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

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

#51

Post by 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.

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

#52

Post by balarjin »

cute_boi wrote: post #35

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.

> Is it really that hard to allow only legal immigration and stop giving incentives to illegal immigrants?

Illegal immigrants are a source of cheap labor. Business interests tell politicians that without a pool of cheap workers, costs will go up, voters will feel inflation, and the politicians will get the blame.

The overall cost is not low. Some illegal immigrants get benefits. Some illegal immigrants commit crimes. Almost all illegal immigrants will use the healthcare system eventually. But those costs are not seen by the businesses that push illegal immigration.

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

#53

Post by rdm_blackhole »

pbasista wrote: post #42

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…

> to them, the "illegal immigration issue" is just a vehicle to gain power. Nothing more.

If what you said made any sense whatsoever, then the parties currently in charge would have stopped it along time ago. Because if according to you that makes the far-right parties grow stronger, then why would anyone in their right mind not do anything about it?

Why wait for these parties to use this issue to fuel their growth?

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

#54

Post by constantius »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #9
cyberpunk wrote: post #3

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 tha…

> being told they're all nazis (I'm sure some of them are, but nowhere near all) Many of their senior leaders are Nazis. The head of the party in the state of Thuringia used to write pro-Hitler articles under a pseudonym. > ignoring and belittling a large group and ignoring their concerns entirely The AfD doesn't address their problems either. It tells them that all of their problems are because of foreigners and imm…

You're talking about the party. You're not saying anything wrong, but parent was talking about the voters.

It is true that the issues of people who vote far-right are ridiculed, and they themselves are demonised, which the parent holds, and I agree, is unproductive.

Far-right voters are largely the losers of globalisation/economic growth trying whatever they can to improve their situation: the phenomenon of many of these voters alternating between far-right and far-left from one election to the other is one of many indicators of what their real goal is, ie improving their situation.

Re migration: it does have negative effects on the economically marginalised, which the readership of HN and the talking heads in mainstream media are largely not. Among these are increasing housing costs, downward pressure on salaries, rapid and alienating shifts in cultural (and I mean cultural, not racial) makeup of cities and neighbourhoods: none of this should be controversial.

The establishment parties (so right and "left" like SPD, Labour, PS) have financial incentives to increase migration, which they do (see the Boris wave in the UK).

While migration is not an inherent evil at all, the way it's done by these parties does lead to negative effects, which adds one reason among many to vote for the far-right. So the short-term solution (curbing migration) is the simple and popular answer. The long-term solution (curbing capitalism) is harder and unpopular, so radical left parties unfortunately get fewer votes (except in France, where there's a real chance of the LFI showing a better path).

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

#55

Post by sajithdilshan »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #4
redeeman wrote: post #2

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

The Nazi party got 37% of votes nationwide (not just in one state). Getting a lot of votes does not mean a party is not far-right. Germans of all people know that.

This is exactly the arrogant narrative that pushes more people to vote for AfD. It’s the people’s right to vote for any party they want and that’s part of the democratic process.

Labelling or bullying people because they have exercised their right and calling them Nazis is not gonna make them change their mind at all.

After all who are you or anyone else to say that what other person has voted is right or wrong. You can have your opinion, but you cannot judge them

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

#56

Post by ksec »

Daishiman wrote: post #28
ksec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really news. Media has been calling anyone which does not align with their views as far right for more than a decade.

Is the AfD a party in favor of liberal democracy? Enlighten us about where you'd palce their ideas in the political spectrum.

I wasn't specifically speaking of Afd, but overall general direction of the term used by media. How many people who are moderate and haven't changed their views on things moved from moderate to being labeled as far right.

Anyway this topic shouldn't even be on HN. The story will likely be flagged soon.

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

#57

Post by cyberpunk »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #51

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 di…

The OECD calculates Germany's 2025 tax wedge at 49.3%. That's the second highest behind belgium.

So we get to work for the state about half the time (including VAT etc), and on-top of it thanks to the Merz masterstroke we're getting an additional 800bn debt between now-2030.

Meanwhile, everything seems to be getting worse.

We need significant reductions in spending, and I don't think anyone has any clue how to achieve it before the house of cards falls down completely.

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

#58

Post by cute_boi »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #43
cute_boi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberal party is sacrificing everything just to create a vote bank. They know immigrants will always vote them as Right don't like immigrants.

Irony is that the after naturalisation, the immigrant actually votes for the Right parities. That happened in US as well as in Germany

Depends on who is going to give freebies. These politicians are making people poor and giving freebies to win elections ...

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

#59

Post by sajithdilshan »

cyberpunk wrote: post #57
sajithdilshan wrote: post #51

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 di…

The OECD calculates Germany's 2025 tax wedge at 49.3%. That's the second highest behind belgium. So we get to work for the state about half the time (including VAT etc), and on-top of it thanks to the Merz masterstroke we're getting an additional 800bn debt between now-2030. Meanwhile, everything seems to be getting worse. We need significant reductions in spending, and I don't think anyone has any clue how to achiev…

Soon the Germany would be stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to fiscal responsibility. They cannot depreciate the currency because Euro is controlled by Brussels and to pay the interest on debt, they would have to borrow even more and the vicious cycle would continue till they are back in Weimar Republic 2.0

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

#60

Post by mdp2021 »

ksec wrote: post #56
Daishiman wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the AfD a party in favor of liberal democracy? Enlighten us about where you'd palce their ideas in the political spectrum.

I wasn't specifically speaking of Afd, but overall general direction of the term used by media. How many people who are moderate and haven't changed their views on things moved from moderate to being labeled as far right. Anyway this topic shouldn't even be on HN. The story will likely be flagged soon.

> Anyway this topic shouldn't even be on HN

Oh, it should. Where should we discuss it? Because we really should discuss it.

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