Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

And the AfD in its whole is not a Nazi Party, but some sections like thuringia, the base of Hoecke, are verified far right extremists, according to the Verfassungsschutz.

And Hoecke becomes increasingly powerful within the party, many sources say he is already the de facto leader.

And I frequently read their news sites and forums. But I never read of criticism of Hoecke there - so this means to me, the rest of the AfD may not be propper faschists (yet) - but they accept that one of their main leaders is one. That tells me enough.

"The AfD in contrast:

- Disdain socialism

- Do not organize massive street rallies"

The original Nazis also did not do socialism, but rather elimenated their socialist wing soon after taking power. And the AfD surely would love to organize bigger rallies, than they already do. They just cannot, as in reality they do not have the majority behind them, unlike they like to think.

"or the ones who have already had a key policy invalidated as unconstitutional"

And are you talking about the covid money transfers? There was a court case and it was ruled not allright. But nothing of the sort that the Ampel is opposed to the constitution. There was also a constitutional ruling that the government is not doing enough for climate change. Constitutional rulings against the government happen all the time and it is simply the job of the Verfafssungsgericht to make sure that the government stays in line. A system that is somewhat working.

Hoecke on the other hand marched together with the NPD .. and the quotes he uses, well, I assume you understand german, so maybe read for yourself?

https://www.volksverpetzer.de/hintergrund/25-hoecke-zitate/

It is verified by now that he admires the Nazis and dreams of a new German Empire. That is very much unconstitutional, opposed to a wrong accounting trick.

Some factors involved are:

- Turkey and other "gateway" states closing their outbound borders to Europe in return for financial and political favors, thus preventing "migrants" (mostly refugees and asylum seekers, legitimate or not) from moving into Europe - Libya even went so far as to imprison migrants on spurious charges

- the lackluster handling of post-war Iraq and Afghanistan and the lukewarm involvement by Western powers in the Arab Spring creating a power vaccuum filled that allowed for the rise of ISIS and prolonged the Syrian civil war (which even saw an absurd NATO-internal confrontation between Turkey-backed ISIS-affiliated groups and US-backed Kurdish Rojava - until the US pulled out)

- brutal and at times legally dubious treatment of "migrants" by EU border countries (e.g. preventing rescue attempts at sea resulting in people drowning that could otherwise have been saved, "refugee camps" in places like Lampedusa or tent cities near the French-UK transit lines)

- countries like Germany being unwilling or very slow to allocate more resources to the actual processing of "migrants" and asylum requests or the housing and aid provided to them (contrast this with the "quick and unbureaucratic help" immediately extended to Ukranian refugees where politicians literally said the refugee housing was inadequate for them - legally, Ukranian refugees were and still are treated more like foreign EU citizens rather than as refugees when it comes to various permits and benefits)

In effect, the 2015 "migrant wave" was rather uneventful in Germany if you look at the actual numbers. It was a temporary spike followed by a statistically high plateau in 2016 caused by the bureaucratic backlog rather than a still ongoing "wave". But of course there was a trendic topic of a "migrant wave" present throughout the media and heavily utilized by the AfD as one of the only parties to run with it and use it to their advantage (whereas none of the other parties really had any interest in debunking it wholesale, thus just appearing rhetorically weak).

Prior to the sanctions that followed the invasion of Ukraine, Russia had very successfully seeded right-wing movements in Western countries and used social media, RT and Sputnik to provide a "counter-narrative" to mainstream and public news. It's telling that when the sanctions started, a lot of the COVID deniers rebranded as "peace movements" and often explicitly used Russian flags as symbols of solidarity while calling for an end to military aid to Ukraine.

Yes, the Western nations are hardly innocent when it comes to interfering in or outright invading in foreign countries, especially in the Middle East, but neither is Russia although Russian interference is historically less blatant and less open, often using plausible deniability or multiple parallel constructions (i.e. less misinfo or disinfo and more undermining the trust in any form of info altogether by pushing multiple mutually contradictory alternative explanations).

Obviously your comment is irrelevant, your parent poster didn't migrate "without paying any cost or contributing in the form of higher taxes" but indeed pays extremely high tax rates without receiving nearly any social benefits. This finances the life styles of the (mostly) retired or underemployed voters who oppose this migration.

Conflating legal economic migration with illegal immigration, asylum and/or refugee status is a foreign disinformation tactic to radicalise people against their neighbours.

Nobody ever mentions brexit, even though it had a significant bureaucratic impact. The immigration office was clearly affected by it. Now it's equally impacted by the wave of Ukrainian refugees. I see these clearly since I work with the immigration office a lot.