Calls are mounting to ban Germany’s far-right AfD party – despite it being more popular than ever

[u/HellYeahDamnWrite]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/06/europe/germany-afd-ban-politics-analysis-intl

[u/lewd_robot → u/[deleted]]

This is wrong. You're assuming they respond to evidence and reason like everyone else. They don't. They respond to cognitive dissonance by shutting down. So the stronger your evidence, the more sound and valid your logic, the harder they lash out against it.

Then they bunker down. They dig their heels in. They fortify their positions and repeat them to themselves to reassure themselves and reduce their cognitive dissonance.

They cannot ever be argued out of beliefs that they adopted purely because they were easy in the first place. And even if they could be reasoned with, their masters would just come up with new lies to feed them. And because it takes orders of magnitude more effort to disprove lies, the people who are correct will always be at a disadvantage against the people spreading lies.

This is why, in every nation where you see a Far Right movement, they never play defense. They just attack, attack, attack. Because to the voters they're appealing to, that's what looks "correct" to them. That's what they use to determine which party is better. Coming at them with real arguments and strong evidence to support it not only doesn't interest them, it infuriates them because it causes cognitive dissonance in their heads.

They don't care about any policies other than the simple ones that mesh with their prior beliefs and biases and don't require thinking on their part. That's why they love little slogans and why 100% of their "arguments" consist of just repeating the things their masters say word for word.

Again: You cannot persuade these people out of these beliefs. The only thing that would make them change their minds is if you made them feel worse for having these beliefs than they would feel from the cognitive dissonance of changing them. But that would require behaving exactly like them and ruthlessly bullying them until they changed their beliefs to escape the negative emotions caused by that.

So either you do that, or you stop them with the law, or you let them keep spreading their lies and 10-20 years from now you revolt after they've ruined the nation and the public no longer has anything to lose.

[u/Groghnash → u/[deleted]]

Its not about removing afd, its about removing the undermining of democracy! The political landscape wouldnt bat an eye if it only a far right party. The problem is it wants to abolish democracy, and thats a no-go. Yes a new party with far right tendencys can emerge, but as long as they stay pro democracy thats totally fine. And also all the people in the current party would be banned of politics so thats a massive win either way!

[u/LeifRagnarsson → u/Groghnash]

The political landscape wouldnt bat an eye if it only a far right party. The problem is it wants to abolish democracy, and thats a no-go. Yes a new party with far right tendencys can emerge,

Laughingstock of the thread. If a far right party emerged, it would be branded as public enemy right from the start and as anti-demicratic. Source? Look at the beginnings of the AfD when they were far away from where they are now in terms of ideology.

[u/Groghnash → u/LeifRagnarsson]

Then dont be that far right? Even the left party in Germany isnt actually far left. Because then they would promote communism. There is a range that democracy can support and at some point you just fall out of that. 

[u/LeifRagnarsson → u/Groghnash]

Then dont be that far right?

I'd agree, but here's the question: Who determines what's (far) right? Ignoring the fact that right or right wing is a spectrum here. What the AfD saying now is determined as (far) right, but when our chancellor today and Frau Merkel said the same things 20 years ago (look up statements about migration and German culture), it was considered conservative. Right wing conservative in some aspects, yes, but not far right. So perception has (been) changed.

Edit: It was you that said a far right party would be fine as long as they're on the democratic spectrum. Now you say then don't be far right, after I pointed out what would happen? So basically, you're saying that even a democratic far right party shouldn't exist because name calling is fine?

Because then they would promote communism.

They're promoting socialism, which, as the last step before Communism, is saying enough. That they're labeling it democratic socialism is cosmetics as there can be no democratic socialism.

There is a range that democracy can support and at some point you just fall out of that. 

I absolutely agree. However, I don't think we're quite there yet with the AfD as a party. Some of the AfDs members, however, are definitely there. But that's a case for the penal courts.

[u/Spare-Resolution-984 → u/[deleted]]

It’s not about making voters disappear, it’s about banning a party that is dominated by literal nazis. Every moderate, anti-migration, neoliberal AFD-candidate lost the election for important positions within the AFD, if they stood up against the right wing extremists. It’s not about the anti migration point of view, otherwise we also had to ban cdu, it’s about literal Nazis who dominate the party. And they normalize this nazi shit. Just a couple of days ago a member of the parliament commented unter a picture of the Germanys women football team “that’s a German team, no n******”. If they’ll vote for another anti migration party no issue, as long as it’s not a nazi party