Sucks. I did my study abroad mostly in Saxon-Anhalt. Beautiful place. But I’m also not entirely surprised by this embrace of AfD there. Even though it was a little over 10 years ago that I was there, I certainly saw a lot more alt right influence compared to other parts of Germany.
It’s like Germans have acquired collective amnesia with regards to what happened during 1939.
Isn’t it crazy that people know what the word “scapegoat” means but are unable to see it?
Like. How can so many people be so incapable of following basic logic to see that immigrants are not what’s caused their quality of life to decline.
Easy Germany is a complex subject. A lot of money has gone into projects to help it catch up after the reunification since Russia completely gutted it, but not much of that money made it anywhere. The population feels left behind and unheard. They’re being treated as lesser through little fault of their own. Pretty easy breeding ground for scape goating.
Plus it’s the exact same playbook as the US when it comes to “iMmIgRaNtS!!!”. Logic and reason has long left and there’s really no way to reel in conspiracy nuts once they’ve gone off the rails. Germany is only a few years behind the US.
How would you even prevent this? The ideas spread by messenger and social media and infect people without critical thinking skills - which is most. Chat control is obviously the wrong approach, but what is the right one? How do you convince clanma who doesn’t trust anything anymore that the WhatsApp stats are made up and government statistics are actually trustworthy and backed by data?
The only place to fight it is off the internet.
But it is much harder. You have to go out and socialize, in person.
Plus most people don’t want to talk politics. At least in the U.S, it is considered a somewhat rude or inappropriate conversation topic in casual conversations.
Like religion.
Some people still do it and sometimes it just comes up. But generally it’s seen as pushy. Or trying to start an argument.
But talking politics to friends and family is usually considered fine. Depends on the family members. So I do keep up these conversations with friends and some family members, when I can. Remind them that you can only trust what you hear from real people.
The internet would have you believe the majority of Americans are maga. When it’s actually only 30%.
So the Nazis will return to Germany?
They never left (West) Germany.
Fuck, people are dumb all over the globe.
Xenophobia is at an all-time high.
And that’s one of the greatest proofs that people across different cultures are more alike than different.
That’s kinda sweet in a disappointing way.
They’re also manipulated on a global scale.
You can thank social media networks and private for profit media conglomerates for this.
Always have been and always will be. Humans are not as smart as people like to think they are. Humans have a shitton of PR teams to sell you that people are smarter than they actually are.
It this a case where the economically repressed are being used to breed an ugly us vs them situation, to pit them against immigrants using their own national xenophobia, tribalism and false nostalgia? The way to fight this is to feed the wealth back to the people. Tax (or eat) the rich, and education. Also listen to their valid concerns. Just making their ‘right wing’ group illegal will only further resentment. I doubt the people are really right wing in the economic sense at all. The bigotry can be much more easily addressed one people feel safe and secure.
The solution you bring up are impossible to achieve as long as the same oligachrs that breed the right wing are allowed to control the narrative via social media. Education, healthcare, civil rights? Communist! The US is the leading example that people are ready to actively fighting the solutions knstead of the problems, as long as unhinged propaganda is deemed as valid opinion.
… the AfD, whose Saxony-Anhalt branch is categorised as “right-wing extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.
More useless labels I see. Doesn’t seem to mean anything if they are still allowed to be a legit political party who can take power.
I’ve come to realize most of our justice system is toothless. ICJ? Useless. EU? Lol. Verfassungsschutz? Nope. The police will enforce copyright law for movies because of corporate interests, but anything larger than isolated cases is too big to address. Law and order are mass hallucinations in the western world, easily exploited by anyone ruthless enough to try. And it feels like we’ve reached a point of saturation where the ruthless are no longer satisfied with what they were previously able to achieve within the confines of this hallucination, so they’re just tearing it down.
What can we do about it? The overlap with anarchism is large: use cash, don’t buy from Amazon (or similar), use Linux, don’t pay for subscriptions. Don’t use AI. They want your money; don’t give it to them. Sadly, 90% of the population have no impulse control, or I’m asking them to abstain from the only pleasure they have left in their lives - everything else has already been torn down.
I’m gonna go be depressed by myself for a while.
Fun fact: this useless label is there so the afd can be forbidden, since “right-wing extremist” also means anti-constitution, but our goverment is too busy filling the pockets of their lobby friends.
It’s almost like capitalism is incompatible with democracy.
Incompatible if unchecked and it definitely shouldn’t be running it, it shouldn’t be the singular pillar, it shouldn’t be a way to gauge who is more free than others. It should be a part of an economic system if anything, not the entire point of one. Unfortunately we have a bunch of mentally ill members of our species who hold it up as some magical end all be all, even despite warnings from various ancient cultures about how bad that turns out when you do that.
Exactly, it’s supposed to mean something… In theory…
Germany: Hey America, hold my beer.
Seriously UK and Germany, you guys trying to upstage us or something?
Israel is working overtime to keep all 3 allies supporting Israel, even if it means destroying those same allies.
The German state apparatus was too busy harassing legitimate pro-palestian protest to do anything about the actual threat to its constitutional order.
Oh, good burn.
Damn, I forgot all my German, is English okay or I have to take lessons before the invasion?
Its the AfD so you’re prolly better off picking up Russian.
Jesus christ it’s Jason burn
Maybe “leftists” should stop praising German militarization?
Polling stations open in Saxony-Anhalt with anti-immigration party AfD predicted to gain 41% vote share
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Sun 6 Sep 2026 06.50 EDT
Polls have opened in the east German state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the populist, far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is predicted to emerge on top in an election that could have a groundbreaking effect on Germany’s political landscape.
About 1.7 million people are eligible to vote. Polling booths opened at 8am local time and will close at 6pm, when exit polls are expected to deliver an initial indication of whether the AfD has secured enough votes for an absolute majority, enabling it to govern the state.
That would mark the first time the party had won a state government, and the first time since the second world war that a rightwing extremist party had gained power at regional state or parliament level in Germany.
Final polls before the vote showed the AfD to have about 40-41% of support. The number of undecided voters in advance of the vote was much lower than at previous elections, polling showed.
Currently, the small state is governed by the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, together with two smaller parties. The CDU, on about 23%, under its state prime minister, Sven Schulze, hopes to be able to construct a multiparty coalition to be able to retain power.
The CDU and all other mainstream parties have refused to be in coalition with the AfD in a government, in what is referred to as a Brandmauer or firewall. The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt has been classed as “rightwing extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.
The AfD’s lead candidate is Ulrich Siegmund, 35, a former fragrance salesman with a large following on TikTok who has been celebrated like a pop star. He has insisted he will take power only if the party receives an absolute majority, and would not tolerate a coalition with another party.
The Saxony-Anhalt election is the biggest test yet for Merz, who is unpopular, along with his government, after having failed in his promises to reset Germany’s struggling economy and reduce the support for the AfD. Irregular immigration has reduced since he has been in office, but not to the extent that it has appeased the average voter.
If the AfD won convincingly, it would put huge pressure on Merz. In national polls, the CDU has also been overtaken by the AfD, which has its eyes on victory at the next federal election in 2029.
If the AfD is elected in Saxony-Anhalt, Siegmund has promised to start a remigration and deportation offensive, ban rainbow flags in schools and halt the building of new wind farms.
He wants to change the slogan of the state from “Think modern” to “Think German” and to reintroduce the singing of the national anthem in schools.
Siegmund has sought to capitalise on a mood of ostalgie – nostalgia for communist East Germany – and to tap into discontent amongst east Germans who view themselves as second-class citizens to people from the west.
He turned up to vote on Sunday morning with his wife, riding an East German-era moped in the party colours, which was also a prominent prop during the election campaign in rallies across the state. In a statement in front of the polling station, he voiced his optimism that the party would achieve “45%, and some”.
All eyes on Saxony-Anhalt – what will AfD do if it wins German state poll?
Thousands of opponents of the AfD gathered in the state capital, Magdeburg, on Saturday for a “festival of democracy”.
On Saturday evening, a message beamed onto the facade of Magdeburg Cathedral read: “We do not abandon what we love. True love of the homeland is not the AfD.”
The bishop of Magdeburg, Gerhard Feige, in an address to a gathering of churchgoers, warned against forces “that want to sow discord, stoke mistrust and fear”. He drew parallels to historical developments, warning that a democracy has the potential to abolish itself. “Not everyone who votes or is elected democratically is a democrat,” he said.
The German Economic Institute has warned of the far-reaching consequences for the German economy, in Saxony-Anhalt and beyond, specifically over its immigration policy, which it said would be “calamitous” for the state, which has an ageing, dwindling population and is heavily dependent on foreign workers.
Critics have also warned, due to the Kremlin-friendly stance of the party, that an AfD-run state could leak sensitive information to Russia. The AfD has dismissed such claims. It has said it would seek to reform the domestic intelligence service, calling it biased.
The latest poll by the public broadcaster ZDF on Thursday put the AfD on a decisive lead of 41%, with the CDU trailing on 23%, the far-left Die Linke on 11.5%, the Social Democrats on 8.5% and the Greens on 6%. Two smaller parties failed to reach the 5% hurdle needed to re-enter parliament.
Independent election observers are active at polling booths amid speculation from the AfD that voter fraud has taken place, in particular in postal voting, with specific focus on a retirement home. State authorities have denied the claims.
In my opinion they’ll gain until they are no longer in the opposition. Only then Germans will realize once more that fascism isn’t great for anyone but a few at the top. I’m not an accelerationist myself, but we’re seeing the same happening in the US.
They will spin the narratives to blame anyone else. Watch Trump, it works!
Trump has record low popularity. That’s exactly my point.
they already had some chances to show what they can do. and failed expectedly
all that happens is, that they blame other parties anyway, and still gain popularity
It’s kind of a bummer that the hold world didn’t handle the Nazi problem in the way that the French did after WWII. In France, they were mass-deleted, including collaborators.
Oh gosh, the French are fascist as fuck and violence never solved the problem of fascism. That is a fairy tale that the US made up after providing material support to the European Axis powers in order to save face.
Violence (alone) doesn’t solve the problem of fascism. But it absolutely does in part.
The thing one must really come to grips when dealing with fascism is acknowledging what it really is. It’s societal cancer. It infects a society if it can, and it grows and multiplies, and if it’s only treated with violence it may be beat back a bit but it will still keep growing until it either strangles the host society to death or it’s properly dealt with. And even then, it’s only ever in remission.
The other half of it is understanding the paradox of tolerance and knowing that if you want a society of ideas and beliefs and ethnicities etc. You cannot ever be tolerant of tenants of fascism. And to ensure that, a society needs three strong pillars:
- a robust education system that is free and accessible by all citizenry.
- the basic set of rights most would agree enshroud common dignity of people. This should include healthcare and labor laws. Protection for labor and not just capital.
- finally the defense of truth. Not opinions but objective truth. Those that like to sow the seeds of fascism will usually use lies to do so. So by making the freedom of speech apply to hate speech is usually a way to always give fascism a foothold.
Now none of this as you see says oh and we need violence. Violence tends to be what happens when fascism has already taken hold of the host. Because one way or another throughout history of fascism has it ended itself through burning itself out.
But if we continue a good practice of social hygiene each and every one of us every single day… then it’s far less likely that people will turn to fascism as a societal solution to political issues.
This is my Ted talk.
