I like how the video said that the AfD, at a protest, 'closed ranks with the extremist right', as if there were any difference between them to begin with. We're seeing a dangerous resurgence of the Nazi party, under a different name and a new face.
I'm genuinely sick to my stomach, right now.
NfDAP
Historical context was important. The actual Nazis didn't start by suggesting the extermination of the Jews. The rhetoric they used was much the same as the bullshit spouted by the AfD.
Somebody help us
Mainstream center-right party shifts strongly to center, then the only remaining party on the right side of the political spectrum makes modest gains.
What an inexplicable turn of events that no one could have foreseen...
Is this true though? To me it seems that left wing parties have been shifting more and more to the right for the last 10-20 years, right wing parties have remained mostly where they are now, and neoliberalism and globalization has lead people to be unhappy with the mainstream parties so right wing voters have started voting for the far-right parties popping up while the left wing parties have failed to take the opportunity to provide left-wing alternatives.
There is a widely-referenced database called MARPOR which among other things, places political parties in the political spectrum based on their platforms. It's not perfect obviously, but its still proved to be very robust, and the only objective way I can think of to answer a question like that.
For post-unification Germany, the right-left plot looks like this:
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1195/db4ebd98-4e8d-4f4a-8c5b-f60f10674ed6/4652.PNG
The shift of CDU-CSU to center very apparent, while the SPD remained in the stable center-left, even heading slightly more left. Linke and AfD meanwhile are steadily moving further away from the center.
The world is fucked, no way out at this point. My only hope was with the Germans in Europe holding things together, and the French. Turns out Macron isn't all that progressive after all, and with Germany teetering on going far right, it's over. Italy already took the bait, the British took the bait, Poland took the bait, and everyone else is either too small to make a difference, or is already conservative to begin with(eastern europe).
WW3, but this time there isn't any (organized) opposition. Putin really hit it out of the park with this plan.
What isn't shown in the news is that the Greens, among others, are growing as well. The news focuses disproportionately on AfD a lot.
In the Netherlands people often say the political parties are all so alike. For the longest time, I did not understand this sentiment, but now I do. The different parties, social democratic parties in particular, don't offer a fundamentally different economic or societal vision like they used to.
Whilst I understand your sentiment, I think giving up is what made Hindenburg give power to Hitler in the first place - this is no time for political apathy. We must be as forceful with our ideas as one can be whilst staying with in the bounds of the law.
In all seriousness though, I'm Hermann Grrrrring about this.
Oh I know. I guess that was a moment of weakness on my part, but regardless, it's looking objectively grim from here on out. Sure those with a conscience outnumber both the combined militaries of the world, as well as the supporters of these far right parties, but I can't begin to imagine the scale of suffering that we are going to experience before this is all over.
I was really hoping this would all be resolved at the polls of each nation, peacefully, but it's clear that the propaganda has been more effective than I thought
This is actually rather like a big issue in the UK.
We have one right wing party worth talking about and a myriad of left wing ones. To the point where the left wing needs to vote tactically in order for a left wing government to stand a chance otherwise the left vote which tends to be around %60 of the voting population is distributed over 2-3 left wing parties resulting in a conservative win.
The left is often fragmented, not just within Britain, but worldwide (at least in actual democracies.) Liberal people tend to be more open to new experiences, personality wise (shown in studies), so it makes sense, but having FPTP voting systems like in the UK or America weakens the left for this very reason.
That's the literal definition of liberal: to be open to new ideas.
lib·er·al
ˈlib(ə)rəl/
adjective
1.
open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values."they have more liberal views toward marriage and divorce than some people"
I had a discussion with a rather hardcore conservative about this the other day. I explained that by liberalism's very nature, it tends to fragment into many different disagreeing schools of thought the more extreme it becomes, contrasting with the nature of conservatism (to resist change) resulting in it unifying toward very few schools of disagreeing thought the more it becomes.
Of course, he then refused to believe that "liberal" meant "open to new ideas" (he argued that's what conservative means); argued that conservatives believe in empiricism, science, and facts; and dismissed the entirety of the dictionary as being part of the liberal conspiracy. So...
The whole Conservatives' vs Liberals' IQ score hasn't produced anything cemented, but what I will say is that right wingers appear to be far more paranoid and able to avoid obvious evidence. They just seem to be more neurotic...
I don't want to derail this thread about an irrelevant discussion I had, so I'll just leave on this note:
I ended that discussion by explaining that this is an unfortunate consequence of this age of disinformation we live in today. Conservatives have been given the ultimate weapon to disarm any and all opposition to their worldviews, and now possess an irrefutable tool to preserve their precious snowflake perception of reality:
The ability to simply call something "fake news" and dismiss it outright.
Many years ago now, Adam Savage once wore a satirical shirt on Mythbusters and jested about it, a shirt stating simply "I reject your reality and substitute my own." Modern conservatives have taken this sarcastic tongue-in-cheek shirt text and turned it into gospel.
I remember that clip at the beginning of each episode. Sorry for veering off topic, but I'm a terror for that sometimes. To get back on topic, I'd say American and European conservatives are very different beasts. Our conservatives still do destructive things, but we don't deny facts anywhere near as much.
Fun Fact: This is part of the reason Fascism won over Socialism in Germany. While the Nazi Party and other far-right parties were willing to work together, the Communists and Socialists refused each other.
I might have agreed with this except for Brexit, which currently has all our politicians embracing denial of reality.
Contrary to popular belief, Boilrig is, as of yet not a member of the cabinet.
And yet the only parties willing to entertain the concept of a second referendum are the Lib Dems (who are irrelevant except in their own minds) and the SNP (highly significant up here but irrelevant to the interests of the Tory party) - and that's a pretty lite version of embracing the reality which is that Brexit simply cannot be enacted without causing massive harm to the country for no gain.
Maybe we can just be fascists for a year or two to sort things out and then we can all go back to wearing our linderhosens?
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