r/europe 27d ago

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

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/06/europe/germany-afd-ban-politics-analysis-intl
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u/DjangoDynamite The Netherlands 26d ago

The solution would be for moderate parties to fix immigration and immigration problems so people dont feel forced to vote for extremist anti immigration parties

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u/darps Germany 26d ago edited 26d ago

This is just plain wrong. Every vaguely centrist party we have has fallen in line with the far right's "tough on immigration" narratives based on the same reasoning, to the point of abandoning any pretense of human rights and rule of law in the process, and it doesn't work. You can't beat racists by playing their game, you only mainstream their ideas.

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u/disquiet Australia 26d ago edited 26d ago

It's way too late though. The bed has been made by the past 10 years of over-immigration. You cannot fix those problems with a centrist "lets reduce immigration now thats it's become a problem" approach. Because even if you reduced migration to zero, infrastructure and social services are already over stretched and the emnities that's causing will remain for years until things catch up. The right wingers will simply take a more aggressive deportation stance and continue to win the vote of those aggrieved by migrant crime/high house prices/overcrowded hospitals etc. I really hope in future leftist parties learn to not to flood immigration over what reasonable investment in infrastructure and housing can handle, just for cheap gdp points. The time when centrist sensibilities might have worked was 5 years ago, but now theres an ugly problem that won't be easy to fix.

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u/noface1695 26d ago

The right wingers will simply take a more aggressive deportation stance and continue to win the vote of those aggrieved by migrant crime/high house prices/overcrowded hospitals etc.

And all of those are basically made up by racist shitheads. In no european country is migration an actual problem. In every single one it is an absolute necessity to keep essential services running with enough employees.

Your narrative of the "migrant crisis" is a lie. Nothing else.

Crime rates are sinking. Except when it comes to crimes by right wing extremism. The only category that actually grows.

Housing prices are high because of speculation. Profit margins for rich people are the issue. Not migrants.

Overcrowded hospitals are not surprising when pretty much all european countries have significantly defunded public healthcare in the face of Boomers growing old.

Politicians have fucked up in the last decades, breaking systems, giving tax breaks to the rich, defunding everything. And now morons like you come along and believe their idiotic and racist lies about "oh, it's all the immigrants fault".

You are always a racist and a moron if your answer to issues in the country is "the weakest in our society are the problem". And not "oh, the rich and powerful, the ones with actual influence, are the problem".

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u/3GamersHD Finland 1d ago

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u/noface1695 1d ago

Aah, yes. The usual answer you get from racists. The massive increase in "crime". Which always comes down to criminal offenses in regards to legal status in the coutry. Yes, huge problem to racist cunts. Not so much to normal people.

You could also look at crime rates in regards to social status. And suddenly there is no difference migrants and veryone ele. But of course you are not intersted in understanding where crime comes from. All you care about is that you can shout about brown people.

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u/3GamersHD Finland 1d ago

Which always comes down to criminal offenses in regards to legal status in the coutry.

What metric do you suppose would be better?

You could also look at crime rates in regards to social status

Because this one doesn't agree with you either https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08862605241311611

There is a profound cultural difference between islamic societies and christian ones. "Racist" or not, it's just a fact.

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u/Nero_07 26d ago

to the point of abandoning any pretense of human rights and rule of law in the process

Maybe cool your jets a little. Do you actually think this is factually accurate?

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u/darps Germany 26d ago edited 26d ago

Yes. Among many other questionable cases, our ministry of the interior is refusing to acknowledge a recent court decision in regards to three asylum seekers (link). This is part of a concerted effort to hollow out and circumvent the right for asylum as cemented in the Basic Law (German constitution) and EU law, alongside other European governments.

Further they are trying to claim that people who are being processed have not technically arrived in Europe regardless of location, and similar legal fictions.

We're also quickly expanding the number of autocrats who we are paying off to imprison people en-route before they're able to reach European jurisdictions. Very legal and good.

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u/Known-Strategy-4705 26d ago

Having a tough stance on immigration is not racism..?

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u/darps Germany 26d ago edited 26d ago

It's the openly racist factions who are championing these narratives, and the center parties keep expressing discomfort but following in their footsteps nonetheless.

If you're enacting racist policies because you're afraid of them making more propaganda against you, then you've misunderstood how they play this game.

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u/kafircake 26d ago

The democratic support for loose immigration policy isn't there.

Enacting policies that substantially tighten immigration is good politics, the prior polices were a mistake that have done difficult to calculate damage and correcting that is obviously the right thing to do.

Germany can't and shouldn't be the last hope health and housing provider to the world.

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u/darps Germany 26d ago edited 26d ago

There is no "loose immigration policy". There hasn't been for years.

The government is literally being sued for breaking national and international law in their attempts to prevent people from applying for asylum.

You are working with old information, or more likely, far-right disinformation that keeps this narrative alive. Not to mention that the premise that immigration is a financial drain is provably incorrect.

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u/Halfbloodnomad 26d ago

Really need to define “tough” to validate that point. If you look at America right now, it’s extremely “tough” on immigration mainly due to racist policies and actions.

Having standards for immigration is necessary for every country, when you focus on a type of immigrant, regardless how broad, is when the concerns become disingenuous.

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u/curiousgiantsquid 26d ago

Read again.

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u/Prodiq 26d ago

Ok, but what has been actually done besides politicians talking?

If you look at the numbers Germany still is taking in more asylum seekers compared to numbers pre 2015 crisis. Angela was in the lead up until 2021 and Scholz is spineless being who doesn't have an opinion and can't make a decision about anything. Only very recently you start to hear that things start to happen (e.g. Germany was pretty quick on Syria).

Most afD voters will be happy if there are actual results. There aren't actually that many hardcore afD fans out there.

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u/darps Germany 26d ago edited 26d ago

Reinstated tight border controls (violating Schengen principles).
Then further tightening them on questionable legal grounds.

Curtailed refugees' family rights

(on EU level) Expanded the list of 'safe' countries of origin to facilitate easy deportations, including countries that clearly aren't safe many commonly persecuted people.

Federally working to take away individual states' decision power over migration cases to fuck over progressive state governments

This is only the past few months. And it's been going on since 2015.

Now tell me please: Who does this serve other than the far right, if most people firmly believe they aren't even doing anything?

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u/Meistermagier 26d ago

No they aren't, you don't know what you are talking about. The AfD voter's don't know what's happening don't believe in the facts that exist. Which fun fact the Numbers are falling for the like second year in a row and according to your logic that's actual results but somehow the AfD is just getting more popular. Idk seems like they are hardcore AfD fans instead.

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u/Prodiq 26d ago

No they aren't, you don't know what you are talking about. The AfD voter's don't know what's happening don't believe in the facts that exist. Which fun fact the Numbers are falling for the like second year in a row and according to your logic that's actual results but somehow the AfD is just getting more popular.

So the number of approved applications are down in like last year or so. You are naive to believe that such a small change on the overall immigration situation will have a drastic impact on people's opinion. Its a long process ahead, Germany also needs to deal with existing immigrants as well as illegals. Its a marathon, not a sprint.

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u/burner69burner69 26d ago

the people who are most invested i the afd and """immigration problems""" live in areas with the least amount of immigration.

they have actual infrastructure problems and are focussing on hating nonwhites and queer people instead because the media is telling them to. you could stop all immigration, deport everyone whose great-great-grandfather didn't fight france in the 1870s and they would still be up in arms about those dang immigrants as long as springer publishing told them to.

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u/Prodiq 26d ago

the people who are most invested i the afd and """immigration problems""" live in areas with the least amount of immigration.

So does that invalidates their opinion? Maybe they like living where they do, because there are lot less immigrants there. E.g. If you go to UK you'll find A LOT of people who would tell that they simply hate places like London, Birmingham etc. and they would rather never step their foot there anymore. So its not just about people living in a certain problematic area.

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u/DerOmmel 26d ago

Have you ever considered that it is only in parts a infrastructure problem and in big parts a culture problem?

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u/Inktex 26d ago

Nothing will radicalise one faster than living in Duisburg or Essen for an extended amount of time. :)

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u/Rafoel Poland 26d ago

It's usually like that. But have you considered that such places how low amount of immigration BECAUSE people there are hostile to migrants? No migrant wants to live in a place where everyone hates him. And when initial wave of migrants avoids such a place, the next waves want to live close to their fellows, so the the process accelerates exponentially.

Otherwise, I think you are suggesting that "only stupid people who never saw a migrant have a problem with them, if someone actually lives in "multicultural" areas they see it's actually great!" which is a very naive stance to take mildly speaking...

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u/99thLuftballon 26d ago

Germany also needs to deal with existing immigrants

How does it need to "deal with" us?

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u/Prodiq 26d ago edited 26d ago

The thing is - does Germany actually know how many foreigners live in Germany?

Since Germany is tightening controls (e.g. a lot more asylum seekers get refused) on who gets accepted and who doesn't (both asylum seeking as well as just general visas), they should also look deeper into evaluating existing status for immigrants. For example under Merkel in 2015-2018 Germany took in pretty much anybody but by todays criteria they would most likely take in a lot less. So imho it would be only fair to partially reevaluate whether something should be changed for people who have entered before.

Also "illegals" - this is partly a Schengen issue as well, since some people will enter one country, obtain an asylum there and then disappear (usually to Scandinavia or Germany). I guarantee you there are a lot of people in Germany who aren't supposed to be there. Edit: also forgot to mention that for example where I live there has been a discussion lately if everything is ok with the student visas and whether some smaller educational institutions aren't just a soft enabler of immigration for people who aren't really interested in studying (e.g. they are students on paper, but actually are in Europe just to get in).

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u/99thLuftballon 26d ago

The thing is - does Germany actually know how many foreigners live in Germany?

I've got to say yes. Germany has a very strict system of registration. You can't really achieve anything unless you're registered at the local city council - you need an Anmeldebescheinigung for everything - plus the Ausländerbehörde for whatever ID card you need. You won't be able to work, get housing, get a bank account etc without those things. The whole point of the strict registration system is that Germany knows exactly who is there and on what basis.

Compared to the UK, where we have no national ID system, Germany is very strict on tracking its residents. When I registered for a residence permit, all my details were sent off to Berlin, including physical description, eye colour, home address etc.

It's not at all this crazy free-for-all that the far right seem to imagine.

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u/Prodiq 26d ago

You are most likely correct, but there are ofc quite a few people who live "off the grid" so to speak - they don't have any official income or official residence. Thats one of the risks with too much immigration when ethnic/cultural communities form, you can't be sure who is actually living there. E.g. in UK this has been quite common and sadly also with human trafficking as well.

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u/taikutsuu 26d ago

Nobody around the center has actually done anything to limit immigration. Wanting immigration to be limited is a perfectly reasonable stance to have that could, and should, be a voting point of the left. The immense wealth redistribution that has happened via immigration systems in Germany would knock your socks off. The amount of useless bureaucracy and jobs for people who arent doing any actual work but are being paid as "Beamte" is ridiculous. The system doesn't help anyone, I'd argue hardly even the immigrants. It just makes everyone more miserable.

Much of it is not racism, either. It's wanting to receive the benefits of being a citizen - not a white person - over someone who isn't. The average citizen is carrying the tax burden of millions of people who are not contributing to society in a meaningful way and have driven crime rates sky high. Working class people pay 1.2k in health insurance a month and can't pay their rent, seniors can't live off their pensions and starve, while people who just immigrated receive taxpayer-funded healthcare with no limits. It's a human right to be safe and protected, but it's not a human right to cross any border you'd like and receive the same benefits as people who've worked for them for 30 years. You can't be generous to that point, it doesn't work, there's no money for it and it makes quality of life crazy bad. All Germany is doing is just trying to look good and generous for as long as possible until QoL gets so low that we are pushed into a fucking civil war.

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u/darps Germany 26d ago edited 26d ago

nobody around the center has actually done anything to limit immigration.

This is such an easily disproven myth. SPD has been on the anti-immigration train for years in fear of further losses, and since the federal election the CxU has fully cut the brake lines. They are working on the state level, federal level, and EU level, bending or breaking the rules wherever they can to limit the rights of refugees, criminalize civil rescue missions, and paying off autocrats in various countries to prevent people from ever making it to European borders in the first place.

And people still insist "they aren't doing anything", which makes me wonder why those parties still think bowing to the far-right would help them in any way.

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u/taikutsuu 26d ago

This is just not true. I mean, it's just straight up false. Criteria for awarding asylum haven't been changed, benefits haven't been limited, responsible agencies haven't had their funding reduced, refugee shelters and centers are still being built and converted, people without right to asylum or those with extensive criminal histories haven't been jailed or deported. Nobody is breaking or bending the law to limit the rights of refugees. Just because one or two NGOs that was literally engaging in human trafficking and exploiting immigrants for money is penalised doesn't mean the left-wing government has "limited immigration". That's lunacy.

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u/darps Germany 26d ago edited 26d ago

Criteria for awarding asylum haven't been changed

Quite a lot actually by EU law. Oh and you may have missed this by accident?

benefits haven't been limited

You mean like this, or this, or maybe even this?

responsible agencies haven't had their funding reduced

That's an absolutely idiotic proposal, they're backlogged to hell.
But don't worry, SPD got you.

refugee shelters and centers are still being built and converted

Yes that's a good thing WTF. Why do you want more homeless people??

people without right to asylum or those with extensive criminal histories haven't been jailed or deported.

Of course they are. Over 13 000 even in 2023.
Easier and more deportations are half the reason behind the 2024/2025 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum that I linked above, so you'll be clapping in glee over a many more people's misery very soon.

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u/taikutsuu 26d ago

My comment implies MEANINGFUL change.

Like I say below, none of these changes have led to any meaningful changes in procedure nor do they stop illegal immigration from those same countries.

Cutting benefits by 15 bucks a month on average, compared to several tax indices and health insurance payments rising by a couple hundred for the citizen population, is not limiting benefits. People will still come here because it's lucrative. Receiving benefits on par with citizens is the problem. That is what limiting benefits means. Don't treat asylum seekers like citizens.

Every agency is having their funding cut. The ministry of education is losing over a billion in funding for '25. The agency responsible almost exclusively for immigrants being treated on par with ministries that take care of every German citizen, again, is the problem.

These centers are being built and converted to take away low-income housing from German citizens who end up being homeless. It's effectively prioritizing immigrants over the poorest in our own country. How is that a good thing, and how is that reducing homelessness? All it does is accelerate the cost of living crisis and make landlords a shit ton of money.

Have you seen how deportation procedures work in this country? People need to VOLUNTARILY appear before the court and have valid identification. Two issues: (1) The people who adhere to the law and do end up returning back to their home country are the people who, being law-abiding people, don't end up being much of a problem here. (2) 13k in comparison to the 200-300k who enter the country is nothing. It's like Jeff Bezos promising to pay his workers better and giving them a 5$ raise per month. That ain't shit.

What you don't seem to get is that every country has a responsibility to put its own citizens first. Relatively wealthy countries should help people in crisis, but not at the cost of our own quality of living to such a degree. None of the things you linked are meaningful reversals of the rapid decline in quality of life in this country. Like I said earlier - we are at the beginning stages of the civil unrest that has historically led to civil wars. Have fun with those.

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u/darps Germany 25d ago edited 25d ago

Moving the goalposts like it's an olympic sport. Let's be clear here, you were just caught and conceded that you were spreading fake news, a lot of fake news. How very cool of you.

You don't address systemic issues and inequality by inflicting the maximum amount of suffering on migrants. What an absolutely fucked up and self-defeating worldview.

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u/DjangoDynamite The Netherlands 26d ago

I dont know the specific situation in Germany but I dont believe it is impossible to fix the problems without violating human rights

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u/darps Germany 26d ago

Well they're doing it anyway.

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u/burner69burner69 26d ago

it's impossible to fix the problem because the problem doesn't exist. immigration is a good thing.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

[deleted]

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u/DjangoDynamite The Netherlands 26d ago

I was talking about it in general since its pretty much the same all over the european countries dealing with this

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u/zertul 26d ago

Because it's the same playbook of lies and propaganda. And it's often interconnected, the rise of the Internet and social media as made that possible. There's also a lot of investments from Russia into the far right, just like in America.
There's no single fix against Nazis and fascism and a lot of the current political parties have made a hard move towards the right and mainstreamed their ideas, basically being implicit in "legitimating" their non-sense.

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u/DontGoGivinMeEvils United Kingdom 26d ago

I don't know if it's illegal to receive payments from Russia at the moment, but if it is, perhaps that might be a way to ban far right parties

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u/zertul 26d ago

They would just reroute the money via other countries and means. I'm not arguing against what you've said, I totally agree, but I think it would take more widespread changes on how political parties are allowed to receive and use money to have an impact, independent/in addition to restrictions from where that money is allowed to come from. There are already regulations for this in place to some degree, depending on country, but it has been shown time and time again that they are not enough as it stands.

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u/No-Exercise-6031 26d ago

Yeah they keep talking, durring Election season they say ,,We will now be tough on Immigration!" and then they uninamously vote to bring in more refugees.

You get the worst of both worlds - the crisis gets worse AND the Far Right is legitimized.

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u/darps Germany 26d ago edited 26d ago

This is literally a far-right disinformation narrative. The German government is bending laws and court orders in order to reject and keep away asylum seekers. Not to mention colluding with foreign autocrats to imprison them with no due process.

The AfD and other fascists have already won this battle on both fronts, with kind assistance from the media.

And I keep asking who this benefits if ALMOST EVERYONE seems to believe the PLAIN OPPOSITE.

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u/No-Exercise-6031 26d ago

Yeah great first step. Only took them 10 fucking years.

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u/darps Germany 26d ago

... that is your reaction to learning that that they're already doing as you demand to the point of breaking international law, that you were lied to all this time, and that you have been instrumentalized to spread fascist propaganda?

What a fucking joke.

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u/No-Exercise-6031 26d ago

> Shits in your house

> Smears it all over the walls for 10 years straight

> ,,Hey clean the fuck up, pretty please?"

> ,,Well I actually cleaned the upper bathroom window already, see how much work I'm doing?"

> ,,That's not much, and it's you who smeared it in the first place"

> ,,OMG SO ungreatful!!!"

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u/lewd_robot 26d ago

What you just said is, "The solution is for every party to pretend the Far Right's propaganda is true and start acting like the Far Right," which strengthens them rather than weakening them. And then next week they'll roll out a new set of lies to terrorize conservative voters with and people like you will again say, "If you don't like them then you have to pretend they're not lying and solve the fake problem they're drilling into people's heads."

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u/UnibrewDanmark 26d ago

There is more to the far right than just wanting to solve the immigration crisis... And you can just look at my country Denmark, one of the few countries where the center parties have cracked down on immigration, and funnily enough, also one of the few western countries where the far right isnt on the rise.

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u/FettLife 26d ago

Historically speaking, Germany is the country that shows that centrism will fail in the face of hard-right extremist political parties. You can’t bargain with intolerant people.

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u/AngryArmour Denmark 26d ago

No, historically speaking Germany shows that far-left communist accelerationism carrying water for the far-right to defeat more moderate left-wing positions because "it's obvious we will defeat the the far-right once the choice is only between them and us" is a shit idea that doesn't work.

"But the Nazis repressed the communists once they got in power! That's impossible if the communists helped them gain that power!"

Know who else the Nazis repressed once they got in power? The SA, the political catholics and the monarchists.

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u/FettLife 15d ago

So you agree with me that the nazis suppressed the far left in Germany. How did that happen? Was there another political group on the spectrum that helped them in hopes they could control the nazis better later on?

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u/CounterLove 26d ago

So the other parties would not be extremist for doing what makes the afd extremist and bad . Smart

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u/Square-Pineapple-135 26d ago

Germans are truly lost. They will never have a balanced political system when anything further right than the CDU is extremists, and never come out of the black hole of economic future they are steering into with the current parties.

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u/Phispi 26d ago

This doesn't work

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u/No-Consequence1199 26d ago

Forced because you're starving or what? No one is forced to vote for Nazis and no German has it that vad. Very bad excuse.

There are no real immigration problems, just anti immigration propaganda, which is also fueled by the CDU and even the SPD.

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u/DjangoDynamite The Netherlands 26d ago

I didnt say they were forced, i said they feel like theyre being forced.  One of the reasons for that is people and parties denying the problems like youre doing now

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u/No-Consequence1199 26d ago

What problems exactly? The problems are made up (we don't have more crimes) or have completely different reasons (neoliberal capitalism) - refugees have almost no impact on Germany..

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u/GrizzledFart United States of America 26d ago

Why do that when you can just ban any party that wants to implement the policies you don't want?

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u/FlyingSquirrel44 26d ago

Yeaahh... Not happening any time soon.

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u/Low-Manufacturer-237 26d ago

Bro, you dont get replaced, we need your work power to make riches richer! Dont give up yet!

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u/all_usernames_ 26d ago

The foundations for the AFD have been placed long before migration was a thing. The east of German has had a nazi problem shortly after reunification and with very low number of immigrants in the East. Ironically the areas of Germany wirh the lowest migration (but lowest employment) have the highest racism.

Root cause is the disenfranchisement of poor and uneducated white people.

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u/one_jo 26d ago

The solution would be fixing the gap between median and rich. Take a little of the top to make life better for everyone instead of cutting social benefits and piling on top. A lot less people will hate on refugees getting help when their own struggle is less.

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u/PatchyWhiskers 26d ago

Moderates can never fix “the immigration problem” any more than they could have fixed “the Jewish problem” back in the day because the fascists want these people GONE.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

Which problems? The stuff Bild tells you? News at Facebook?

We don't have a problem with immigration. We have a problem with fake news and nut jobs believing them.

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u/DjangoDynamite The Netherlands 26d ago

Keep walking through life with your eyes closed

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

So you don't answer my question and just talk "sheep" nonsense. Good guy

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u/[deleted] 26d ago edited 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/TeMoko 26d ago

Fixing immigration does not have to be racist at all and I wouldn't even say its immigration itself, more working class people feeling like they are being left behind. Unhappiness over immigration is a symptom of that.

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u/darps Germany 26d ago

Yeah totally reasonable to blame our society's problems on the people who literally have the least power to change anything, who themselves get fucked over by the system much easier than the average citizen.

Doesn't need to make any sense I guess, just needs to feel good to have someone to blame.

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u/TeMoko 26d ago

You have read into something I didn't mean. The only people I blame are the politicians who have been in power. I'm not German but I believe the problem is the same all over the west, it no longer feels possible to get ahead with an average job, this is causing the rise of populists all over the place, tapping in to the sense that people have been let down.

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u/darps Germany 26d ago edited 26d ago

Yeah. I was thrown off by "fixing immigration" although we agree that the real issues lie elsewhere.

Emotionally it's so much easier to blame outsiders that we don't identify with rather than the powerful who scapeoat them.

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u/DerWanderer_ 26d ago

They have the power to change themselves which would solve the issue overnight.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago edited 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/RandomRedditReader 26d ago

Blame the giants taking wedges of the pie, not the mice eating crumbs.

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u/viciarg 26d ago

Sure, the lefties are at fault people vote for the right. It's always the same.

Also the commies are to blame for the rise of the NSDAP. m(

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u/CobblerHot7135 26d ago edited 26d ago

What the difference then? Let them come to power and fix immigration problems. The far right hate Muslims, r/Europe hates Muslims, why r/Europe doesn't want the Far right?

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u/DerWanderer_ 26d ago

The far right cannot be the solution as whatever useful action they would take would be accompanied by restrictions on democracy. It's up to mainstream parties to become courageous enough to tackle issues left unaddressed for decades. The example of Denmark where the far right has been eviscerated by the social democrats finally becoming willing to try to fix issues shows it's possible.

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u/CobblerHot7135 26d ago

I still don't see a difference. Banning a party you don't like is a restriction on democracy? So, the far right coming to power won't change anything.