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The language used to describe AfD is strikingly similar to the one used to describe Trump supporters prior to the elections. The truth is, the influx of immigra

The language used to describe AfD is strikingly similar to the one used to describe Trump supporters prior to the elections. The truth is, the influx of immigrants is a real problem in Germany, although in some places is felt more than in others. Normal people turn to AfD for help, not because they're aggressive or hateful. It's difficult to even have a civilized discussion about it without being labelled as "racist" or "extreme right-wing". (Fortunately, the label "Nazi" is rarely used, it's more American domain these days.)

peteretep 9y ago
> The truth is, the influx of immigrants > is a real problem in Germany, although > in some places is felt more than in others My belief, from what I've read, is that in most countries anti-immigrant sentiment correlates with area where there are currently few immigrants. I wonder if that's the same case in Germany?
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  It's more complex than that. Also, the media tend to concentrate on cases like Maria Ladenburger that are statically negligible while ignoring long-term threats that are more or less a taboo topic.
- pluma 9y ago
  This seems to be the case. Anti-immigrant parties are more popular in sparsely populated areas that are mostly "ethnically German". This happens to also show up as an East/West divide for obvious reasons.
zimpenfish 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#Ideology_and_policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#Ideolo... > For example, Petry, who led the moderate wing of the party, said that Germany should reclaim the German word "Volk" from its Nazi connotations, while Höcke, who is an example of the more right-wing views, regularly speaks of the "Fatherland" and "Volk", and has said that Germany should make a "180 degree" turn with regard to its sense of national pride. You know, they do sound kinda "racist" and "extreme right-wing" from their own words. > The party has a platform of climate change denial And also very, very stupid.
- VladTheImplier 9y ago
  I urge you to read the "Wahlprogramm" with Google translate, the legal text that defines what a party stands for in this election, it's ~70 pages for each party, but there is a summary for every topic. http://www.bundestagswahl-bw.de/wahlprogramme_btwahl2017.html http://www.bundestagswahl-bw.de/wahlprogramme_btwahl2017.htm... It's not much different from what the other parties aim to do. The only real one being, that the AFD wants a hard cap on immigration. If you read media covering the German election you never find them having the, you know, legally binding document of their goals. Because in reality everything is much more tame and realistic. The assaults against parties always happen because someone said something, never do they source what actually is defined by the party. Höcke said some goddamn stupid shit, that you will barely find anyone agreeing. But his words alone were enough for all the opponents to tarnish AFD's name and it became the Nazi party forever. Last week the AFD split because of that into a new "Alternative Center" just because of that. I won't vote for them, but how is the want to get blacklisted words like "Volk = People" and "Vaterland = Fatherland" to be reclaimed and used freely again that evil? Nobody in Germany can defend their historic achievements, because their ancestors were criminals. The AFD whishes to reverse that. The climate change part is a thing that the AFD fiercly debated for long inside their own walls, but they never claimed to deny that either. The official statement, is that the blind deactivation of Nuclear energy can lead to skyrocketing electricity prices, where they don't question climate change itself, but the human component in it. By their words, it is not clear whether man had influence or not and to act on something that is not set in stone is foolish. I don't agree with them on that or will vote for them, but I must defend the them on simply calling them stupid and racist, because they are not, or the words of one or two people are weight more than a legally binding election plan.
  - lyschoening 9y ago
    Nationalist movements regularly combine widely accepted populist left-wing positions with xenophobic ideas (and proceed to disregard the left-wing ones once in power). I live in Denmark; the Danish People's Party here is also very left-wing on niche social issues and uses that to trick people into voting for them. Trump used this strategy so well that you had followers of Bernie Sanders switching allegiances to vote for him. And of course the original Nazi party adopted many socialist ideas in the beginning, stealing votes from the Social Democrats and Communists.
tajen 9y ago
Yes. No party proposes a reduction of massive Muslim immigration, except this one. The fact that everyone categorizes anything that discusses immigration as "extreme-right" or "alt-right" doesn't help. Worse, it doesn't help diagnosing: I'm yet to see a good explanation by Democrats of why Trump got 62m votes (whether that's the majority or not isn't relevant, it's still 62m votes for a spoiled child), beyond "They're stupid racist biggots". With such a bad diagnsis, we're bound to see those 62m votes again and again. In USA, Trump's supporter Milo Yiannopoulos endlessly makes fun of this situation. His political speeches are 10% controversy (against left) but 90% about showing how much the left mischaracterizes the right's ideas and how much he gets censorship "because words hurt someone's feelings". I discovered him when he interviewed James Damore, which is a pretty good demonstration of leftist behaviors. Wrong analysis of AfD's progression may make them take the lead: - Citizen just don't want to become the world capital of rape, like Sweden became, no matter how immigration is forced onto them, whether it's in London (are there still British people in London?), France of Germany. - People will vote the non-politically correct choice (Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, AfD) as long as main parties don't acknowledge the problem. - We won't hear about them while Social Justice Warriors keep pushing them outside of Twitter, conferences and companies. To better understand today's political evolution, a good place to start a social diagnostic is unfortunately at the sidelines of mainstream media: 9Gag's #Politics channel and Milo Yiannopoulos...
- peteretep 9y ago
  > like Sweden became This appears to be an alternative fact, please don't post it again. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39056786 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39056786
  - vim_wannabe 9y ago
    So not world capital, but the EU capital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0XJP4OHTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0XJP4OHTE
    - peteretep 9y ago
      You didn't read the link, and you've linked to a YouTube video of some guy opining into a camera as some kind of primary source. Awesome.
pluma 9y ago
Many Nazis support the AfD, not every AfD supporter is a Nazi. Some people are just idiots. And a not-so-insignificant amount of people are plain "protest voters" who vote for the most unacceptable party the media talks about (before AfD this was the NPD) to "stick it to the man". I watched most of the federal convention of the AfD and the party basically unifies a number of different political interest groups, including but not limited to literal Nazis. Almost all of these groups are right-wing and almost all of them are nationalist or ethno-nationalist. The moderates are actually almost palatable (their main argument always boils down to "but think of the children") but the party tries very hard to pretend there is no diversity of opinion among its members. FWIW, the aforementioned moderates are often extremely "conservative" (i.e. queers are destroying society and corrupting our children, gay men are pedophiles, sex education should be abstinence only, etc). There's also a disturbing amount of support for fringe conspiracy theories (chemtrails, holocaust denialism, sovereign citizens aka "Reichsbürger", etc). Saying "but some of the things some of them say are true" is missing the point. You can't take the AfD seriously because it's a hot mess that is heavily influenced by ideologies that are bordering on being anti-constitutional. It's like attempting to justify bringing Adolf Hitler into a conversation about healthcare because he's a vegetarian. Yes, vegetarianism might have a place in that discussion, but nobody would expect that to be particularly helpful because he'll likely derail the conversation to say something awful about Jews. The AfD's official position on so many things is so far off the mark you can't cooperate with them on any detail without suffering their taint on everything else. You can have reasoned discussions about immigration (e.g. how we actually handle immigration has resulted in plenty of problems on all sides) but you can not base it on a stance that is inherently anti-constitutional.
- thg 9y ago
  The AfD is a rebranding effort of the NPD to get rid of their direct Nazi / Hitler / WW2 past. The sad thing is that it appears to be working, albeit only marginally for now.
  - pluma 9y ago
    That's not really true. The NPD is more supportive of the lower class. Its politics (nationalism and xenophobia aside) tend to favor the poor, the unemployed and the wage slaves. The AfD is much more bourgeois. Despite its populist rhetoric its social promises actually tend to focus on working families and traditional "values". It's the CDU to the NPD's Left.
jackblack8989 9y ago
I don't agree with what you're saying, hence I have to call you a Nazi, Nazi
vacri 9y ago
It's a false equivalency, comparing Trump supporters to similar in other countries. The AfD gets 5% of the vote. Trump got nearly 50% of the vote. Every population has its extremist idiots, but for nearly 50% of voters to willingly cast their vote for such an obscenely obvious conman? No, the AfD situation is nothing like Trump - there is no danger of AfD 'running the show'.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pluma 9y ago
  It's improbable that the AfD will get enough votes to become a part of the government but I don't find it at all unlikely that they'll perform better than the polls suggest, especially considering the recent failures of polls in other countries. The AfD is much more socially acceptable than the NPD ever was. It's largely seen as a "protest party" and the general consensus that they have no chance of being part of any government coalition only helps support that.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  Much of the difference is in electoral systems, and the same around ten percent that led to Trump could be necessary for a coalition and run much more of the show than they should.
erispoe 9y ago
And what problems are they exactly? Are they making prior residents worse off? Or are we talking "cultural danger"? There is no evidence of the former. In fact, a large part of why Germany has taken so many immigrants compared to other european countries is that the german workforce is stretched thin and needed an influx of young workers. Plus Germany has more infrastructure in place to integrate foreign population. If we're talking the latter, then that's irrational fear.

peteretep 9y ago

> The truth is, the influx of immigrants > is a real problem in Germany, although > in some places is felt more than in others My belief, from what I've read, is that in most countries anti-immigrant sentiment correlates with area where there are currently few immigrants. I wonder if that's the same case in Germany?

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
It's more complex than that. Also, the media tend to concentrate on cases like Maria Ladenburger that are statically negligible while ignoring long-term threats that are more or less a taboo topic.
pluma 9y ago
This seems to be the case. Anti-immigrant parties are more popular in sparsely populated areas that are mostly "ethnically German". This happens to also show up as an East/West divide for obvious reasons.

zimpenfish 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#Ideology_and_policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany#Ideolo... > For example, Petry, who led the moderate wing of the party, said that Germany should reclaim the German word "Volk" from its Nazi connotations, while Höcke, who is an example of the more right-wing views, regularly speaks of the "Fatherland" and "Volk", and has said that Germany should make a "180 degree" turn with regard to its sense of national pride. You know, they do sound kinda "racist" and "extreme right-wing" from their own words. > The party has a platform of climate change denial And also very, very stupid.

VladTheImplier 9y ago
I urge you to read the "Wahlprogramm" with Google translate, the legal text that defines what a party stands for in this election, it's ~70 pages for each party, but there is a summary for every topic. http://www.bundestagswahl-bw.de/wahlprogramme_btwahl2017.html http://www.bundestagswahl-bw.de/wahlprogramme_btwahl2017.htm... It's not much different from what the other parties aim to do. The only real one being, that the AFD wants a hard cap on immigration. If you read media covering the German election you never find them having the, you know, legally binding document of their goals. Because in reality everything is much more tame and realistic. The assaults against parties always happen because someone said something, never do they source what actually is defined by the party. Höcke said some goddamn stupid shit, that you will barely find anyone agreeing. But his words alone were enough for all the opponents to tarnish AFD's name and it became the Nazi party forever. Last week the AFD split because of that into a new "Alternative Center" just because of that. I won't vote for them, but how is the want to get blacklisted words like "Volk = People" and "Vaterland = Fatherland" to be reclaimed and used freely again that evil? Nobody in Germany can defend their historic achievements, because their ancestors were criminals. The AFD whishes to reverse that. The climate change part is a thing that the AFD fiercly debated for long inside their own walls, but they never claimed to deny that either. The official statement, is that the blind deactivation of Nuclear energy can lead to skyrocketing electricity prices, where they don't question climate change itself, but the human component in it. By their words, it is not clear whether man had influence or not and to act on something that is not set in stone is foolish. I don't agree with them on that or will vote for them, but I must defend the them on simply calling them stupid and racist, because they are not, or the words of one or two people are weight more than a legally binding election plan.
- lyschoening 9y ago
  Nationalist movements regularly combine widely accepted populist left-wing positions with xenophobic ideas (and proceed to disregard the left-wing ones once in power). I live in Denmark; the Danish People's Party here is also very left-wing on niche social issues and uses that to trick people into voting for them. Trump used this strategy so well that you had followers of Bernie Sanders switching allegiances to vote for him. And of course the original Nazi party adopted many socialist ideas in the beginning, stealing votes from the Social Democrats and Communists.

tajen 9y ago

Yes. No party proposes a reduction of massive Muslim immigration, except this one. The fact that everyone categorizes anything that discusses immigration as "extreme-right" or "alt-right" doesn't help. Worse, it doesn't help diagnosing: I'm yet to see a good explanation by Democrats of why Trump got 62m votes (whether that's the majority or not isn't relevant, it's still 62m votes for a spoiled child), beyond "They're stupid racist biggots". With such a bad diagnsis, we're bound to see those 62m votes again and again. In USA, Trump's supporter Milo Yiannopoulos endlessly makes fun of this situation. His political speeches are 10% controversy (against left) but 90% about showing how much the left mischaracterizes the right's ideas and how much he gets censorship "because words hurt someone's feelings". I discovered him when he interviewed James Damore, which is a pretty good demonstration of leftist behaviors. Wrong analysis of AfD's progression may make them take the lead: - Citizen just don't want to become the world capital of rape, like Sweden became, no matter how immigration is forced onto them, whether it's in London (are there still British people in London?), France of Germany. - People will vote the non-politically correct choice (Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, AfD) as long as main parties don't acknowledge the problem. - We won't hear about them while Social Justice Warriors keep pushing them outside of Twitter, conferences and companies. To better understand today's political evolution, a good place to start a social diagnostic is unfortunately at the sidelines of mainstream media: 9Gag's #Politics channel and Milo Yiannopoulos...

peteretep 9y ago
> like Sweden became This appears to be an alternative fact, please don't post it again. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39056786 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39056786
- vim_wannabe 9y ago
  So not world capital, but the EU capital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0XJP4OHTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0XJP4OHTE
  - peteretep 9y ago
    You didn't read the link, and you've linked to a YouTube video of some guy opining into a camera as some kind of primary source. Awesome.

pluma 9y ago

Many Nazis support the AfD, not every AfD supporter is a Nazi. Some people are just idiots. And a not-so-insignificant amount of people are plain "protest voters" who vote for the most unacceptable party the media talks about (before AfD this was the NPD) to "stick it to the man". I watched most of the federal convention of the AfD and the party basically unifies a number of different political interest groups, including but not limited to literal Nazis. Almost all of these groups are right-wing and almost all of them are nationalist or ethno-nationalist. The moderates are actually almost palatable (their main argument always boils down to "but think of the children") but the party tries very hard to pretend there is no diversity of opinion among its members. FWIW, the aforementioned moderates are often extremely "conservative" (i.e. queers are destroying society and corrupting our children, gay men are pedophiles, sex education should be abstinence only, etc). There's also a disturbing amount of support for fringe conspiracy theories (chemtrails, holocaust denialism, sovereign citizens aka "Reichsbürger", etc). Saying "but some of the things some of them say are true" is missing the point. You can't take the AfD seriously because it's a hot mess that is heavily influenced by ideologies that are bordering on being anti-constitutional. It's like attempting to justify bringing Adolf Hitler into a conversation about healthcare because he's a vegetarian. Yes, vegetarianism might have a place in that discussion, but nobody would expect that to be particularly helpful because he'll likely derail the conversation to say something awful about Jews. The AfD's official position on so many things is so far off the mark you can't cooperate with them on any detail without suffering their taint on everything else. You can have reasoned discussions about immigration (e.g. how we actually handle immigration has resulted in plenty of problems on all sides) but you can not base it on a stance that is inherently anti-constitutional.

thg 9y ago
The AfD is a rebranding effort of the NPD to get rid of their direct Nazi / Hitler / WW2 past. The sad thing is that it appears to be working, albeit only marginally for now.
- pluma 9y ago
  That's not really true. The NPD is more supportive of the lower class. Its politics (nationalism and xenophobia aside) tend to favor the poor, the unemployed and the wage slaves. The AfD is much more bourgeois. Despite its populist rhetoric its social promises actually tend to focus on working families and traditional "values". It's the CDU to the NPD's Left.

jackblack8989 9y ago

I don't agree with what you're saying, hence I have to call you a Nazi, Nazi

vacri 9y ago

It's a false equivalency, comparing Trump supporters to similar in other countries. The AfD gets 5% of the vote. Trump got nearly 50% of the vote. Every population has its extremist idiots, but for nearly 50% of voters to willingly cast their vote for such an obscenely obvious conman? No, the AfD situation is nothing like Trump - there is no danger of AfD 'running the show'.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pluma 9y ago
It's improbable that the AfD will get enough votes to become a part of the government but I don't find it at all unlikely that they'll perform better than the polls suggest, especially considering the recent failures of polls in other countries. The AfD is much more socially acceptable than the NPD ever was. It's largely seen as a "protest party" and the general consensus that they have no chance of being part of any government coalition only helps support that.
boomboomsubban 9y ago
Much of the difference is in electoral systems, and the same around ten percent that led to Trump could be necessary for a coalition and run much more of the show than they should.

erispoe 9y ago

And what problems are they exactly? Are they making prior residents worse off? Or are we talking "cultural danger"? There is no evidence of the former. In fact, a large part of why Germany has taken so many immigrants compared to other european countries is that the german workforce is stretched thin and needed an influx of young workers. Plus Germany has more infrastructure in place to integrate foreign population. If we're talking the latter, then that's irrational fear.