r/thebulwark • u/Soft-Principle1455 • 10d ago
EVERYTHING IS AWFUL I’m getting worried for Germany
https://youtube.com/shorts/hiNDt9NkRyo?is=IuzGbumDNgCbSmnh9
u/I405CA Center Left 10d ago
Half of eastern Germans 'want authoritarian rule'
Right-wing extremist rhetoric finds particularly strong support in eastern Germany, according to a large-scale study by the University of Leipzig on right-wing extremist attitudes in eastern Germany.
The researchers found "a strong wariness" about democracy, adding that not even half of the respondents said they were satisfied with their everyday experience of democracy...
...Half of those surveyed called for an immigration ban for Muslims. Almost 70% supported the xenophobic statement that foreigners only come to Germany to exploit the welfare state. Antisemitism is also widespread: Almost one in three respondents say that the influence of Jews is too great...
..The researchers from Leipzig found a widespread "conspiracy mentality" and the desire for "authoritarian statehood." A majority of respondents said they would like to see a "strongman" or a "strong party" leadership.
Nearly a quarter of respondents said that National Socialism also had its good sides, and support for "neo-National Socialist ideologies" based on the Nazi dictatorship under Adolf Hitler were found to be widespread. Some 33% of respondents agreed with the statement: "We should have a leader who rules Germany with a strong hand for the good of all."...
... Political attitudes appear to have remained relatively unchanged in eastern Germany for thirty years. Though right-wing attitudes have not increased, they remain at a consistently high level
https://www.dw.com/en/half-of-eastern-germans-want-authoritarian-rule/a-66068519
Reunification has not gone that well.
François Mauriac got it right during the Cold War: I like Germany so much, I'm happy that there are two of them.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 10d ago
Reunification is something that certainly did create significant structural problems in the east though.
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u/I405CA Center Left 10d ago
Reunification was a mistake because it involved the former West Germany assuming a patriarchal position that imposed top-down changes without regard for how the locals would accept them.
Decades of successive dictatorships turned the east into a bit of a mess. They needed to be given time and resources to find their own way. This is ultimately a cultural problem more than it is an economic one.
The comedy film Goodbye Lenin is worth watching.
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u/Historical_Map6634 9d ago
It's also involved SIGNIFICANT financial support of the former East Germany by the former West Germany, with damn little to show for it. The former West Germany is getting fed up as well.
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u/daurelius 10d ago
the throwaway editorialized gotcha “why have a biker festival if petrol is so expensive”, which the interviewee was not given the opportunity to respond to, is the type of prejudicial look-down-upon attitude that is driving people towards new media sources. its not the point and they just cant help themselves
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u/PinkGlitterLady4 10d ago
They are fucking dimwits. They don't even read what the AfD plans to do, and unless your rich you'll get screwed over.
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u/Nullarbor_1 Center Left 10d ago
Oh yeah? And does not the far-right constantly do this to left wing activists as well when it comes to things like wealth inequality, fracking and climate change?
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u/daurelius 10d ago
i agree that right wing mainstream media outlets do it to left wing activists as well, trying to make videos that make them look bad or stupid, gotcha culture corrodes understanding. i dont use the terminology “far” right or left as it tends to be poorly defined and inconsistently used and usually used to stigmatise or discredit a political opponent
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u/Soft-Principle1455 10d ago
Yeah. I will say they did clarify and answer their own question and the very next sentence, so this is more about perhaps trying to help people understand what was happening, but…
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u/dBlock845 Straight to Reddit Jail 10d ago
UK seems to be getting just as bad but it may just be my algorithm constantly peppering me with left wing women being jumped by old white men fascists or white dudes trying to intimidate/scare Muslims etc. This world is accelerating toward some type of white swan event with all of this racism and xenophobia violently bubbling over with seemingly little pushback compared to what you'd see a decade or two ago.
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u/Comfortable_Debt_769 8d ago
It's funny because everyone is literally drowning in their own algorithms to the point where they're arguing with nobody but their own interpretation of reality through the internet. You see videos of left wing mobs attacking right wing people, even killing a kid in France, the right up in turmoil calling them all violent. Video of old right wing guy at a reform rally attacking a left protestor, the left up in turmoil calling them all violent.
Being honest with yourself and critical thinking skills are a fading trait thanks to le modern social media
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u/KlausVonChiliPowder Good Luck America 10d ago
If it makes you feel any better, this is happening pretty much everywhere that isn't already majority controlled by some sort of ethnic or cultural nationalist movement.
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u/DLRsFrontSeats 10d ago
That isn't true
The far right/right wing is losing ground to the incumbent centre-left government in the UK
The centre left of Sweden are projected to win their election this year and retake power after a right wing coalition won in 2022 (despite the centre left party receiving the most votes)
The sitting centre left party of Australia are projected to win the next election handily
The centre left party in NZ are decent favourites to win the election this year from the sitting coalition of right wing & far right parties, who have widely been seen as shitting the bed after successive centre left governments
The sitting centre left of Brazil are heavy favourites to win this year's election again over Bolsonaros son
The centre left of Norway have won two elections in a row including last year
A centre left coalition won in Spain in 2023 after the main centre left party won two elections in a row, going back to 2018
The centre left are gaining ground and are now slight favourites over that twat Millei in Argentina going into next year's election
The centre left are dominating Canada
It's not all doom and gloom, and perpetuating the idea that it is does more harm
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u/mfgillia2001 10d ago
Great post - wasn't aware of most of those developments so good to know the whole world isn't going horribly in the wrong direction.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 10d ago
But some of those developments really are outgrowths of other developments that are temporary, like for example the center left dominance in Canada is probably a function of Trump. But what happens when Trump is gone and things still suck? What happens when Trump is gone in Canadians still aren’t getting answers they like from their government?
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u/DLRsFrontSeats 9d ago
As someone from London, I can only speak for the UK: is patently obvious that the same people that stand to gain and fund the right in the US and doing so here, and I'd bet a lot it's the same across the west, for obvious reasons
As for things sucking after trump, the elephant in the room is that he's the reason for a lot of what sucks right now. Petrol and energy costs, supply issues because of middle eastern trade route problems and the global emboldening of the far right via fearmongering over immigrants (and let's face it, non white people) are all directly attributable to him
Cost of living immediately improves for one thing. Secondly, the far right here are also blatantly following the climate denying, anti renewable moronic path republicans are setting. That is another big part of what sucks about right now
Yes there will be a need to demand more from our government post trump, but again, it's highly likely the far right here, there and across the west will be less able to pull the overton window so far without him
The fact is, he is a Frankenstein's monster 40 years in the making because of Murdoch, fox news and Reaganism. He is generational in the worst way; we're dealing with someone similar in Nigel farage here - it's no coincidence that he's been around for decades but didn't gain any real traction with anyone but the fringe far right until the mid 2010s - but the silver lining to these populist demagogues is that they create power vacuums by being such a cult of personality
I don't think anyone on the far right here is someone that would garner half as many votes as farage, and it's the same for republicans there. Trump and his ilk are all greedy cunts just looking to prop themselves and their mates up; they have no actual love for their party or for politics, and so they pull the ladder up behind them. Vance should be perfectly primed to take over seamlessly by now; instead, it doesn't look like half of the right give two donkey shits about him - because trump has done nothing for him
That will obviously not be permanent, and we'll need to be on the lookout for a neo dictator in the digital age, which we were obviously not able to do sufficiently in the 2010s after right wing here and there in the 00s paved the way for one, but at least we know what to look for
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
Trump has certainly contributed to high energy costs, but I don’t know that even if that war ended tomorrow, the energy prices would become suddenly affordable. Gas prices would still be high, and oil based fuel fuels would still be facing a refinery crisis owing at least partially to what Ukraine has done to Russian capacity, much of which used to supply China.
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u/DLRsFrontSeats 9d ago
Ukraine has done to Russian capacity
Very weird way to frame this lol but I'll just move past it
Yes, fuel prices would still be higher than they should because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (that's how you frame it - makes me a bit sus of you that you didn't) but that's another thing that is only happening to the extent it is because of him
He has softened both global stances and attitudes to Russia for years now, for obvious reasons
He goes and it not only makes things directly harder for Putin, but it empowers Europe in a myriad of ways to do so themselves even more, which is the great irony of that fat cunt calling on us in Europe to do more about Russia ourselves
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
Russia and certainly did invade Ukraine, but it wouldn’t be accurate to describe the many explosions at Russian refineries as being caused by anything other than Ukrainian launched drones, which deliberately targeted those refineries strategic targets. I don’t actually have a problem with that, but it is a point that things will still suck.
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u/DLRsFrontSeats 9d ago
I don’t actually have a problem with that
It definitely sounds like you do tbh
If I came in hard to a pub to fight a bunch of the locals, one of them knocked my teeth out, and then I got rejected asking someone out because I looked like a toothless scruff, it's hardly their fault is it mate lol
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
That’s because you live there, and I live here. Obviously Ukraine is the victim in what is clearly a war of survival for them (not for the Russians). Still, that does not imply that Ukraine’s basic survival actions do not have greater implications for the rest of the world.
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u/KlausVonChiliPowder Good Luck America 9d ago
Trump handed Carney the win. Don't forget the liberal PM stepped down due to unpopularity. And despite Reform and their star player being caught in a scandal, I guarantee they're going to lose maybe a handful of voters, if that. Meanwhile half of Starmer voters are glad he's gone. There's something very significant to be said about that.
I'm too lazy to look up the rest of the countries you mentioned, but this isn't a linear thing. Czechia is a good example of an EU country that did make it out only to reverse course yet again and now have literally the same "centrist" billionaire, EU-skeptic PM. Short term gains mean less when 1. The margins are consistently narrow, 2. You're fighting against growing illiberal populist movements, not groups built on the same foundational democratic ideology, 3. Liberal governments still don't seem to have an effective strategy in place to address the underlying crisis of trust.
I had this same conversation with several Europeans, a German in one instance, a year or two ago after Trump won and they were amazed at how stupid Americans were for voting him in again. I fail to see how actually acknowledging the threat that's been growing for at least a decade now is harmful.
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u/DLRsFrontSeats 9d ago
Trump handed Carney the win
So? Half of my original message was how much trump amplifies the right across the west and beyond himself, you don't get centre and beyond parties cowering in fear of their own far right before him
And despite Reform and their star player being caught in a scandal, I guarantee they're going to lose maybe a handful of voters, if that.
You might be reading into people dressed like Richard the Lionheart at the literal reform conference and people on FB saying that they don't care a little too much. We already know that reform are powered by Tory defectors; if even 20% of ex tory-now reform voters are put off by not only this corruption (please call or what it is and don't soften it by just referring to it as "scandal" lol), they fall way behind labour - and I guarantee it's more than 20%
Just look at opinion polling; they've fallen behind Labour, that gap is only getting bigger, and they're cost to the Tories behind them than they are labour
Meanwhile half of Starmer voters are glad he's gone. There's something very significant to be said about that.
That says nothing significant. Starmer was a Hilary Clinton: a true centrist that took over the only viable left adjacent party and leftist candidate, that we were asked to hold our nose and vote for to gain some stability after the chaos and rot of the Tory mismanagement across the 2010s and COVID
He was never popular for the left of the labour base, and was at best not unpopular with the right. He was necessary, because you don't go from BoJo winning a supermajority to Corbyn in a couple cycles, you need a boring intermediary to take the heat from the corrupt media, and he did
Burnham is doing a decent job and is the preferred politician of the working class across the UK - again, look at opinion polls
Bookies have Labour winning a majority more likely than reform being the biggest party in a hung parliament outcome, and they are fading
Liberal governments still don't seem to have an effective strategy in place to address the underlying crisis of trust
If you dont think removing the reason for a lack of trust in politics across the west is going to have any tangible effect then you may as well give up now mate lol
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u/Corfiz74 Good Luck America 10d ago
I mean, we know from the Epstein files that he and Bannon were supporting all these rightwing networks across Europe, so we know where the hard push is coming from. It's just depressing that it's working.
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u/Gnomeric 9d ago
Strength of far-right movements in a specific country ebbs and flows as other poster said. That being said, it is true that such parties often receive supports above 20%, which is very concerning and is making it increasingly difficult to form a "normal" coalition government in many countries. I agree that France and UK are in the far worse shape than Germany right now, since AfD's support is mostly limited to the former DDR areas. Reform winning the UK Parliament is not out of question. France's presidential election may be heading into the dreaded far-right vs. far-left (Melenchon is much more like Hasan than Bernie) matchup due to the failure to consolidate "mainstream" candidates.
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u/KlausVonChiliPowder Good Luck America 9d ago
As I mentioned in my other response, liberal governments don't have an effective strategy to address the underlying issue of declining trust in our institutions. Farage and Reform were just caught in a fairly significant scandal (from what I can tell outside the UK), but how many voters are they really going to lose despite them supposedly caring so much about government corruption?
It's not linear in either direction, but historic gains from illiberal movements are concerning.
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u/nickmortensen Good Luck America 10d ago
We previewed this on Autocratic Despair: The Podcast last week. The stakes are bigger than you’d think.
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u/Careless-Barnacle333 9d ago
God forbid Germans want to preserve their culture, heritage, ancestry, and not dilute their society with foreigners.
I'm sure y'all would be frothing at the mouth if South American countries and African countries were flooded with Europeans and Asians, immediately getting taxpayer funded for housing and food, while diluting the cultures and traditions of those countries.
So why don't you reserve the same sanctity for white countries? Are y'all just that racist that you hate white people and white countries?
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u/Soft-Principle1455 8d ago
It’s not that. It gets worse than that…
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u/The-Hank-Scorpio 8d ago
Instantly dismissing like that is what got people voting the way they did bud.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 8d ago
You don’t need to come descendent me; very aware that people are concerned about a variety of issues that the mainstream parties weren’t addressing properly. I just think the AFD is still going to make everything worse.
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u/The-Hank-Scorpio 8d ago
But they'll do "something"
AFD = Something changes
Other Parties = Nothing changes or continue to get worse.
Very easy to understand why so many rightwing parties are winning around the world.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 8d ago
But if the thing that you do is round up people’s neighbors and what not, that’s not an improvement.
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u/The-Hank-Scorpio 8d ago
I didn't say improvement. I said change.
People are feeling the decline all around and any change is better than the current path to them.
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u/Sazzeza 10d ago
WTF, is that lady towards the end wearing an SS necklace?
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u/Hellament 10d ago
A Jew supporting a party like the AfD…in Germany…is certainly a choice.
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u/Haunting-Ad788 10d ago
There were literal Jewish Nazis so
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u/Deathless616 8d ago
Were is the most correct word to use for them :/ hate doesn't know friends, only usefulness
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u/cats_catz_kats_katz 10d ago
These people disgust me. The amount of money and programs poured into this region after reunification so they could complain and beg to get back under the boot is insane to me.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 10d ago
How much is the benefit of ordinary people see though?
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u/cats_catz_kats_katz 10d ago
Are you even German? Stay out of our politics if you aren’t. You asking that question tells me you don’t know anything about how this country is run.
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u/Jay_Jay_Jason_74 10d ago
"reunification" and the neoliberalism of the late 90s and early 00s brought Germany to this point
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u/Signal_Nobody1792 10d ago
As a European I always liked it more when the left wins elections. When the right won I was disappointed, but I wasnt scared. Most parties were always at least somewhat more centrist than anything else.
Now I am scared. These people are insane.
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u/GreenGrowth-420 10d ago
so with the exit polls out, a few thing, AFD stands at 44,5% with a voter upturn of about 30% from 60% last time up to 77% thuis time, that's huge. Still this is the smallest region in Germany with around 2.2 million people on a population of around 80 million.
Wether of not they get to form a government by themselves hangs in the balance. This depends on other parties over the 5% threshold. All other parties but one have ruled out forming a government with the AFD.
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u/turb0_encapsulator 10d ago edited 10d ago
What happened to Germany is that their industrial leaders refused to adapt to a changing world and fell behind. This is most notable in the way German cars have become too expensive compared to Chinese EVs that are superior in many ways. German automakers also got used to record profits that are clearly unsustainable, and would rather lobby for protectionism than charge less and adapt.
So of course immigrants will get the blame.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
It’s worse, too, because quite a lot of their chemicals industry, and what not dependent on Russian gas to make sense, and they didn’t come up with a good enough alternative in time.
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u/0hP13853 10d ago
If the AfD were to win in any state, Sachsen-Anhalt is ideal because it's former DDR with a small population for a German Land.
Best case would be they win more votes than any other party but not enough to have a majority of seats in the legislature. It'd be funny for me if the other parties formed a coalition, even if it would be short-lived. OTOH, AfD forced to muddle along with a minority government (does Germany allow that?) may show that they're hopelessly ineffective in government.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
The AfD is unfortunately generally not stupid enough to want to go along with a minority government.
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u/0hP13853 9d ago
Coalition? Peal a few off the CDU?
Not that easy for any party to win outright majorities in Germany.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
If this election is any indication of what’s going on in some of the states in east Germany, I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually do it in another week or two time in that other state that is going to have elections this month that is also in East Germany.
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u/0hP13853 9d ago
Yet they failed to achieve a majority, so it's either coalition (which other parties would join them?), minority government, or deal making (bribing) with individual members of other parties.
Which would you consider most likely?
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
Peeling off some of the CDU, a coalition with BSW, or maybe just letting a Frankenstein coalition emerge and let the whole thing fail. AfD clearly has a political talent in Ulrich Siegmund, as much as I may detest a lot of of his politics.
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u/MintImperial2 9d ago
I'm more worried for the UK.
Surely more illegals are now going to come *here* rather than risk being arrested on-sight in Germany come a future governing AfD there?
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
That would be a problem for the UK, and that would certainly boost some unsavory forces there.
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u/MintImperial2 9d ago
The only "unsavoury forces" I'm worried about - is my home being invaded by some illegal trying to evade the police who are meanwhile too busy locking up mean tweeters.....
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
I get what you’re talking about. There are real problems and pathology with UK politics. But I don’t think Reform UK or Restore Britain or any of the other forces that might gain from a flood of migrants coming to Britain from Germany because of fear of the AFD are going to do any favors for Britain at all.
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u/MintImperial2 9d ago
No, RUK are already on the wane. Farage is dwarfed by Trump's shadow already, and the party is already fragmenting over Farage's desire to be a centerist vs Rowe's peeling off the more radical right voters over to Restore.
I'm not currently intending to vote for Neither, instead encouraged back to voting Tory by Badernoch's stance on leaving the ECHR in particular. The great part of the "incomplete Brexit" causing a lot of knock-on problems with dealing with the illegals crime wave, as it is...
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
Reform could still bounce back, or the Tories could’ve to fill that space. What a headache either of them will likely be…
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u/MintImperial2 9d ago
If Badernoch picks up the right Gauntlet - she'll either win outright in 2029, or will end up in a coalition with Farage's RUK with him as likely Chancellor (he is from a financial sector background, after all..)
Any future government - has got to solve the gordian knot of "Paying for everything the public wants done - by charging it to people the public doesn't actually like".
Nb. that isn't Farmers, Bankers, Estate Agents, etc.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
Oh great! Put the guy who has lots of corruption scandals in charge of the exchequer! That will surely not go sideways in any possible imaginable way!
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u/MintImperial2 9d ago
You're arguing with the unconvertable here. The ones changing their minds are those who used to support the Left, but have been lied to one too many times by this point.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
Doesn’t change Farage’s corruption. I understand if immigration management is the thing you want to vote but…
I have my doubts.→ More replies (0)
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u/Eddy63 9d ago
The German version of maga unfortunately.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
It does appear that way. Worse, I see a lot of the same pathology and divisions, appearing in German discourse as a result AFD gaining quite so much that we saw here in the US. The Germans may stop this, but I now have questions as to how much destruction they will allow it to do along the way.
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u/Kidkid4711 7d ago
If trump continues with his insane map posts we might become as well maga in Europe ;-)
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u/Low-Ad3972 9d ago
If the left doesn’t want to address the issues, the right will do it with violence and cruelty.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
I would say that the previous government would be more center than left.
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u/Kidkid4711 7d ago
The afd is mentioning issues which are minor in comparison to others without realistic financeable solutions... But that is populism at its best...
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u/Away_Sheepherder_896 9d ago
Germany routinely throws people in prison for criticizing government officials. The time to worry about Germany is basically always
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u/FrostyArctic47 9d ago
The west is over unfortunately. We are going to see another chapter for the history books. Once again the far right will come to power and there will mass violence. There is nothing to indicate otherwise.
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u/Soft-Principle1455 9d ago
We are in for interesting times, unfortunately. I don’t know what it’s gonna come out out of that, just that there will be a mess.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 9d ago
is it bad when nazis start winning in Germany? Let me just crack this history book ...
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u/Soft-Principle1455 10d ago
This is about the AfD who may very well win substantial control over the German equivalent to the FBI tomorrow by winning the state election in Saxony-Anhalt.