Germans under 25 gave the AfD 16% of their vote in the European elections, with particular support in the east
Paul Friedrich, 16, could not wait to cast his first ballot and had no doubt which German party had earned his support in the watershed European elections.
“Correct, I voted AfD,” he said proudly in the bustle of the commuter railway station in Brandenburg an der Havel, an hour from central Berlin.
The far-right Alternative für Deutschland made particularly stunning gains on Sunday among young voters. For the first time in a national poll, 16- and 17-year-olds could cast their ballots – a reform that had been strongly backed by left-leaning parties.
After overwhelmingly supporting the Greens five years ago, Germans under 25 gave the AfD 16% of their vote – an 11-point rise – helping place the party second behind the opposition CDU-CSU conservatives and well ahead of the Social Democrats of the chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
The AfD tapped deep wells of support in the former communist east, winning in every state including Brandenburg, where it claimed 27.5% of the vote.
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And his concerns echo those of many teenagers and twentysomethings in town: fears of war spreading in Europe, inflation, economic decline, “unchecked” immigration and, above all, violent crime, which they say is rampant when they use public transport or hang out in public spaces at night.
Crime is a result of desperation and lack of economic opportunities.
Chronic addictions are a result of untreated/untreatable trauma.
Homelessness arises from poverty and precarious economic conditions, and can trigger both of the prior two.
And yet, these people are voting for the parties that would seek to implement and perpetuate poverty, precariousness, trauma and economic inequality.
…the fuq?
What’s really important is this: Crime is not on the rise in Germany. The fear is entirely manufactured. The fear is real and explains the results but the fear itself is manufactured.
This is common strategy to the right – they try to convince everyone that there’s violent criminals everywhere that no one’s taking care of.
The only rampant crime in Brandenburg is the food
So, are you suggesting people just keep voting the way they do, and nothing changes? I mean, we’re dealing with the same shit in California. The Left literally does not want to do shit about the homeless crisis. The Right wants forced intervention… and of course, we can’t have that, so we’re going in circles. Nothing is getting done with Democrats in power, they literally believe the homeless issue is okay.
Forced intervention has a near-100% failure rate. All it does is waste taxpayer’s money while making the wealthy (the owners of these “rehabilitation sites”) even wealthier.
It is quite literally another implementation of “trickle-up economics”, explicitly designed to make the rich richer by punishing the poor for their poverty and parasitizing off the incomes of hard-working working-class Americans.
And since forced intervention is no different than forced incarceration without any sort of a trial, I would argue that it is materially worse than doing nothing at all.
Hmm. What is the difference between forced intervention and whatever Portugal did when it decriminalized hard drugs?
Portugal treats it as a mental illness health issue, and provides counselling. Only large non-personal amounts are treated as distribution, and therefore, criminal.
Only mental heath professionals can assign intervention, and typically only in cases where the user is a viable threat to themselves or others (imminent danger of harm through violence). This means that the vast majority of users are not coerced at all - they enter into counselling willingly, and with an intent to come clean.
The reason why things have backslid in the last little while has been due to funding cuts, and nothing else. Which is the same as any public service – funding determines effectiveness.
I see. Thank you!
The AfD has openly stated that the worse for Germany, the better for them. This is standard fascism. Make things worse while blaming it on a minority as a scapegoat. Then implement something against that minority and the general population conveniently making your crownies richer, then blame this minority or another one for things getting even worse.
Fascists need the doublethink of being the superior while at a constant threat of annihilation by an inferior enemy.
They’re right and the centrists are doing absolutely nothing to make things better.
Liberals are the ones making the slide towards fascism possible and then use it as an excuse to force people to vote for them instead of leftists.
I agree that the California liberal establishment is not tackling the serious issues we have here, particularly with housing, but what kind of “forced intervention” are you hoping for from Republicans?
Force those that are homeless, who clearly have mental issues, to live in an adult care facility where they can :
A) Get treatment for drugs/alcohol
B) Get treatment for mental issues.
Have them go through a process to get better, if it doesn’t help, they don’t leave.
This is what needs to be done in order to get most of these people off the streets. But, it’s considered “cruel” and “unusual” by Democrats, so, nothing gets done. We’ll never break the homeless issue problem in California with Democrats/Liberals in leadership, that’s a fact.
Are you suggesting that republicans want to spend taxpayer money on mental treatment of homeless people? Are you really that fucking dense??
Senate Bill 43 was pass last year that allowed for increasing the criteria for involuntary detention including the reasons you mentioned. Instead of adult care facilities, they expnded and made conservatorship eaiser. Some counties have delayed its implementation because of cost issues.
Indefinite detention is unconstitutional, expensive, and doesn’t make sense for treatment. Most people just need occasional detention to get their meds right and not constant supervision.
I’m glad to hear you say that. Intend to see the Republican view be more generally carceral. I think your ideas are fine, and in fact there’s a lot of basically that happening around the state. Ever since the pandemic, California has been converting hotels (along with some new construction) to ‘transitional’ housing. Part of this program is working with counselors and DHHS to help people with some of their underlying needs. I think this is pretty good, but needs a lot more funding, especially for the supportive services.
Unfortunately, homelessness is a huge and growing issue both inside and outside of California. There are a lot of systemic issues that contribute to the cycle of addiction and childhood trauma which I believe are at the heart of most of it. Add in poor job prospects and high cost of living (especially housing), and we have a ton of work to do to reverse this trend.