Europe under extreme duress

[sevenhelmet]

I didn’t read Flash’s post as identifying every AFD voter as a neo-nazi. That being said, there are a sizable amount of folks in both AFD leadership and their supporters that lean pretty hard into neo-nazi terminology and positions.

This is just a small sampling of quotes from people high up in the AFD power structure: https://www.dw.com/en/afd-leaders-and-their-most-offensive-remarks/g-37651099

I have a friend (a former chief of staff for a CDU representative) who switched from working for the CDU to the AFD and then back again. His reasons for originally switching were some of the legitimate concerns you articulated. He came back, because in his words, “the AFD is completely insane.”

I think it’s pretty telling that Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has labeled the AFD as a right-wing extremist organization. This party and its rise to power is something that should spark legitimate concern.

Grievance-based politics is a poor platform, whether it's from the left or the right.

 

[Spekkio]

The neo-Nazi part? Both the National Front and AfD have long histories of having those folks as members or associating with them and still have pretty strong strains of antisemitic, racist and virulent anti-foreigner sentiment. While their current anti-immigrant and economic rhetoric is gaining them wider support their histories are far more extreme than any major recent political movement or party here. And with the exception of fringe figures that rhetoric and those links are nowhere near as common here in the US, thankfully.

Most prominent French and German politicians have family members who were Nazis.

It's like, not an avoidable thing.

 

[Flash]

I find it hard to believe 2 million people in that part of east Germany are running around shaving their heads and wear skin tight knee high boots. It’s okay to oppose mass immigration and poor economic policies in Germany. Calling them neo-nazis creates even more resentment. Similar to how moderate Americans were alienated by liberals by the elitist rhetoric during the 2016 election. Both the republican and democratic parties have always had some crazies in their parties, too. Tone it down a bit.

I didn’t read Flash’s post as identifying every AFD voter as a neo-nazi. That being said, there are a sizable amount of folks in both AFD leadership and their supporters that lean pretty hard into neo-nazi terminology and positions.

Exactly what cfam said, many of the voters of Saxony-Anhalt (~576k) who voted for them are certainly not Nazis but unfortunately much of their leadership either has very similar ideologies and/or associates with folks that do, often on the sly. It isn’t too hard to find, even though they don’t dress up like them nowadays since they are usually too smart for that.

While their current anti-immigrant and economic rhetoric is gaining them wider support their histories are far more extreme than any major recent political movement or party here.

There is a very distinct difference between those two parties and our domestic politics, I’ve never described the Republican Party as ‘neo-Nazi’ and like I said before there are only a handful of fringe figures like that here, so far.

It isn’t inflammatory or accusatory when it’s real, and not that hard to look up.

Most prominent French and German politicians have family members who were Nazis.

It's like, not an avoidable thing.

Yeah, that’s not what I’m talking about at all. The current leader of the National Front effectively inherited the leadership of the party from her father, who was never a Nazi but a post-war officer in the French Army. That don’t mean he wasn’t a fan of Nazi ideology, a racist and an anti-Semite who couldn’t stop referencing ovens when talking about Jews. The daughter has just been a bit better at PR and watching what she says on public, usually.



Give me a break, it isn’t guilt by association but a long history of that kind of activity that continues today for both parties. Like the pic above, it isn’t a ‘gotcha’ pic but one the National Front they highlighted in official campaign literature days before Russia invaded Ukraine.

 

[Spekkio]

The point is that the version of Nazism where the German government forces 11 million perceived political opponents into labor camps is not going to come back.

"OMG they're associated with Nazis!" Welcome to the reality of western European politics.

 

[cfam]

The point is that the version of Nazism where the German government forces 11 million perceived political opponents into labor camps is not going to come back.

"OMG they're associated with Nazis!" Welcome to the reality of western European politics.

My dude, that’s a lazy take and you know it. No one is saying that the next step is concentration camps. Highlighting extremist assholes and the fact that they could assume power is a valid concern. But hey, I guess watching an ally trend further towards Russia and potentially be run by folks who at a minimum have pronounced neo-Nazi undertones isn’t something you care about.

 

[Spekkio]

My dude, that’s a lazy take and you know it. No one is saying that the next step is concentration camps. Highlighting extremist assholes and the fact that they could assume power is a valid concern. But hey, I guess watching an ally trend further towards Russia and potentially be run by folks who at a minimum have pronounced neo-Nazi undertones isn’t something you care about.

A Nazi in modern lexicon is someone who espouses using racially motivated violence to establish a totalitarian system of government. No one uses it to refer to people who want universal healthcare, ban interest on student loans, or to force corporations to pool their profits and redistribute them to workers... all tenants of the actual Nazi platform that survive in politics today (as, ironically, part of the more 'progressive' wing of US Democrats). And yes, the Nazis were also anti-immigration... or more accurately, they believed that citizenship rights must be tied exclusively to being ethnically German and Christian. I haven't heard anyone running on that platform, and there's a large chasm between 'only ethnic Germans have human rights' and a desire to tighten borders and deport illegal migrants. Then there's the conquer Eastern Europe by force facet of the platform which, again, no one is espousing.

The fact that people throw around the word "Nazi" anytime they encounter a political policy they don't like is, in fact, lazy. It's especially ironic to describe a politician as a 'neo-Nazi' for attempting diplomatic relations with Russia, considering that a core tenant of Nazism is the complete extermination of the Russian people. If someone isn't speaking about establishing a totalitarian government in order to expand Germany into eastern Europe while militantly fighting against 'Jewish Bolshevism' aka concentration camps, you don't have a neo-Nazi. That's the part of the platform that the modern world almost universally agrees is morally reprehensible.

The other part of the AfD platform that is 180 out from actual Nazism is deregulation and increased privatization of industry, which is controversial in European media because it means Germany distancing itself from the EU and 'going rogue.'

AfD gets called 'far right' in European media, but their policy platform is equivalent to a generic moderate US Republican.

Germany and Russia are near neighbors, so they both have a vested interest in making sure that there is some semblance of a peaceful relationship between them. Might as well get your panties in a bunch that we do business with the Mexican government even though the country is overriden by TCOs.