cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/70552672

But 44% of the vote for a party that is officially classified as “extreme right” is not normal. It is a black day for European democracy, even if it occurs in a small east German state.

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While Saxony-Anhalt (and Germany itself) may have dodged the worst outcome because the AfD won’t automatically fulfil its ambition of forming the first far-right state government in Germany since the Nazi era, there is no reason to assume it will be so lucky at the next election. Neither will other German states, such as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in two weeks’ time, or other countries, such as France next year. No country is immune from the far right and, perhaps even more worryingly, no far-right party or politician is too extreme for political success (as the US has shown). We must therefore update our analyses and strategies.

edit link removed because it is "highly unreliable"

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[–] 63 points 1 week ago (13 children)

Billionaire money at work. Tax their wealth, then they can't buy up propaganda machines to influence the population. Wherever you are, vote for a #WealthTax or #TaxWealthNotWork . If you don't, they will only keep amassing wealth and power that leads to results like these.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 week ago (11 children)

    What I'm really struggling to understand is the logic behind voting for such parties. The existing parties have fucked you over due to lobbying from billionaires. What's the solution? Vote for the most billionaire friendly party there is

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  • [–] 9 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Abandon logic. Think emotion. You will not succeed when viewing politics through the lens of logic and reason. Voters no longer trust polished candidates with well-reasoned and detailed policy proposals. It's so easy to write that crap with corporate consultants and then ignore it as soon as the polician wins.

    Aside from the proud and overt racists, people don't vote for right wing parties based on policy analysis. Maybe only 5% of the voters actually vote this way. You probably don't vote this way. Very few voters ignore party and select candidates based on a detail analysis of their policy proposals. Most vote based on either party affiliation or vibes/emotion.

    Voting for right wing populist parties is an act of rage, the political equivalent of flipping the table over. Voters have come to resent the empty promises of neoliberals, and at this point they deliberately vote for whichever crazy candidate will piss off the respectable upper crust of society the most.

    Stop analyzing politics through logic, reason, and who has the objectively best policies. In the current environment, policies are seen as worthless. What matters are vibes and emotions.

    When you tell someone voting for a right wing populist, "but this guy supports policies that will hurt you!" They think, "I've voted for the logical and right choice my entire life. I've voted based on policies again and again. I've been betrayed again and again. At this point I'm just going to vote for whoever seems to most anger the media, the corporate owned, intellectuals, and all other social elites."

    This is also why there was a lot of overlap between Trump and Mamdani voters. A fair number of voters will at this point just vote for anyone who seems to most anger the corporate media.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    Question is if the outrage is organic or bred and nurtured by online sources. Like Russia, China and others. Most people in Germany have it better than ever before. Especially in the eastern states.

    They'll tell you Germany is failing and everything is going to shit but it never actually comes from their personal lives but from hearsay and their gut feeling.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago* (4 children)

    What’s the solution? Vote for the most billionaire friendly party there is

    That'd actually be the FDP. Who did lose more than half its voters this time.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    The FDP was the economy and business first party. The AfD is a party for the extremely rich. That's a difference.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

    In what way are the AfD's policies more advantageous for the extremely rich than the FDP's?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago

    It's the other way around. As I said, the FDP was more for giving capitalists in general an advantage, therefore they were often called the dentists' party. The AfD on the other hand doesn't give a fuck about keeping the economy afloat as long as some selected oligrachs can still make a profit out of it. An example is the complete privatization of the medical system.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    “Democracy basically means: Government by the people, of the people, for the people.... but the people are retarded.” ― Osho

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  • [–] 16 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Trying to paint "Moderate parties have moved to the right, thus disappointing voters so much with their right-wing politics, that those voters now feel the need to vote far-right instead" as some kind of sane decision will never be not comically stupid.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Last summer around this same time I was having a conversation with a German fellow, and I mentioned Afd gaining support and he shrugged it off calling them a fringe movement that have no real support, nothing to be alarmed over.

    Man, one year later and they are winning, crazy times.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Billionnaires must be hung, drawn and quartered

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago

    That would be English law. I think the closest German equivalent would be ripped apart with red-hot pliers and broken one the wheel. Not that I would ever suggest that this should be reintroduced.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Gonna have to ask you to remove that wsws link and any info sourced from it since it is a highly biased and highly unreliable source.

    This came to my attention because you reported a totally legit comment calling you out of the wsws link and you proceeded to use "low quality accusations" as a reason for the report. Don't abuse reports hoping to silence people who criticize you.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    What is problematic or biased about the quote I provided?

    Why are you accusing me of abusing reports to silence people who criticize me? Saying I am "abuse reports" about a single report you don't feel is valid doesn't feel fair to me.

    Sure I will remove the "highly unreliable source".

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  • [–] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

    I am accusing you of abusing the report system because your report was unreasonable and clearly had the intent to silence someone. This is not .ml where admins silence people over petty disagreements.

    PS: The community ban wasn't me.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago (12 children)

    The World Socialist Website is a Chinese propaganda site that support the Chinese Communist Party, including its aggression against Taiwan. Some may say that it fits to the topic as the Chinese government support Germany's far-right as we know, but this wsws/org is not a reliable source of information. This is a pure propaganda source.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago (8 children)

    What does this have to do with the Guardian?

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  • [–] 12 points 1 week ago (7 children)

    The comment refers to OP's link in the body of the text (there is a link to a wsws./org page).

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  • [–] -2 points 1 week ago (6 children)

    Ok. Could you please provide proof of your claim?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 week ago*

    I find the title misleading. The AfD can suck a big one, but they only won the federal state election in Saxonia-Anhalt, with a population of 1.7 million against Germany’s 80+ million. It’s still very worrisome to me, and they won the state in a landslide, but “winning in Germany” hasn’t happened yet, thankfully.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago

    Who is the biggest media outlet in Germany? Axel Springer Konzern.

    Who gets the Axel Springer Award? Look for yourself.

    This is a direct consequence of unchecked media ownership, and this trend is going on everywhere.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago

    Insert DiCaprio pointing meme.

    But twice.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    I guess people who can not start normal life because of cost of living are so frustrated that they vote for them... Apartament prices are part of that I guess. Maybe lets support right-to-housing.eu as a solution for it...?

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

    The ruling class always makes the same fatal mistake of believing people who condescendingly have been denied meaningful help for decades will act reactionally when provided the alternative vision and opportunity to burn it all down, damn the consequences.

    I don't know if it is irrational in a way though it usually ends up being a self immolating act for the desperate and poor, we are talking about human beings here, agency and free will are burning fires within us and given enough abuse that fire can be twisted into a rage that just wants everything to break around us in an enactment of a fantasy of eruptive "justice" coming to the people and systems that inflicted that suffering and denial of agency. When you corner an animal, instinct kicks in, we are no different.

    This is why neoliberalism leads to a collapse into fascism, it locks society into a place where help is condescendingly denied continually while the narrative that neoliberalism is superior to conservatism (which is true) is used to beat any criticism from the left into submission.

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