Any Germans want to weigh in on this? I believe the AfD is, like, super far right and it has 18%? That seems like a lot of support…

  • @cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    18
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    The AfD are an eclectic mix of petty bourgeois racists and bigots, fringe conspiracy theorists and oldschool Nazi sympathizers. But they are gaining ground because the situation that the current coalition government has led Germany into is so disastrous. We are now in a recession and they are still doubling down on making things even worse. AfD are the only big Euroskeptic party in Germany, and the only major party who take a somewhat reasonable stance on the conflict with Russia. The mainstream liberal centrist parties have all been completely turned into unhinged warmongers and puppets of the US and NATO who are so spineless that they don’t even protest when their own allies destroy vital German energy infrastructure. Instead they go along with sanctions that seem almost purposely designed to sabotage the German economy for the benefit of the US. It is yet another instance of liberals making fascists popular through their disastrous incompetence and fascists being smart enough to opportunistically adopt popular political positions.

    The saddest part about this data is that if it remains true until the elections the only leftist party that Germany still has with any even marginal political relevance, Die Linke, will not get over the 5% threshold which will disqualify them from getting any seats in the parliament. The center and right will have managed to completely eliminate the left at the federal level.

    And i have to say that part of why this has happened is because the SPD, which is a nominally “social democratic” but in reality has long since turned even more liberal than even the labor parties of countries like the UK or Australia, has had such a terrible track record of time and time again betraying the working class. It has become so unpopular and so indistinguishable from the other liberal centrist parties that it has dragged down the whole of the left with it, including Die Linke which is for lack of a better word a schizophrenic party, internally divided between a more traditionally left wing and an opportunist reformist socdem wing, and not only does this mean they lack a clear party line and decisive stances on political issues, but more often than not the opportunists get their way and make all sorts of awful compromises and alliances with the SPD that just demoralize their base.

    So it’s no wonder that so many people gravitate to the AfD because there is no other significant political party that at least rhetorically if not in practice dares to champion the interests of Germany instead of being complete shills for the EU, NATO and the US at the expense of the people of their own country. I see this as a catastrophic failure of the left in Germany (and in fact in the EU as a whole) that we have ceded the populist, anti-war, anti-imperialist position to the right and far right. Because despite the omnipresent, daily barrage of anti-Russian propaganda in almost the entirety of the mainstream media here in Germany, there are still a significant number of people who are not buying into the bullshit and want good relations with Russia or at least an end to sanctions and involvement in the war.

    There is a real appetite for anti-neoliberal, anti-EU, anti-war and pro working class political options and unfortunately the left is not filling that demand (with the exception of a few communist parties too small to be relevant, such as the DKP in Germany) so people turn elsewhere.

    • @lil_tank@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      1610 months ago

      Never forget that the SPD armed the Freikorps and let them commit atrocities against the workers after having deliberately infiltrated them to sabotage the ongoing revolution

      They’re just a reactionary bourgeois party and must never be trusted

  • @cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    15
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    On the whole i am not surprised by most of this. It was to be expected that the SPD would lose big and the right would gain a boost. The only thing that constantly surprises me is how the Greens manage to retain such a constant base of support despite them being the most ridiculously incompetent bunch of clowns and the most to blame for the economic and energy disaster that Germany is now going into. They are clearly the leading force in the governing coalition and they run all over the weak SPD leadership despite the SPD technically being the senior coalition partner who got the most votes. The failure of the coalition government has dragged down the other two parties but not the Greens. It seems there is a solid chunk of the population that are just hardcore brainwashed green supporters and who are either in complete denial or who actually think it’s a good thing that Germany is being de-industrialized at the same time as being dragged into a proxy war with a nuclear power. A testament to the power of the liberal media to shape public opinion.

  • @lemat_87@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    1110 months ago

    AfD is a fucking nazi party. This is very disturbing. I am not affraid to say that 18 percent voters are fucking neonazi supporters and one hundred years ago they would support Hitler. I am very disappointed. Fascism is still alive there, as in Italy

  • lemmygrabber
    link
    fedilink
    810 months ago

    Someone familiar with this is gonna have to give a very brief rundown. I am not familiar with Germany.

    • Better Red Than Dead
      link
      fedilink
      1410 months ago

      many reactionary / conservative newspapers, large amount of anti-socialist propaganda, voters only care about identity politics and who can bash who the most, large conspiracy theory movements, east germany gets constantly exploited since 1989 by west german capitalists and news outlets have stirred a large amount of hatred for east germans, so that noone could think for one second that socialism is good -> resulted in hatred for the government in east germans and west german fascists taking control of said hatrid, immigration caused by US imperialist wars has brought up an easy target for bigots to say immigrants are the problem, government fails to stop alt-right movements and is generally incapable of governing, people misinterpret the real causes of late capitalism, etc etc etc, you get the idea, its generally the same as everywhere else in the western world.

      • lemmygrabber
        link
        fedilink
        1010 months ago

        Thanks but what I meant was that what parties are featured in the screenshot. Asking since there are only abbreviations used.

        • Better Red Than Dead
          link
          fedilink
          810 months ago

          Ah okay, sorry. Here: SPD: Social Democratic Party of Germany, CDU: Christian Democratic Union (=Conservative, CSU is their Bavarian branch, which has been even more conservative historically). Grune: Green Party, started off from ‘Maoist’ extra-parliamentary movements, but has since become a neoliberal party that makes the poor pay for their climate programs instead of the rich, FPD: Free Democratic Party, Neoliberal, they like the taste of US’ imperialist boots, AfD: Alternative for Germany, right-wing populist to neo-nazi party, has radicalised a lot since 2020 Die LINKE; The LEFT, Marxist, democratic socialist party, largest left wing party that is not offically surveilled by the intelligence, has been losing a lot of votes since Sarah Wagenknecht went crazy.

          • @REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.ml
            link
            fedilink
            5
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            has been losing a lot of votes since Sarah Wagenknecht went crazy.

            Sorry, but Sarah did not go crazy. The new leadership of the party basically threw every pro-worker position over board and replaced it with liberal idpol bullshit in a cheap attempt to become the next Grüne/Bündnis 90. This predictably failed, because the orginal already exists and people at the existence minimum tend to be kind apathetic (at best) towards idpol. The massive loss of votes happened before Sarah said anything. She then correctly pointed outt he mistakes of the party leadership, which ignored her (at best, demonization was more common), which led to a continuation of the downwards trend.

            I hope the party splits soon, those radlibs in the current Linke ruined it.

                • Better Red Than Dead
                  link
                  fedilink
                  110 months ago

                  Sorry for the late reply. She and Alice Schwarzer (a prominent TERF) protested on February 25 2023 together with members of the AfD.

  • @DesiDebugger@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    610 months ago

    Can someone explain to me how the German left went from being the vanguard of the gdr and the German proletariat to polling below the threshold? Also what are the chances there for a resurgence of the proletarian movement in Germany today?

    • @knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      810 months ago

      A combination of infighting, socdem betrayal, ineffectual policies/proposals in government, BRD media villifying anything left of neoliberalism, and original Die Linke members being originally actual socialists from the DDR. Like basically every person in BRD sincerely believes DDR was a hellhole, so being an og DDR commie does not help you win any favours here. Plus the people of the DDR got neoliberalized and shock therapied, yet their post 1991 woes were blamed on the failures of the DDR and on “others” such as immigrants.

      Chances of a proletarian movement in Germany today? Basically zero. If there is a movement which goes anywhere anytime soon it’s fascism. If you’re even moderately anti-capitalist or pro-worker you’re on a watchlist of some sort, and that’s just the beginning of the private-public partnership of oppression.

  • @peeonyou
    link
    110 months ago

    all is going according to plan for the rich who are just putting the final touches in place before ww3 kicks off