The AfD has failed to win three run-offs for mayor in major cities in Germany’s west, despite other gains. Meanwhile, the German foreign minister is to visit Poland as tensions grow over Russia’s aggression.
Every time I hear about the AfD, its either “AfD support has gone through the roof, and everyone should be terrified!” Followed a few days later by “AfD loses…”.
Im starting to think the press isnt being totally honest with us, and is just posting click bait…
It’s partly because of how the German elections work. They are a multi-party system and have runoffs when no one wins more than 50% of the vote. The AfD might be the top polling party with only, say, 30%. They win the first round of elections because the opposition is split between many parties, but in the runoff, voters must choose between AfD and the second most popular party. Voters who don’t like the AfD can coalesce to elect the second party, regardless of how they voted in round 1.
And then CDU gets to come in and pretend they’re the people’s party, after a decade of gaslighting the public that everything else is communism and they’re the only electable alternative - despite adopting many AfD talking points and strategies, laying the groundwork for further far-right gains.
A ton of AfD support is actually geographically split. Much of the support is in former East Germany, not in the west of the country. While their overall support has been rising steadily, this could have been a bellwether moment that showed that support rising to electoral success in the west. These results aren’t a mystery, they’re just not a simple as you would believe reading only headlines.
Idk are you from the west? Because I am and saying the nazis are mostly in the east is ridiculous. Or maybe you never went to Schützenfest and Jugendraum and didn’t notice how blatantly acceptable it is and was in the west to hate on immigrants and everyone else. Being Wessis always felt so good because we could tell ourself that the faschists only live in eastern Germany. For fucks sake. We got the nazis that survived Nüremberg to rebuilt the country, so if you for a second think that these people changed their convictions because a court told them that it’s wrong to genocide people and they were like ‘oh right if you say it like that it makes sense. Bummer’ then I don’t know what to tell you. There’s no geographical border that divides the dumbness, it’s just dumb wherever the sun touches.
I’m not saying that there is only support for AfD in east and none in the west, but there is definitely more support in the east: see recent state elections map.
No one supports fascism like communists.
That’s an idiotic take fully ignorant of both history and the present.
To be fair their industry was sold systematically way below value, so they were put at a disadvantage quite deliberately. The resulting discontent paired with bad education results in populists having easy game to prey on.
I suggest watching satirical series “Die Anstalt” on the “Treuhand” where they explain who stuffed their pockets and how it worked (Episode 47).
Just so you know it has nothing to do with communism and all to do with capitalism and corrupt politicians.
Nordrhein-Westfalen is the most western bit of west Germany, though. So not AFD territory at all.
Still good news, but not a shocker
Both are true. In a multi party system one party can very well be a strong faction or the strongest one (and cause associated problems) while still losing on “winner takes all” races because the entire rest of the spectrum is strongly opposed to them.
We should still be terrified, because the NSDAP took over the country from that exact position.
The afd shouldn’t be one of the 6 biggest parties. It shouldn’t be strong enough to participate in run offs. The fact that they are, is reason for concern.
They’ll be a minority resistance party soon enough. Their state seats have grown significantly. This is likely just a piece of the pie and you have to look at the different elections and seats. They are getting closer and closer to 20% of the vote now.
As soon as I see “far-right” I reach for the album Revolver by The Beatles.
Love to see Elon-aligned fascists take the L
On the one hand, I’d wish they would at least win one city, so that they can show they have absolutely nothing to add to the society. But on the other hand, I want them to fail hard every time.
FCK AFD
We thought like this in the late 90’/early 00’s when the FN won a couple of cities in southern France. Their failures, nepotism, mismanagement, amateurism, stupidity and blatant authoritarianism got widely reported at first. Some media kept tabs for much longer but it faded out off mainstream media pretty quickly, except for the occasional scandal.
Worse, it legitimizes them and give them a platform under a veneer of electoral legitimacy.
Don’t let the far right win anything. You won’t “show everyone they’re unfit for power” because people don’t care. They just become familiar faces.
They already won several positions and majorities in some cities and broke all promises they made. Still growing in numbers.
They have a mayor. His Village is Close to be bankrupt.
People only realize until its too late.
Brazilian here. Even when it is too late there will people still drinking the koolaid.
I’m waiting to see how things will develop in US, in part, because I hope the obvious failure that is bound to happen will nudge our senate and judiciary to say a loud “FUCK NO!” to anyone trying to copy cat Trump’s tarifs, Big Beautiful Bill or other shits here.
Still, there are 20 or 30% of the population that still want something similar to Bolsonaro.
If we ever have the disgrace of that idiot getting freed of Jail, I’ll either join the fight against his sycophants or I’ll flee away from Brazil.
(free bolsonaro is unlikely but not impossible and there are his family members and close ties in politics to always haunt us that want a proper democracy)
Thanks for the Insight. I think some people are so far gone, we cannot do anything.
I Always Wonder how we will ever be able to Look at each other again. Hate is a powerful tool…
This must be a coincidence. Certainly, that’s not their fault! 😭
The fact that this even needs to be stated is concerning
Like we didn’t know it was from Germany, but they added it anyways.
I guess it’s for our USA users who think US exists only?
