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.
> 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 immigrants.
What's the AfD's solution for affordable housing? Deport immigrants to free up apartments. What's their solution for creating jobs? Deport immigrants.
This is a party that wants to deport all German citizens who don't have a sufficient quantum of German blood. There's no need to pretend the party is anything other than what it is: a fascist party.
Right, I agree. But what makes people vote for this kind of stuff? It's not like 44% of saxon-anhalt just wakes up overnight and decides "Hey, you know what...". I think it must grow over years of their feelings/opinions being ignored.
My only point was that, perhaps, we should think about these causes and why the core political parties can't solve them; otherwise it's only going to get worse -- hell at this rate they'll actually get enough people onboard to achieve their goals within a few cycles.
The fall of East Germany, which led to mass unemployment in the East (including Saxony-Anhalt).
The Thatcher-Reagan-style reforms that the Social Democrats and Greens pushed through in the early 2000s, which reduced the social safety net and created new types of less-secure temporary work. In particular, these reforms ended the Social Democrats as a mass party in Germany.
The 2008 financial crisis, which weighed heavily on Europe for years.
The rise in inflation, caused by Covid and wars in Ukraine and Iran.
As in the 1930s, right-wing parties blame everything on immigrants, foreigners and minorities, even though they're not responsible for any of the above.
There has been a big problem with migrants in the syrian civil war, most of which are gone again.
Without immigrants the ageing German population has no chance to keep their social safety net and as we see in the US, even when the social safety net is significantly reduced, the immigrant scarecrow will still have the desired effect for the populists because the immigrants are not the problem, they make, however a phenomenal scapegoat and will always appeal to the general populace. In consequence, focussing solely on immigration won't solve the fundamental problems and certainly won't help when the first waves of hungry climate refugees march north.
The consequences are border tightening and rearming and repopulating the military and marching confidently in the completely wrong direction. Dialog is dead and so is diplomacy.
Re-establish communication, not twitter. Collaborate on a wide front, analyse the data, compile potential solutions, discuss them, etablish them. Talk to Russia, talk to Ukraine, Defang NATO or abolish it. Talk to Iran. Stop the US propagating pseudo diplomacy via Kushner and send real diplomats. Look to invest in R&D for recycling techniques, carbon sequestering, substitutes for plastics, redirect military funding to massively expand renewable energy. Close all European borders the next time the US starts a war. There is so much to do.
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).
That's a trick question though, and it cunningly pre-supposes / takes-for-granted there IS an "immigration problem", and implicitly that "the immigration problem is the root cause of other problems" (as opposed to, "there are real problems, and some people would like you to think they're because of immigration").
"Voters perceive problems. As is common in a democracy, voters elect people who propose solutions. Why is no other political party proposing solutions voters see as worth voting for?"
If you don't think the problems are real, make the case to the voters.
As far as I can tell, other political parties have no better answer than name-calling. Am I missing some politician/party that is actually making a real argument?
This kind of non-answer is exactly what leads to far-right parties getting more followers.
Tax paying citizens who want their concerns addressed absolutely LOVE hearing that "Ackchyually, your problem doesn't exist and is all in your head".
P.S. - I have no skin in the game regarding EU immigration policies, just making an honest observation about engaging with people who might have opposing views.
I approached it as a discussion on Hacker News, and I think my implicit assumption (which can be challenged!) is that taking a structured, logical approach benefits us all. When I saw what I perceive as a logical fallacy or assumption that takes us on an unproductive path, intended or not, I called it out.
In other venues, different approach may be more applicable.
To your other point, in case it wasn't clear:
* I absolutely do not think there's no problem, or that it's in anybody's head. I think there are a LOT of problems!
* At the same time, I strongly think that not-nice, dishonest people are working very very hard, very very consistently, to create an image that somehow immigrants are the root causes of these problems.
This has happened myriad times in history, and may sadly be repeating itself. The only answer I ever have for this is, to your point, a non-answer: it's education and information. I think most people propagating immigration as root of all evil are fairly aware that mathematically, socially, statistically, philosophically, logically, this is not supported. It's just intentional fallacy after intentional fallacy, starting with the "Lump of Labor Fallacy". It's clear on its face that if I had 100 people with 100 jobs yesterday, bringing 10 more people won't just magically take jobs without also creating/generating jobs! So I'm happy to discuss immigration problems at any length - but again, I think it's an intentional distraction. To your point, there ARE real problems, of housing and equality and prices and job market, and bad people are trying to make us think they're caused by immigrants, whether for personal profit or because they themselves are part of the actual root cause :-/
I find your response insulting, and as the other poster called you out, this is exactly why people are flocking to Afd.. that the “elite” dont take their problems seriously.
Im in Denmark and we have tried throwing money and ressources at the issue for 50 years, integration effort after integration effort, and for us the issue isnt money or jobs, we are a rich country with very little unemployment, the issue is gangs, violence, rape, where immigrants are far ahead of anyone..
What immigration problem? Immigrants are wonderful. Things have only improved in Germany with immigration. It is wrong and unethical to keep immigrants out of your country, you have no right to do so.
The US has one immigration system for honest law-following people (Visas, green cards, etc.) and a second system for people who don't follow rules (walk in from Mexico, overstay a Visa, etc.)
> the immigration issue that clearly is forefront on the minds of such AFD voters,
Let's be real: this "issue" is a strawman. It doesn't really exist, especially in that part of Germany. Just like pretty much everywhere else, the German anti-immigrant far right is strongest in the areas with the fewest immigrants.
This is not to say that the wave of immigration that is now more than 10 years past didn't have its challenges, and they were downplayed by some.
But at its core, the immigration scare is just the classic playbook of offering simple but wrong explanations to distract from the class warfare that's being waged by the wealthy.
Ideally, we'd turn down the temperature and have patient conversations, but the media environment was made very counterproductive over the last few decades.
> Let's be real: this "issue" is a strawman. It doesn't really exist, especially in that part of Germany. Just like pretty much everywhere else, the German anti-immigrant far right is strongest in the areas with the fewest immigrants
According to this organization which sits on the complete on opposite spectrum of the right/far-right, they write that 2.7M people immigrants moved to Germany in 2022 with a net inflow of 1.5M in a single year.
According to the same organization, today, immigrants make-up at least 20% of the German population and that's from an article from 2024 so that number is probably low. So if we extrapolate roughly 1 in 4 people living in Germany are not German.
That is exactly why the AFD is rising, people just bury their heads in the sand and pretend that there is no problem at all.
But I guess its easier to think that 44% of the inhabitants of Saxony-Anhalt are secretly Nazies than admitting that something must change. Lets continue doing that, its been working so well so far!
It also doesn't explain the regional correlations. If immigrants are objectively a problem, why is anti-immigration sentiment highest in regions with the least immigration?
20% of people in Germany were born abroad. A good share of them have naturalized and are now German citizens. The top countries of origin are Poland, Turkey and Ukraine.
Very few of them go to Saxony-Anhalt. Less than 10% of the population of the state is foreign-born. As GP said, anti-immigrant sentiment is strongest where there are the fewest immigrants.
> But I guess its easier to think that 44% of the inhabitants of Saxony-Anhalt are secretly Nazies
People have a hard time imagining that any person ever voted for the Nazis. 37% of Germans did. It's entirely possible for large parts of the population to vote for fascist parties. It has happened in history before.
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.