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This is the best summary I could come up with:
As a fifth night of anti-AfD protests saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets of German cities, with more expected later on Wednesday, Habeck appeared to support calls to outlaw the party, while stressing the risks of such a move “dangerously backfiring” were it to fail.
The AfD has shifted to the right since its founding in 2013 and has seen a steady increase in its popularity in recent months, in some cases outpolling the government parties.
Over the past week, media and political observers have scrutinised the evidence as to who was among the AfD members, neo-Nazis and rightwing extremist Identitarian movement attenders at the November gathering in Potsdam.
But the Werte Union, which seeks to restrict immigration, bolster the German military and reduce taxes, accused the investigative bureau Correctiv, which revealed that the meeting had taken place, of exaggerating the nature of the agenda.
The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, tweeted on Wednesday: “I am grateful that tens of thousands of people have been going on to the streets of Germany in recent days to protest against racism, rabble-rousing, and for our liberal democracy.
Tareq Alaows, one of the organisers who has been building the alliance since the summer in reaction to the AfD’s rising poll ratings, told the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung: “If the political parties can’t succeed in stopping the rightwing extremists, we have to create a human firewall against them.”
The original article contains 682 words, the summary contains 235 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Weird how the government that is absolutely hated by the majority of Germans and continues doubling down on the policy vast majority of people disagree with is screeching about authoritarianism
Said guy whose government is arresting people for protesting genocide this government support.
This might have some truth to it, but you're derailing.
Derailing from what? The genocidal support govt actually being "authoritarian" right now on the streets, trying to scaremonger people by their political opponent being more "authoritarian" in theory and in the future?
This is by itself 100% derailing tactic against the critiques falling on them. Maybe if they try to address the actual issues they wouldn't have to fear far-right party which was marginal few years ago.
Maybe if they try to address the actual issues they wouldn't have to fear far-right party which was marginal few years ago.
I think you know that one cannot engage by politics with Nazis to turn them. Far-right ideologies weren't marginal, they simply had no platform, the backlash of 2015 (nine years ago) didn't came out of nowhere.
The situation in the Middle East is sad, but it is not the "actual issue" in Germany at the moment.
- The AfD will not scrap their plans if the situation in the Middle East improves.
- Racist, far-right voters will not stop being racist, far-right voters if the situation in the Middle East improves.
- Racist, far-right media will not stop being racist, far-right media if the situation in the Middle East improves.
Planning the deportation of millions of people based on racism from Germany is more relevant to German politics and this discussion at the moment than the politics of the Middle East that may or may not resemble this.
AfD is pretty much irrelevant in this deliberation, entire point of this news is that German govt, which is currently supporting genocide, literally transplant US political rhetorics in the system different than US, blackmailing you and everyone (unless you are actually in favour of genocide?). Last when i check Germany isn't even a two party system so there's more parties to choice and i'm sure not all of them are genocidal.
Genocide is the actual issue, as is the government repressing people protesting against it.
Derailing from what?
It's funny that you asked. Kinda shows that you didn't even read the title of the post, let alone the article. It's just "yeah, German politics, let me write what bothers me!!"
It's funny that you can't even form a coherent argument, and instead just deflect from the very real issue of supporting genocide.
What else bothers you? Why don't we discuss under the post about AfD that the weather in Poland could be better in Junary, and then blame me for deflecting from the very real issue of bad weather in Poland in January, eh?
And a government that is backing a genocidal regime in the ICJ, and selling them arms.
Nobody was arrested for protesting against Israel or genocide in Germany. That's a blatant lie. Some people are being arrested temporary for their call to murder all Jews. There is a clear difference: There are thousands of people protesting peacefully against Israel's war - only a few of them are overstepping hard while doing so. Stopping these select people from committing further crimes in accordance with the state of law is called nuance.
Don't commit crimes in Germany (call for murder) and nobody will arrest you.
Nobody was arrested for protesting against Israel or genocide in Germany. That’s a blatant lie.
You are spreading blatant lies.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/germany-palestine-protest/
The German state’s show of support has led to an outright banning of most pro-Palestine protests.
On October 13, Berlin police declared uttering the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” forbidden and indictable.
minors arrested for wearing the colors of the Palestinian flag, a woman of Jewish-Israeli descent detained for carrying an anti-war message in Herrmannplatz, a central square in Neukölln.
Habeck and his Green party have been scapegoating and criminalizing Muslims for supporting Palestine. They've changed their immigration policy to align with European fascists. They've sent weapons to Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and to Israel's far-right government, while they are committing genocide. This guy is not an anti-fascist at all, and so his warning rings hollow.
They did all that. This is reality.
Nobody was arrested for supporting Palestine. Not a single person. Some specific people within the protests were temporary arrested for calling to murder Jews.
Bullshit.
The German state’s show of support has led to an outright banning of most pro-Palestine protests.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/germany-palestine-protest/
Some of the images circulating from the Neukölln protests have been disturbing: minors arrested for wearing the colors of the Palestinian flag, a woman of Jewish-Israeli descent detained for carrying an anti-war message in Herrmannplatz, a central square in Neukölln.
Ok, next:
Immigration policy was not changed to align with European fascists.
Yes it was. The Greens supported a so-called compromise with the Italian fascist government.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/eu-south-hails-new-migration-pact-but-traps-remain/
In addition, the vague activation of emergency measures due to the so-called “weaponised” migration, which will be defined as such by national governments, raises eyebrows and may be exploited politically, MEPs warn.
The new deal, which was sealed after years of negotiations, was hailed by southern EU member states’ governments.
In Rome, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said, “Italy does not feel alone” anymore
The Greens, as part of the German government, support this deal that Meloni is praising.
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/gruene-parteitag-migration-102.html
Der Parteivorstand plädiert für einen schärferen Kurs, wie in der Ampelkoalition vereinbart. Asylverfahren an den EU-Außengrenzen, Rückführungen, Kürzung von Sozialleistungen für Geflüchtete.
Translation: The [Green party] leadership advocates for a harsher course, as was agreed by the traffic-light coalition. Asylum process at the EU borders [i.e. camps], deportations, cutting social services for refugees.
These used to be far-right demands only a couple of years ago
Ukraine is not run by Neo-Nazis.
That's not what I said. I said the German government sent weapons to Ukrainian Neo-Nazis. The German government sends weapons to Ukraine, and they give some of them to far-right units like the Azov battalion (now reformed into to 3rd Assault Brigade), and they know that this is happening.
You are calling me delusional for things that have been widely reported, while you deny those things. Who's delusional here?
Habeck and his Green party have been scapegoating and criminalizing Muslims for supporting Palestine.
Wait for it…
They’ve changed their immigration policy to align with European fascists.
Any minute now…
They’ve sent weapons to Ukrainian Neo-Nazis
Ah, there it is. Downvote.
If you think the Green Party is as bad as a genuine Nazis wanting to overthrow democracy, you are either completely out of your mind or trolling
Instead of rallying against that party, you could also change your politics such that your people are satisfied with you and don't vote for the opposition.
Democratic parties adopting right wing policies will not benefit from them. The people will vote for the original.
Right wing parties also don't have any real policies that are going to help the part of the population that is voting for them. So it makes no sense objectively to implement this.
Democratic parties will lose their values and gain nothing in terms of votes.
The so-called democratic parties are trying to do that. They're now in favor of:
- More border security so Frontex can drown even more migrants in the Mediterranean.
- Detaining the ones who make it over in concentration camps.
- Making it easier to deport people.
- Criminalizing Muslims for supporting Palestine.
These "democrats" are doing all this hate-speech, Hetze, and blatant violations of human rights. They took these policies directly from the far-right, and now pretend to fucking oppose the AfD? Fucking hypocritical assholes.
It won't work either, because none of that has anything to do with people's economic prospects, which is the real reason most of them are angry. So they're still going to be angry with whoever is in power, no matter how many foreigners they deport and murder and scapegoat.
While yes, that is part of the solution, there are also people that simply think that way. They think they are better, that they deserve X, and thus vote that way. Unless you fundamentally change their mind or promise then what they want, you will not get their vote.
As a German. I got to see that lot of AFD voters are alcohol addicted people who would rather blame the failure of their marriage/life/etc on immigrants rather than facing the reality that it was their own fault. So they vote AFD. It's pathetic tbh
This has a fascist level "unwilling to examine why so many people are deeply miserable in liberal society" take on why people become fascists.
The nuts part is that AfD voters aren't even that right-wing. Lots of people there who are actually socialists (they're largely from the east, after all) but are absolutely fed up and don't see another way. BSW will wreck absolute havoc on the AfD's results for that reason alone. I have my issues with their foreign policy but damn we need a party that actually advocates for expropriating landlords, if only to cut through capitalist realism the otherwise largely labor-aristoctrat rest of the left is stuck in. It's not VW workers who have trouble making rent.
It's not their fault the precariat has been getting shafted for a good 30 years now and HartzIV sends tons of people into disability welfare: Out of the employment statistics, out of mind. At least you can't get sanctioned once you're an alcoholic. "Those bums should just study at university and get a job" is peak liberal deflection, how about making it possible to live in dignity on a hair stylist's wage instead, how about making sure that not 30% of employment contracts are precarious, but 0%, so that you can actually plan a life instead of worrying that the subcontractor of a subcontractor you work for goes into wilful bankruptcy to lay you off.
Yeah maybe a pub isn't the most representative sample of the precariat. Try the Tafel.
The west is not a representative sample of your usual AfD voter, either.
1.65m Germans get food from the Tafel, about thrice as much as fit into your village state. About 2% of the population and more would like to, the capacity is limited. It should be 0, with this nominally being a welfare state and all. We're also short over a million of social housing units and that's not counting people who don't even put themselves on the list because it's pointless, anyway, there's no flats to be had. Shall I look up the statistics of people living in emergency accommodations for decades.
Bro….. you can’t have a functioning democracy with an anti-democratic party freely participating in it. If a party’s explicit goal is to end democracy, they really SHOULDN’T be allowed to participate in democracy at all.
Paradox of tolerance and all…
Democracy shouldn’t be a free-for-all, where warlords can win enough votes to conquer the world. That is insane.
It's not hypocrisy because AfD is racist and anti-democratic. There's no paradox here. No tolerance for intolerance, if you let a party be part of the democratic process who is trying to destroy it, you stop have a working democracy. Only a fool would let this happen. Banning AfD doesn't suddenly shift Germany into a pseudo democracy, we have many more parties.
However we can also agree that this is just hiding a bigger issue. So it's no solution and is only gaining time to solve a deeper rooted issue.
If the situation is that you ban a political party because you're worried the people will vote for a facsist dictatorship (and I'm not saying that's an impossibility these days), this is just a band-aid at best. Because clearly the people will get what they want somehow, some day.
The solution needs to be to educate people better, because no sane and educated turkey votes for Christmas (Thanksgiving I guess for the Americans).
Education is potentially a worse band-aid than anti-democratic party banning, because education requires skilled, paid and motivated workers that aren't corrupted themselves. Party banning requires observing collective political organisations while education requires observing individual working persons.
Well, I'm not advocating against party banning. I'm just saying that if the reason a party is being banned is because there's a real chance they might win an election. Then it really is just deferring the problem.
Latent far right ideologies were the dominant background when the constitution came into existence. Yet, this is a situation (anti-democratic party with considerable power) that is not supposed to happen.
You're not banning part of the population from the polls, you're removing anti-democratic elements. I'd argue this is an essential step for democracy to thrive.
"[..] and its almost exclusively a phenomena specific to the left..."
What about the KPD 1956 or the German Autumn then? This party and movement also represented
"a portion of the population"
that was excluded from polls or 'participation'.
The paradox of tolerance, the historical fragility of each rule of law, the separation of powers and the constitutional state ( 'Rechtstaat' ) render parties and movements whose alignment aim for the qualitative destruction of these markers of political entities built to survive more than one election as not just risks, but dangers to regional democracy.
How is a diverse opinion a threat to democracy?
If the opinion is that there should not be a democracy, then that is a threat to democracy.
Excluding a portion of the population from the polls
They are not excluded. They are free to vote for a party that is in line with the constitution.
its almost exclusively a phenomena specific to the left...
I don't even know what to say. In which world are the far-right, fascists and nazis known to value opposing views? Are you serious?
Germany saw first-hand what happens when a far-right party is elected through democratic ways. They have all the reasons in the world to try to prevent it again.