problem of illegal migration, but merely creates a counterproductive negative mindset towards immigration. And this is precisely what I consider to be very problematic: due to demographic developments, Germany urgently needs workers from abroad - not only, but especially in so-called low-skilled jobs such as nursing. This fact is being completely overlooked in the political debate, which in this country is characterized by xenophobic and even openly racist rhetoric. In short, I believe that the focus of right-wing parties on migration policy is nothing but empty polemics that is based on attributing blame instead of constructive proposals for solutions - we have other problems that need to be solved. I assume that the situation is similar in other European countries.
Evidently migration is seen as a problem from at least some of the people.
Got your point, but I suppose that what can happen next year is more "urgent" than what can happen in 10 years. People can think about what happen in 10 years if they are relatively sure of what will happen next year, nobody will sacrifice the imminent times for a possible gain so far in the future.
Yes, it is outdated. But the alternative we have seen until this point it is worse than the problem. I am pretty sure that the people are not afraid of the Italian nurse that come to work in a German hospital but they are afraid of the illegal immigrants who comes to Germany. AfD simply took advantage of this and of the missing answer from the other political parties.
I think you are wrong. Yes, AfD focus on migration policies but it is more than empty polemics, they intercepted what the common people are starting to think, more and more, that these migration policies and the de facto concession to every minority has the right to do whatever they want even violating the country's laws are simply unacceptable.
It would be fool to simply think that all the people who voted for AfD (and the right wing in general) are suddently become fascist without any reason and such reasoning will only end in AfD (and the right wing in general) to gain even more power since the left wing are ignoring what the underlying message really is: "we have these problems, solve them or sooner or later someone will, in a way or another"
The AfD will always remain unelectable for me - if only because of its openly fascist rhetoric and the associated ideas, which I reject as immoral and inhumane. The claim that the AfD is not a dangerous radical right-wing party is simply false - see Björn Höcke, for example, who is obviously a Nazi with links to various anti-constitutional groups. In addition, their EU election manifesto denies climate change, wants to limit freedom of movement in Europe and wants to abolish the euro as a common currency as well as the GDPR alongside other protectionist, anti-European demands across the board. In my opinion, all these demands are completely absurd and only show how little substance the AfD really has. All they are doing is profiting from the fear-based mood towards immigration that they themselves have helped to create. I can't understand how anyone can vote for such a party.
I agree and I never said that AfD is not dangerous. What I belive is that people did not become nazis overnight, I don't belive that people wake up one mornign and say "you know what, from today I will be a nazi".
I understand and respect your point but what I am seeing is everyone talking about the AfD (and the right wing in generale) that increase their power, that they are a danger to the democracy and so on but nobody ask the simpler question: why ? Why the right wing is getting all these new votes ?
Until the left wing politicians don't start to ask themself this simple question and are honest giving the answer, the right will continue to rise, that you, me or everyone else like it or not, because they (the left) are missing the point.
And the point is that, for better or worse, the right wing are listening to the people and promise to solve the problems the people have (or that the people think to have: a perceived problem for a person is a real problem, even if the problem itself does not exist in the first place) while the left wing, at least in Italy, is only able to insult me when I express my doubt or ask a solution for what I see as a problem.
Yeah, and that is why I said that some of their ideas are not that bad (at least in principle) while other are beyond stupidity. They know that they will never be able to act on their plan, but they are reading what more and more people are thinking and act accordingly. The main problem is that nobody else is doing the same.
The right wings win because the left, often, are too busy to keep some sort or moral superiority and fighting for irrelevant details instead of focusing on the real problems.
Simple, because they have an answer to the people's problems. Wrong but an answer.
Yes, it is somewhat true that the AfD addresses people's problems - at least they make it seem that way. But their rhetoric also ensures that people blame the wrong groups for these problems. The conservatives in the USA do the same, as do the right-wing populists in other countries. The Nazis in the Third Reich also did exactly that - it's nothing new.
Believe me, I have tried to understand why so many people don't see through these simple tricks and even allow themselves to be misled into voting against their own interests. I have had discussions with AfD supporters, both online and in real life. I have come to the conclusion that these people are either hopelessly under-informed because they only consume the corresponding social media content, or accept everything their leaders put in front of them in a sect-like manner - even the most ludicrous false claims that can be easily refuted. In both cases, I have very rarely been able to convince people that they are wrong to blame immigrants for all their problems. Over time I have become so disillusioned that I no longer believe that these people can be persuaded en masse with rational arguments - they simply want to believe that they are right and go through the greatest lengths to keep believing that.
However, I am not prepared to abandon a fact-based political discourse just because some particularly loud and snivelling people make life too easy for themselves. So I don't think that the left should also spread lies, rely on sub-complex explanations and blame some make-believe enemies. Nor do I think that is even possible.
So I must honestly say that I have lost faith in the functioning of democracy. Not because of any military thread or something, but because of the convenience and idiocy of the people. Maybe it can get better when the right-wingers are in government and fail completely - or it will get even worse when they get in a position to impose their inhuman ideology on all moderates in autocratic structures by force. In Germany that has already happened once with disastrous consequences and now we are on the best way to make history repeat itself.
More than that, they target the consequences instead of the cause.
All these are consequences of something else, not the cause.
AfD rises because people see problems that the other parties did not even aknowledge to exist and not because they create the problems.
That's easy. People are more worried of the day by day problems than some hypothetical future problem so they voted for the side that at least say they will resolve it.
Fine, but the fact-based political discourse should be on both sides. Currently the only one looking at the facts are AfD. Granted that they then bend them to their agenda, but the Left simply ignore the facts as for now.
That is something that it is always said by the people that think to be better than the other when they lose, I am sure you are better than that.
Thank you for your reply. I think there is little point in continuing this thread as we are unlikely to agree. As I have said several times, I am of the opinion that migration policy is not the serious problem that many people think it is - including you, apparently. Accordingly, I also think it is wrong to say that the AfD is pursuing fact-based policies. Rather, I think that the AfD uses (and promotes) people's vague fears in order to push through its political agenda, which incidentally is not at all in the interests of the "little people" when it comes to economic policy, for example. I am also fundamentally of the opinion that politics must be designed for the long term - this is an absolute necessity, as political decisions always set the course for the future. I think it is naive to believe that political decisions can be made without any long-term effect. That's why you have to know where you want to go and weigh up what effects political decisions will have. This applies to migration policy as well as to all other policy areas. Apart from that, we also have to deal with problems such as climate change, which of course require extremely long-term planning. Like the AfD, you can simply claim that this problem doesn't exist and that you can simply carry on as before, but that doesn't change the fact that climate change is real and needs to be dealt with in a meaningful way.
Too bad, but it was a nice discussion.
The left has answers to those problems, but implementing the solutions requires more work than reopening Dachau and banning contraception. I've never talked to those imaginary non-racists who vote FN/AfD; all the ones I've talked to want the dirty foreigners out, but they are all too stupid to see that our economies are reliant on them. There's no plan for the "after the purge", never.
In the whole bad times lead to strong people, which leads to good times, which leads to weak people, which leads to bad times, we're in the weak people leading to bad times stage. Now things need to get bad enough to start making strong people.
Only problem is the fascists are smarter this time and are pushing everywhere, so this time might not have nation states on the good side.
Putting that way is stupid. Yeah, maybe what you call fascist this time are smarter but on the other hand what should oppose them is dumber.
Why are you repeating that fascist "strong men create good times" bullshit?
While I'm not surprised if fascists use it, I don't think it is disinformation if they do, seems like more of a human thing where people generally just want to live their lives but asshole control freaks want to take power and gradually do while most just focus on their own things until the control freaks cross too many lines and people decide the best way to live their best life involves removing them from power.
It all depends on how you define "strong people" and "good times". The fascist version of this isn't quite in sync with the one I believe in.
Don't fall for propaganda either. Left and right are two buzzword used by rulers to manipulate public opinion and always stay in power.
I would gladly vote left, I like social democracy, I don't mind paying taxes for government services, what makes it impossible for me to vote left is that I completely and utterly disagree with the migration policies that have been in place.
They are insane, completely insane.
We need to enforce the EU borders and fundamentally change the asylum process, the current system encourage refugees to take extreme risks by crossing the sea in shit boats, the current system also encourage braindrain from poor countries preventing them from gettng the skilled workers they need to develop their economies.
Restricting the right of asylum will severely cut back on the human trafficing organization's proftis and reduce the ammount of death and injury in a dangerous ocean crossing.
It will also allow us to sped less money supporting people here, and do much more for them in their own home countries.
I am sure I will get downvoted massively, but this is the explanation as to why I won't vote left unless they show that they are serious at cutting migration.
there is good hint of xenophobia in your comment
you probably need to meet some people foreign of your country and learn they are humans just like you
tax rich people/companies
these are taking your money away for a good cause for everyone
That is fair, I can see how my comment might seem xenophobic to people who don't know the real me.
I absolutely believe that the rich pay too little tax, it is a global problem, that has a veey simple solution, but extremely difficult execution.
Taxing the rich isn't the be all end all solution, integration is, I am a Swede, and we have absolutely failed with integrating migrants. We see that with migrant gangs in Sweden.
I could write more, but this is not the forum for that discussion.
Talking like this is exactly why the right is on the rise. As soon as anyone mentions that "hey maybe unlimited migration isn't working" they're immediately labeled as racist and xenophobic.
This alienates a lot of people in the middle that like leftist ideas but don't buy the immigration policies.
I don't understand how anyone can think that migration policy is the EU's main problem. And I really don't get why someone should vote for a party that does not share their own convictions because of EU migration policy.
Bait and switch.
Immigrants = bad. Just focus on immigrants being bad, while I line my own pockets and/or gather power while you are distracted.
But just remember: immigrants = bad!
Pull effects aren't real. Help eradicating the reasons why the people are fleeing in the first place if you want less refugees.
Not as if the EU would want that, though. There's continents to exploit and money to be made, after all.
I partly agree, which is why I mentioned spending resources more effectively in the countries.
Pull effects are absolutely real, ignoring them is idiotic.
Pull effects have never been empirically shown. You're repeating the right's talking points.
Have they been empirically disproven?
You can't prove a negative.
It's an outdated model and not really taken seriopsly in academia.
Fair point, but that still gives me room to doubt the claim that pull factors have no impact on migration, I must appologize to my overly confidant commwnt earlier in the thread
As I said: the theory of push- and pull-factors is outdated and not really taken seriously in academics anymore. Are you claiming that you know reasons for migration better than academia?
To be frank, no, I don't claim to understand migration factors better than experts.
But if that theory is no longer seen as credible, I wonder how academia explains migration factors.
For me it isn't good enough to just say that the theories are wrong, I need to know what factors they believe causes migration instead.
The homepage I linked to earlier tries to ansewer your questions. Here's the english translation if you don't speak German.
Alright, so push/pull factors does infact exist, but we don't know what they are.
Did you read the article? O.o
Yes?
It talks about how the classic push/pull factors are way less important than culture and language.
To me, denying the push/pull concept is dumb, I'll absolutely conceede that the main push/pull factors may not be as prominant as previously suggested, but the play a part.
The article gives examples of how people want to go to a place with very similar culture and language, and as an example of that the bring up that the vast majority of syrian refugees are housed in Turkey, not other European countries, this is only natural, Turkey is neighbouring Syria, sp naturally most refugees go there, Poland and Ukraina is a similar situation, brodering nations.
This feel to me like a "feels over reals" situation.
That may be right, I see it more like logic reasoning, but I understand that said logic and reasoning is based on feelings and imagined emotions.
It's actually not, since you treat it more like a non-falsifiable "common sense" situation, which actually excludes logical reasoning.
Prohibition creates black markets. Restrict asylum and you'll increase human trafficking.
That is fair point, I have myself made the argument of legalizing drugs to remove power and influence from gangs.
When I wrote my long reply I didn't consider that.