An eastern German region was voting Sunday in an election that could bring to power the first far-right state government in the nation’s post-World War II history.
The vote for the state legislature in Saxony-Anhalt, a region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin, has gained outsized prominence because it represents the best chance yet of a governor’s post for the far-right, anti-migration Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
That would be the biggest prize in the party’s 13-year history, at a time of widespread discontent with an unpopular national government that has yet to persuade voters it can get the country’s sluggish economy moving. It would be at least a symbolic blow to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose center-right party has led Saxony-Anhalt for 24 years.
Our politics left a lot of people without representation. Then they voted like this.
Then they were ridiculed by parties in power. Then even more voted like this.
Then they were insulted by parties in power. Then even more people voted like this.
This is how we got here instead dealing with the root issues of decades of leaving people and problems behind, this happened. So that’s what we get.
It never was about that Afd could fix anything. It always was about leaving behind, making fun of and making it harder for average and low income people without representation.
Still the powers in place do not understand although there is clear research. (eg https://www.zdfheute.de/politik/deutschland/arbeiter-waehlerschaft-spd-vertrauen-afd-wahlergebnisse-100.html)
And the ‘best’ thing? Everytime Friedrich Merz opens his mouth the Afd profits off it.
That’s a lot of words to justify voting for a party whose chairwoman is literal nazi time praising, grand daughter of nazi finance minister.
“Nobody represented us so now we will vote in nazi” is not as coherent as you might think.
Die linke was literally compaigning for social programs for those “low income people without representation” and afd still got almost 20% in BW state election with their usual racist bullshit.
Its about time germany realizes that it never got rid of its racism problem after nazism and “lets gather all jews and send them to middle east with weapons” wasn’t the right solution.
I’m not voting for them.
I’m literally Cassandra telling you the truth as to why it happens.
Oh, the CDU did try to “fix the problem”. They just didn’t realize that “the problem” isn’t immigrants or refugees or unemployed people. Sadly, the SPD didn’t do any better, and the Greens went with their usual Realpolitik to keep the government from collapsing as long as possible (thanks FDP). And then there was the massive amount of propaganda pushed by far-right sensationalist media.
Feeling like mainstream parties don’t represent you does not make it ok to vote for a nazi party. This whole protest vote theory has not only been disproven, it also serves as an easy excuse for those voting for AfD.
The simple truth is that people want easy answers and the AfD is providing them, same as what happened in the US with Trump. It doesn’t matter that it makes no sense what they’re saying or that it has been proven time and time again that they are completely incompetent. It’s textbook populism. They convince people that immigrants are the problem, because they’re easily convincable.
I believe the only way to get around this is to actually go to these places and make people see that voting for the nazis is against their interest and that’s indeed something that established parties have failed to do.
Well, I’ve made my argument and the votes are in. It’s okay to vote a legal party, as they are. I agree it does not fix anything (nor would I ever vote for them) but that is what you get for leaving people behind.
By not addressing this or trying to argue it away as per your statement it has and will only get progressively worse.