I was listening to the speech by Alice Weidl at the AfD Tagung yesterday.
She is now confirmed as the AfD chancellor candidate.
I don’t know why, but they scare me. “Tear down the “windmills of shame” (wind turbines) she talked about “Remigration” closing the borders, getting closer to Russia via gas, oil and coal and back to nuclear…
And this is now the second strongest political party in Germany.
Brrr!
They are getting more and more extreme. I had sympathy for them when they started in 2011 or so as a Euro-sceptic party opposing socialization of Euro debt. Since then, they have moved towards being an outright racist anti-science party that of course follows the MAGA playbook when it comes to hating on the “woke”.
I had a look at their “program” recently - which is of course written quite softly - and apart from the “remigration” issues what is really mind-boggling are their positions on the Euro (leave) and the EU (leave unless “nation states are restored”). They also want to lower VAT by 7% which is entirely nuts from a budget perspective.
But as in the US or many other countries, we don’t live in a world where elections are about choosing pragmatists who solve problems. Elections are about vibes, 30 second impressions and primitive instincts.
I know how I will vote and I am waiting for my ballot to arrive. Haven’t been in Germany for a while. How is the mood there in terms of election campaigning? Feels lame from the distance, but I might be wrong.
I wish I knew the translation for “Politikverdrossenheit” or, fed up of politics.
People, even the normally adjusted ones, are blaming Merkel for everything bad that is going on in Germany right no, they are looking around at the current crop of politicians and not seeing anything that will excite them. Scholz is as colourless as a guy who shifts one manilla folder on top of another, the greens are probably the most hated party since… well, ever!
All the others SPD, FDP and CDU/CSU are scraping the last dregs of older cizitens too bored and set in their ways to vote anything else.
And along comes AfD and BSW, sassy fresh and telling what people want to hear
And I totally agree with your assessment that the AfD started out as a real alternative for Germany and then went full on the MDWG, (make Germany great again) bandwagon.
It is going to be a landmark election in my very humble opinion.
Really? I get that people can be frustrated with traditional parties. But here there is nothing fresh. It smells like nostalgia for places that never existed. Which might have appeal, but neither sassy nor fresh for me.
Which says quite something about the people.
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That is because the majority of voters never had to visit a concentration camp in school, went through the NS era in two hours and have no concept of history.
A lot of AfD voters are not hightly educated and only rarely make any connection to a different time. For them the AfD is full of new ideas and interresting views that will take Germany back to a time when it was great.
I just realize she really said - to great applause - that when in power they would tear down existing windmills. This is just insane.
Yup. I thought to myself: “WT unlubed F, is going on…?”
I believe that they are banking on the idea that the population of Germany is sick of green Marxism, Muslims, high costs, the threat of war and the decline of society.
I think it is rather a copy of MAGA’s throwing out the most provocative shit so that they upset the normies and can feel good about “owning the libs”. These are sad and small minds.
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Technically, what would be needed in Germany is to cut the 100b from the budget that goes into financing all kinds of feel-good projects not covered by social security contributions and put them into defense and „future bets“ and infrastructure.
That is not going to happen, so we can expect the ride into the sunset to continue for Germany.
Regardless of who is in power.
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The AfD is what you get when you ignore the voters concerns and force “agendas” down their throats.
AfD is also what you get when you dumb down the kids at school.
Well, they blew up the nuclear cooling towers, so there seems to be a pattern of energy self-harm.
Well, across Europe we seem to have +/- 30% of the electorate that falls for the bittersweet temptations of resentment and “burn it all down” vibes. Didn’t help France to build out their nuclear fleet, did it?
Splitting Euro into two currencies, let’s call them Euro North and Euro South could help the southern EU countries out of the malaise caused by internal devaluation (Greece) or a need for it but impossible politically (Italy) so that pensions, debts etc could adjust along their underperforming economies. But I guess Southern Europe plight is not on top of AfD concerns.
VAT is considered an un-social tax, as it is not progressive, so lowering it while jacking up progression of other taxes could make sense - see Switzerland.
If however rumours about AfD latent revisionism were right, well, that wouldn’t be fun.
Well, if you have a given ratio of working population to the retirees and underemployed, then there are no miracles.
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That is another thing.
More and more retirees having to be supported by less and less people of working age in employment. The news is bringing daily reports of a few thousand laid off here, a few thousand there, sums that add up, a sudden influx of people on benefits put the fear of god into the age group of 40ties to 60ties.
The fear is real and tangible and the “refugees” and migrants are seen as a drain on scant resources, this is one wave that the AfD is riding on.
The issue is that this is a real problem and the AfD is selling the line that the “old” parties are squandering money on things where that money could be put to better use.
If they lose the election I am really wondering if there will be a “This election was STOLEN!” rhetoric from the AfD and there voters.
Well, they can always pull a Romania, claim outside interference and cancel the results….
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The Romanian presidential election was cancelled based on the allegations of the Romanian Intelligence Service (headed by president-proposed, parliament approved person) that Russia interfered on TikTok. Later Politico reported that the major Romanian political party secretly paid to promote the little known independent candidate in an attempt to lessen chances of other contenders. It can’t get more bizarre than that.
In Germany there is Verfassungschutz, they can always pull off something less blatantly obvious 
(They have already sponsored a terror organisation who murdered people (NSU))
Explain, havnt heard about that.
Although I totally believe that the Baader-Meinhof prisoners were executed in prison. so I can believe that too.
I see we are on a good track here. Jesus.