The far right's win in Germany is sending a chill through Europe's establishment

redeeman

"far right" (gets 44% of votes.. lets not talk about that)

cyberpunk

When no political party is willing to address the immigration issue that clearly is forefront on the minds of such AFD voters, what did you expect them to do? Vote CDU? Do we all think that another 8, 10 years of being "firewalled" out of national poltitics and being told they're all nazis (I'm sure some of them are, but nowhere near all) is going to make them less or more extreme? It's hard work making a society that caters to everyone, but the approach of ignoring and belittling a large group and ignoring their concerns entirely has a shelf life, and we aren't going to like the results. But hey, the boomers will all get their pensions and continue to vote CDU so that's all that matters.

LarryDarrell

When economic reforms are off the table, and austerity has run out of things to be austere about... yeah, anti-immigrant political parties are going to feast. Here in the US, there's a dumber revival of the Red Scare. The scare mongering isn't as effective this go round because there's no existing abundance for the people. All people want is affordable housing, jobs that let you plan for the future, and healthcare that won't bankrupt you. But there's no solution to any of those problems that don't involve some class of investors losing money/power. So we're stuck with MAGA. Incoherent ideology for incoherent times. When I look at the AfD, I see the same helpless thrashing taking hold.

x3haloed

I hate this timeline.

reeredfdfdf

I'm worried of what European defense will look like if some day France, Germany and UK are all ruled by populist parties with historical ties / understanding attitude towards to Russia & skepticism towards NATO and EU. Not good for us here in Eastern frontier of EU. Traditional parties have failed badly in economic and migration policies, and Russia does its best to exploit this. They can't win on a battlefield against united Europe, but if small Eastern European countries are left without support, then Russia has much better odds against them.

adrlkh

If they win the federal elections, this will be the biggest betrayal of voters ever. Musk will have a chat with Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs will have a chat with Weidel, then the following will happen: - The Ukraine war will continue to be supported for the benefit of Blackrock and to tie up Russia for the middle east plans of the US. - There will be a lot of noise about immigration. Some 1000 people will be deported for the headlines, but Weidel will obey the industry that uses immigration for union busting, driving down salaries and driving up rents. - Social services will be cut for everyone, including AfD voters. - Weidel will discover that she can use state TV and refrain from abolishing it. - Military spending will increase according to Hegseth's wishes. This is the biggest con in post-war German election history.

cute_boi

I don't understand why we even give the right an opportunity to speak on immigration. Is it really that hard to allow only legal immigration and stop giving incentives to illegal immigrants? I understand that there may be around 5% of people who are genuinely trying to escape dictatorships, but if 95% are just gaming the system, it's going to look very bad.

giraffe_lady

The far right's win on hacker news goes mostly without comment, however. Very uh, interesting views you guys got in here.

pbasista

I assume that these populist, extremist or dictator-willing-to-be politicians, not only in Germany but also in other European countries, in Russia, in the US, in Canada, as well as in China and elsewhere, are now all spending countless AI tokens to perfect their psychological manipulation and brainwashing techniques. So that they can secure more and more fanatic followers who will vote for them no matter what. And so that they can remain in power for as long as possible. To them, the "illegal immigration issue" is just a vehicle to gain power. Nothing more. Because, from what I can see, their only and actual goal is to get in power. No matter the cost. Then abuse it to the benefit of them and their friends. And never ever give it up ever again.

sajithdilshan

There was a lot of hope when the current German government was elected. The current chancellor did his campaign saying the leftist-green ideological politics would be over and he is going to drastically reduce the government spending and cut bureaucracy and lift up the economy. People believed him and majority voted for a center right government. However, as soon as he came to power, he broke the promise of fiscal discipline and cutting spending and the first thing he did was passed a bill to burrow more than half a trillion Euros under the votes of old parliament even changing the constitution. Also because of the firewall they have imposed to AfD, for him the only coalition partner was SPD( which is more of a left leaning party) and they formed a government and since then it has been internal conflicts to pass the important legislations to get the country back on track. All these has worked as a boost for the AfD because people realised that apart from AfD the only other main right conservative party in Germany is CDU/CSU (which is the party of the chancellor) and voting for them hasn’t resulted in the change they voted in last election and now, they don’t have any other choice than voting for AfD because voting for the same old parties expecting a different result would be the definition of insanity.

general1465

As a European, I am not worried at all. AfD promises are a complete nonsense which will make everything in Germany worse (Leaving Euro, EU) or require cooperation of other countries (Deportations) so they will either not even try or try and fail. Then after 4-5 years of barking achieve nothing and will get voted out.

mizzao

I've found this book to be particularly instructive in understanding how policies across the world ended up neglecting citizens and pushing them to the far right, from Trump to AfD and everything in between. It's made it clearer that these are common symptoms that arise from systemic problems, not one-off idiosyncrasies. After the Fall: From the End of History to the Crisis of Democracy, How Politicians Broke Our World https://shapiro.macmillan.yale.edu/publications/books/after-...