Ribbit
As an aside, since it’s an area where I see a lot of misconceptions, AFAIK, algorithms aren’t purposefully trying to promote alt right views. But rather alt right views are usually outrage driven and outrage drives consumption, which is what the algorithms are trying to maximize.
Though I completely agree that all the social media, search, AI, etc companies need to do far more to combat disinformation. Most of them seem to try to be “neutral” and assume good faith, but those are things that the alt right playbook actively tries to exploit. There’s a very famous quote by Jean-Paul Sartre:
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
I think a lot of tech companies (except Twitter – that’s gone full Nazi) are full of people trying to maximize profits by attempting to be as centrist as possible, trying not to piss off either “side”. But they either don’t understand how fascism spreads or don’t care, so their actions are resulting in spreading harm.
Social media misinformation is far from being the largest cause. There are so many people living in villages and islands that aren’t educated, and fully believe the far right’s fairy tales about how they’re going to fix the system and restore things to how they used to be.
I agree about social media though, I think that the EU needs to give Meta, Google and Twitter an ultimatum: Fix your algorithms in order not to create echo chambers of misinformation otherwise you’re gone from every EU country.
“Far-right” candidate and party which… checks notes… supports free speech, democracy, and rule of law. The article appears to throw around the term as a pejorative but it doesn’t even appear to be accurate.
Alternative for Germany are performing alarmingly well in Eastern Germany. They’re already the second-largest party in several Landtags including Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia. They’re also overtaking the incumbent party in opinion polls and are pretty much poised to be the ruling party across multiple German states.
Thankfully, I don’t see AfD leading the country, but Merkel opening the floodgates to mass migration has spooked a lot of people into right-wing voting.
We should be more worried about France swinging to the far-right. Le Pen has a very good chance of winning the next election in 2027, especially with how badly Macron and Renaissance have tanked their reputations.
…but Merkel opening the floodgates to mass migration
Please don’t replicate right-wing talking points. She didn’t open any gates - she just decided (contrary to all countries around us) to not suddenly shut our open borders when millions fled war and were seeking for refuge.
She basically did, what she always excelled at: sitting it out and doing nothing, then selling it as her political success. Active change was her constant enemy.
I don’t have a deep knowledge of German politics but I do know that a major shift towards AfD is very alarming, especially when the main focus around NATO, the EEC and post-war European politics has been to prevent another Fascist uprising.
This isn’t me disagreeing with Merkel’s decision to take in refugees, but it was unwise from a national/European security perspective to not close the borders and properly vet arrivals. But I do think the swing towards AfD especially in East Germany has coincided with this crisis.
The concerns should have been raised long before it even reached this point, but I guess even in Germany the willingness to preserve the memory of the atrocities they committed as a nation is beginning to wane.
And it didn’t even take 100 years, though when you look at who they’re playing against (the even bigger imperialists and colonisers who have never even pretended to be sorry), it’s almost impressive.
But only almost.The concerns were raised but ignored by the media and in politics. It doesn’t stop people from voting for right-wing parties if you just insult them as right-wing and never do anything about their concerns. At some point they just accept that mark and act accordingly.
So let me just clarify before I jump to the wrong conclusion, in case there’s some language barrier going on here or something, though I’m pretty confident I understand you perfectly well:
You’re saying it’s the concerns of the Nazis that should have been listened to, and think that because they weren’t, a Nazi got elected? As, what, “payback”?
What? No, what I mean is that it was known how people were increasingly aligning their opinions to the right for probably more than a decade now. Especially in exactly those areas which now voted for AFD. But instead of doing anything about it then, it was washed aside with: “Eh well it’s all Nazis there anyway! What a bunch of idiots!” and that was it.
Again and again there was the occasional article where all people agreed upon how bad those people are and for a while perhaps being called right-wing or Nazi had some weight in persuading people they should seriously question their opinions. But without any further action, I wonder what people were thinking how this would prevent those people from voting a party like AFD further down the line?!
Now some of them are already at a point where they will just proudly agree that they are right-wing or conservatives. What a surprise.
Depending on how it works out with the AFD in that town, I am sure people in similar places are watching closely. This can escalate quickly. I believe, when this doesn’t turn out as a complete desaster for the town, a kind of domino effect will happen and more people will feel comfortable voting for the AFD. I mean, they are already branded as right-wing Nazis, why not vote accordingly? When a 60 yo village dweller finds he agrees with some of the points the AFD makes and that makes him right-wing, perhaps being right-wing is a good thing? That’s how people work and we need to step in at that point and not wait for a miracle of them suddenly making a mental U-turn.
Ok, I’m really glad I asked now, thank you for the clarification, and apologies for the misunderstanding!
And yes, I agree that raising concerns is far from enough, my previous comment was more in reference to the headline, not really an answer to the problem. That answer would be zero tolerance, which is what Germany likes to say they have, but obviously the reality is very different, and it’s really quite scary that even in a place that has supposed zero tolerance laws, the kind of hate theses people survive on still manages to win elections.
Hitler said it himself - the only way to stop him would have been if people saw his party for what it really was and destroyed it then and there, but he, and we, know the power of propaganda, and those with no shame or aversion to lying will always win the propaganda war because they can say whatever the hell they want and need to. Then if you actually fight back, they frame you as the aggressor and win a little more. The system really is designed to perpetuate itself and maintain the power in the hands of a few.
Scary times.
There is no concern: 1 - I bet it’s only in east germany 2 - It’s mostly just 60 y/os who vote them
There is no concern
The guy was elected!
And that’s how they win. They make everyone else think there’s no concern.
“It’s only group X”. And then later “it’s only groups X and Y”, there’s still no concern. And then “it’s only groups X, Y and Z, we can still outvote them…”
This is the fault of the existing left-wing parties that allowed unlimited migration to Germany in 2015.
If the politics don’t change and stop pushing a neoliberal agenda, it won’t stop. Inequalities are rising in Europe, what makes the far right “against the system” semantic looking nice. It’s up to the traditional parties to change and stop the last 40 years of politics to stop this rise.
What do you mean by “neoliberal”? I feel like most of our political parties (here in Canada) are way more conservative than most people I know.
The canadian conservative party is largely neoliberal. Neoliberalism is generally in favor of lower regulations, lower taxes and more private sector presence.
As a Canadian as well, I find our parties to be extremely Left leaning, even the Conservative party isn’t very Right leaning.
That might be workable in the long run, but let’s face it. AfD took advantage of racism and likely the ignorance in former Soviet region.
It’s not like policy can change the mind of mad, emotional and uneducated creatures.
The thing is, the AFD, apart from being Nazis, are also neoliberal. Only an idiot (who also likes Nazis) will vote for them over disliking neoliberalism.
People don’t dislike neoliberalism, they dislike the effects it has on society. But they fail to connect the dots.
I agree. Major parties are increasingly at odds with voter sentiment, then everyone pretends to be surprised when voters turn to smaller parties. Migration is a massive issue in Europe following the 2015 Refugee Crisis. Very little has been done to solve the resulting major social issues. Instead, many parties are doubling down on policies which have been a complete failure.
Denmark is a really interesting case study. Their large leftwing party started losing votes on the migration issue, so they stole policies from the right and implemented them in a softer, more moderate manner. They proceeded to dominate polls for years. I don’t understand why leftwing parties across Europe don’t replicate that. Surely it is preferable to be in the driver’s seat to shape how migration is controlled, rather than being relegated to being a spectator for the next decade.
Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk. Democracy will prevail and Europeans will ultimately decide the fate of their nations.
From everything I’ve heard about Denmark’s immigration policies, I can only describe them as inhumane racist scums. They don’t even treat the immigrants as people.
Well that’s not true at all. Denmark arguably offers the best refugee benefits and support programs in the entire world. They’re extremely expensive, hence the desire to keep refugee numbers at a sustainable rate, and minimise people who abuse the system. It’s very common in Europe for people from poor countries to burn their passports before entering Europe, travel all the way up to Denmark, passing many safe countries, then claim asylum while pretending to be from a country at war. It’s very difficult to expel these migrants because it’s hard to determine where they’re from. Even if we do, often their home countries won’t take them back.
It’s a global issue though. Capitalism is demanding cheap labor fodder, and sooner or later societies will crack. See how in the whole western world, which has a comparatively high living standard, fascism Is on the rise?
Yeah the problem is that the world is kind of running out of dictatorships and underdeveloped countries that “first world countries” can exploit without a second thought - so the reality of having to adapt to a far less glamorous life will have to settle in sooner or later for a lot of those richer countries as there is a huge divide between their lifestyle and moral values.
So the easiest solution for a lot of them is to put moral values aside and be egoistic and imho that’s what leading to a lot of the shitty stuff that we see happening today all over the world.
The only way to keep living while exploiting people halfway across the world is telling yourself that those people are “worth less” and there you have the necessary first step for racism/fascism/populism to latch onto
I thought this was a portrait of Adolf Hitler with a pride flag background at first glance 😂
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One other problem is how history is taught.
At one point, fascism was taught as “evil people marching with evil symbols, to do evil things, for the sake of evil”. Essentially the nazis were reduced to Saturday morning cartoon villains, erasing the memories of how they manipulated the minds of the common people.
This gives an opportunity for modern nazis. And since most people don’t know what kind of manipulation tactics they use, they can still use the same ones in new costume (see “great replacement”, the “groomer” panic, etc.).
At one point, fascism was taught as “evil people marching with evil symbols, to do evil things, for the sake of evil”. Essentially the nazis were reduced to Saturday morning cartoon villains, erasing the memories of how they manipulated the minds of the common people.
That really wasn’t my experience when I went to school in Germany. Nazi Germany was a major topic for many years and across different subjects and included a visit to a former concentration camp. At some point it got a little tiring but it was definitely not simplified in any way.
This is absolutely not how it is taught in Germany. If anything, our education concerning the WW2 era is what is making germany lag so far behind the other EU states when it comes to far right votes.
We are taught at length the underlying issues that were plaguing germany after WW1; social, economical, political, and how all of them contributed together to the rise of the third reich.
That’s why Germans are also very very wary when we spot developments in our country (or other countries, for that matter) that mirror the conditions in that time.
I don’t think there is concern. In the age of uncertainty, massive inequality, cultural clash between immigrants and locals, people either turn far left or far right. But the far left are always clinging on the legacy of Marx and forgot how to adapt their ideology to modern world that only far right are evolving. Or they are trying idolise Mao/ Lenin which is not very saint as well.
The only thing to stop them popping out is built a better society that is with positive growth, good wealth distribution, high employment rate, good equality, which is not going to happen in the current political climate. Blaming people who vote for them is really not a good take as if people are willingly destroy their own country. Storm is brewing and once again the rich will take their money and leave to hide in nice tropical islands while ordinary people are punching each other in the face for a slice of bread.
But the far left are always clinging on the legacy of Marx and forgot how to adapt their ideology to modern world that only far right are evolving. Or they are trying idolise Mao/ Lenin which is not very saint as well.
Not that much in my experience, they rather cling to, I think, unrealistically high expectations on the human nature or culture, especially about the ability of people to work, share wealth and respect things purely based on philosophy without needing constrains such as requiring a job to live, police and hierarchy.
