- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Elon Musk made a surprise appearance during Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) election campaign event in Halle in eastern Germany on Saturday, speaking publicly in support of the far-right party for the second time in as many weeks.
"It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything,” Musk said.
Note that Musk’s citizenship include South Africa, Canada (from 1989) and United States (from 2002)
In all seriousness, how great of a threat is the AfD within Germany?
A very big one. They are polling above 20% currently, and instead of countering them, the established parties are trying to fish for votes by copying their talking points. As one AfD politician already publically stated, they don’t need to hold any office in order to shape policy.
The “conservative” CDU is already openly considering cooperating with them, after the election, they certainly will enter a coalition with them if that’s the path to office.
The whole state of affairs in Germany is horrifyingly reminiscent of the situation in the late stages of the Weimar Republic.
Given the choice between far-right and far-left, parties like the CDU will always go with the fascists
The thing is that there isn’t even any noteworthy far left party left in the German political spectrum. Everything has shifted so far towards the right in the rat race of competing with the Nazis for Nazi voters, that even the self proclaimed “Left” party (“die Linke”, not the SPD, those haven’t been remotely left since Schröder’s chancellorship) is at best mildly social democrat these days.
Off I’ve gone reading and now I’ve started to understand… 😖
Enough of a threat that 200 lawyers recently published an open letter calling for a ban, another 17 constitutional lawyers seeing a strong case for a ban etc.
The last try banning an extremist right wing party (then NPD) failed due to the constitutional court seeing no chance that party could implement their policies. Nobody thinks that would be the case with the AfD.
Also, the candidate for chancellor of the largest party, Friedrich Merz (CDU) just stated they’d work with the AfD on some laws (immigration and refugee issues namely).
Basically, shit’s hitting the fan right now.
Also the other right wing populists in the European Parliament kicked them out because the don’t like to be associated with Nazis like the afd. That should tell you everything
Although that might be a move to appear less extremist to their own voters.
Even the Joker refused to work with the Red Skull once he discovered his political affiliations
Why should this prevent a ban?
It makes no sense at all and this ruling of our supreme court enabled the Nazis to get where they are today.
First they where too small to be banned. Now they are too big to be banned because politicians fear their voters. All the while they get subsidized from our taxes and get ample time on TV and in the press because they are a legal party and they are not banned. It’s crazy yet here we are.
The AfD is not too big to be banned, some politicians are just cowards or secretly sympathetic to the AfD.
I’m talking legal requirements for a party ban, not why members of parliament don’t want to start the process.
Because it’s not necessary to ban a party that is irrelevant and has no chance to get to any kind of legislative power. The few times the NPD won a seat in a regional parliament, they were ridiculed and no one considered working together with them.
And that’s exactly the Problem with the AfD. Other parties, especially the so-called “conservatives” of the CDU, are more than happy to cooperate with the Nazi scum if that gets them what they want.
Because banning a party is a delicate thing. It is a dangerous tool, the last possible defence against extremist parties. Therefore it must not be used lightly, and the realistic chance to actually gain legislative power to implement extremist policies is a requirement for a party ban.
Currently it’s the biggest threat to our democracy.
😖
Around 20% of the votes for the general election next month will be cast for the AfD
What would be the impact? In German politics, is that particularly bad?
For one: Them getting more than 20% is scary and shows we have a big problem in our country. Also them being the second-largest party in Germany is insane to me. But by itself that is not enough to get into the government, it still needs some other party to work with them.
Unfortunately the rhetoric of the CDU, which is the “just conservative” party is in my eyes pretty similar to the Afd at the moment and they are currently polling at around 30%. CDU decided on a ban working together with the Afd at all some years ago, but it never seemed more likely they would just drop that and then a potential coalition of CDU + Afd would have around 50% of the vote. Certainly enough to form a government. I’m still somewhat positive they would not actually decide to do that, but you know, by now I also would not be surprised anymore😔
As a last resort I’m banking on our “supreme court” (Bundesverfassungsgericht ) to strike down the worst things, since it still seems to be intact, unlike in the US. But courts are slow and you can do a lot of damage even with stuff that is not clearly unconstitutional…
Damn. I appreciate this insight. I’ve been doing some reading and I can see how and why Germans are worried. 😖
They have some form of proportional representation so at least some of these Nazis are getting into their government
No. They are not getting into government unless the conservatives (CDU) build a coalition government together with these Nazis. They are getting into parliament.
Is parliament not part of government?
No:
The parliament includes all parliamentary groups that were elected by the people and garnered 5% or more of the vote or have won 3 or more direct mandates.
The government consists of only the governing coalition parliamentary groups + chancellor + ministers; the chancellor is elected by parliament but need not be a member of parliament; the ministers are selected by the chancellor and likewise need not be members of parliament
In a stable majority government, the opposition parliamentary groups don’t have much say over new laws. However, they can come up with own bills (which usually fail due to the majority belonging to other groups), query the government/administration, or install enquiry committees.
However, right now, Germany has a minority government which means all new laws need some support of opposition parliamentary groups.
I guess what you mean is that the Afd has influence in parliament. And they definitely do: They hold speeches, they obstruct the government with worthless and repetitive queries, they draft (eventually-failing) bills, etc. However, to a large degree, their power also comes from being invited to political talk shows by public broadcasters and spreading their message on the interwebs.
Yeah that is what I meant, I would consider that “in the government” but I guess other countries might have a stricter definition of “government” than I realized. Thanks for the info!