Max. 2% impact, I’d say. Probably less. The resentful are not going to be discouraged by stuff like that. It is becoming like MAGA in the US.
It was interesting to see that the scandal-ridden lead candidates did not show up on TV last night. They sent the national heads of party.
Clowns gonna clown.
Yeah, because if they wrote their true policy plans into their official program, they would have been banned by now. Several state AfD parties have been officially labelled “right wing extremist” by federal authorities. Mostly in the East where the party is more extreme and has 30% of the vote.
All these right wing tech bros like Musk and Sachs and Thiel are a total disgrace.
As you are interested I always found it curious how the two UK major parties, Labour and Conservative, were not interested in the EU Elections.
In 2014, long before Brexit, the two major parties won around half the seats in the EU election (53%) whereas in the general election the year after they won 86% of the seats.
Edit: In the UK the EU elections were never seen as any sort of guide to general election results but it appears the EU countries have a different view?
As I said, some people see their country as more than multicultural economic zone, I think Musk understands this.
(Although I am aware that this is likely a hard sell in an expat forum)
It seems every election, there’s some headlines warning that the ‘far-right’ are making gains and might win, but they never seem to achieve victory. Will it really be any different this time?
AFD came first place in Newfiveland (DDR) and they won the vote in France and Austria.
Sorry, I was thinking about the national elections. Though I do wonder with high inflation, whether general dissatisfaction esp. over foreign policies that link to high inflation (war in Ukraine) whether this could boost alternative parties enough?
In the end, I think economics drives votes and voters have been hit hard and let down by the current governments and are probably ready to entertain an alternative that claims they will do better.
I don’t think the economy is that bad, but the perception of course could be. I am not sure many of the voters on the populist far right(and left) are that much looking for solutions. They are looking for a way to stick it to “the elites” (and particularly the Greens) and frankly also are falling for anti-democratic propaganda from abroad. Looking at the ecomonic policy suggestions from AfD and BSW/Left in Germany, it is difficult to see anything remotely promising there.
The “good” news is that in most countries the ceiling for these parties in maybe 40%.
Quite a hard sell when the source is the immigrant (Mr. Musk) gets a new citizenship.
Back to AfD, one of their candidates (M. Krah) made some comments about the SS that were understood only by a few people but incensed so many people that the candidate just quit.
Few days later and news about Russian money and spy from China working for AfD come up.
https://archive.is/mWDGc#selection-2055.0-2128.0
From our privileged point of view as high earnings living in Switzerland, the economy is doing great.
I think for the vast majority of people, they are squeezed massively. I’ve seen our grocery bill just about double - which for me is just a small part of the budget, but for many people is very difficult to deal with. Then you have all the other costs: higher rents, higher electricity prices, higher fuel prices, etc. etc.
In the mid-late teens i had a lot of dealings for my organisation with the European Parliament. We soon learned that involving the UK representatives was a waste of time as they were either always absent or would oppose just about everything because, well because they could.
It was a real pity as other western European nations like the Benelux, Scandinavia, port/spain and even Italy were looking for some leadership that wasn’t France or Germany.
Oh, they do: just make the country as unattractive for people who have a net-negative impact on the country so that they either pack up or don’t even go there (thus make it someone else’s problem).
Maybe. Most of my friends and family in Uberland are doing very well.
Fabulous!
How?
Many people struggle to empathise with or even relate to people who might not be doing as well as they are.
And pulling votes from across the board.
For me, they are equal to the Left, just more populist / anti-woke. Economic policy ideas a disaster and totally pro-Russian. Sorry, I meant “pro-peace”.
Switzerland can teach a lesson on this: the health insurance system, the regulations for the landlord-tenant contracts, trash police. These may seem like simple or idiotic things, but these are filters in the end.
Limited immigration ≠ zero immigration. HTH.
