Mainstream politicians express alarm while lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt welcomes congratulations from Elon Musk

Mainstream politicians around Europe have expressed alarm after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) swept to a historic state election victory in Germany, while nationalist figures cheered the result as a mandate for change.

While falling just short of an absolute majority, the AfD surged into first place in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on Sunday, exit polls ⁠showed, putting the far right within reach ​of power at ‌the state level for ‌the first time since the second world war.

  • MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    As usual, the conservatives are given a pass and then liberals assigned all the blame.

    This place is absolute fucking joke.

    • TheJesusaurus@piefed.ca
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      1 day ago

      No they aren’t. The liberals and conservatives are both being blamed because they are both part of the problem. 2 sides of the same coin.

      Liberals are being assigned blame because they are worthy of blame.

      Conservatives know they are to blame, telling them that does nothing. Liberals think they are helping the working class and at the very least are discomforted when confronted with the reality of their actions (sometimes).

      • LittleBorat3@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        We don’t have liberals or a two party system or whatever you have in the US.

        This dumb Propaganda shit on lemmy that the left is to blame for the fascism that people voted for really bores me by now.

        None of this is the lefts fault.

          • SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org
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            5 hours ago

            Our so-called liberals are the FDP.

            But this term means very different things here, than it does in US politics. But you’re right: they are definitely not the left.

        • Miaou@jlai.lu
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          18 hours ago

          But you also don’t have any left at all, which doesn’t help.

          Even fucking bsw has a point when calling die linke just another socdem party. And neither of these party is even doing well in the urns.

          From a French PoV, German politics are really cooked. Overton window is more right wing than us, and the votes are also more concentrated to the right.

          • LittleBorat3@lemmy.world
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            15 hours ago

            BSW should figure out who they even are before they sling any shit. They are putins Nazicommunist party and you need to mentally unwell to vote for them.

            I don’t have a problem with the socialists going socdem because there is presumably a large gap there.

            The Socdems by name sold out more than 25 years ago.

        • Tempus Fugit@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          In the US, the neoliberals have held power over the Democrat party since Ronald Reagan was president in the 1980s. Liberal is shorthand for neoliberal and are considered left here. They are very much to blame for the current state of the US. They offshored jobs, busted unions, weakened education, and cut welfare programs to benefit the elites just like the conservatives have.

            • Tempus Fugit@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              It is in american parlance. When you hear right-wingers rally against “liberals” they are talking about neoliberals. If they meant classical liberals they’d be talking about themselves.

              • anewfox@lemmy.zip
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                7 hours ago

                It is in american parlance.

                no it is not. in common american parlance, “liberal” refers to the democratic party and is treated like a left-wing position. only leftists use “liberal” (well, “libs”) to mean “neoliberal.” the latter is obviously way more correct, but that doesn’t mean the average person uses it that way, the average person is politically illiterate.

              • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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                9 hours ago

                Nah. You just don’t understand how uneducated, indoctrinated, and mentally-ill American conservatives are.

                90+% of them absolutely have no fucking idea what the difference between a classical liberal or neoliberal is. Conservatives are closer to neoliberals than classical liberals. They don’t care though, because they’ve been indoctrinated with the mental illness of fascism.

        • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          Unless you live in North Korea you’ve got liberals. It’s good to learn some basic definitions for words before running your mouth. If you live in Germany, the CDU, SDP, FDP and Greens are all liberal parties.

    • huey_m@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      Nobody is giving conservatives a pass. But we aren’t going to solve the problem if we don’t spend time understanding why people are voting the way they’re voting in an international trend, and it isn’t that everyone just became a lot more racist overnight; it’s because in many countries, the reality has become choosing between a more social liberal or social conservative neoliberal party, and one would need to be blind at this point to not see it’s the second part of that descriptor people are done with.

      I’m saying this as someone who is absolutely a lesser of the evils voter and advocated for such; but I also understand what’s actually driving support for people like Trump, AfD, and the like, and it isn’t a surge in intolerance; it’s material conditions, like it almost always is.

      The criticism gets directed at the center left more than the center right because they are the ones more politically viable to change, or at least that’s been the view. Conservatives concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few is itself a conservative position in the traditional sense. Any party claiming to be left should be antithetical towards that.

      Don’t mistake that for giving conservatives a pass. They’re worse, I’ll absolutely vote center left neoliberal if they are the only alternative; but convincing them is to fundamentally change their views more than a center left party.

    • lemdeggity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      There may be a gap here in the definition of “liberal”. Liberalism is a political philosophy that also encompasses most traditional conservatives. It is different from the colloquial usage. It’s loosely defined as the belief in individual freedoms, including the right to private property. It is inherently capitalist and therefore socialists, communists and anarchists generally do not consider them to be of the left.

      • UnequalExchange@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        …uhhh a socialist and a communist are the exact same thing…

        Youre right about everything elsee though.

      • LittleBorat3@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        If you split yourself off the “left in the widest sense” you have 5 percent of the votes and you are essentially meaningless. Stuck to your values but meaningless.

        The left does not need more splitting while the right manages to rally behind one or two people.

        • Miaou@jlai.lu
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          17 hours ago

          Unless your election system is FPTP, I don’t see a problem with doing just 5%.

        • lemdeggity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          As I say, liberals believe in capitalism by definition. The impact of your vote once every few years in an election under this system pales in comparison to the influence that the owner class have due to their wealth and power. This is fundamental. This is why you get all the anti-liberal sentiment from anti-capitalists.

          Furthermore you talk about convincing some percentage of voters in order to change the system. The early turnout figure for this election is 54% and that’s considered high… What of the non voters?

    • 0xDREADBEEF@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      When the home team who is on defense just allows goal after goal with no defense, and scoring no goals of their own… that’s a bad team and deserves criticism if they’re the bulwark defenders who are supposed to oppose fascism. Fascists are winning and that is the fault of liberals for a lack of opposition.

    • Tja@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      Sometimes I think it must be a psyops by the billionaires to divide and demoralize the left. Then I remember some people are just so dumb.

    • Tempus Fugit@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Liberals are fascist collaborators and work on behalf of the elites. The sooner liberals are gone the faster we can fix these issues. Conservatives are just plain evil.

        • Tempus Fugit@lemmy.world
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          You must not be from the US then. It’s already happening here. Many progressive candidates are either beating the liberals or nearly beating them. I expect that to keep happening too. I was a lifelong liberal voter and even voted for Kamala in '24, but I won’t make that mistake again. Liberals do not have the best interests of the working class in mind and they’ve made that crystal clear. Hell, they don’t even have the best interests of human life in mind.

          • LittleBorat3@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            But either the Democrats need to be taken over completely, MAGA style or lose so much that another party takes their spot in the two party system. Which is difficult.

            These monolithic blocks exist because they are not constantly under attack in that system.

            • Tempus Fugit@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              As liberals and conservatives make life worse for the working class they’ll start to realize both of those options are bad. Unfortunately many will have to suffer before they come to that conclusion.

    • Tolc@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      because liberals are the prime reason of fascists rise in power. They pretend to be good while oiling the fascist machine

    • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      It’s their go to.

      Like yeah, milquetoast policies ultimately lead us here but they have more fury for the people doing moderately OK but ultimately unsatisfactory things than the people actually going hog wild, robbing everyone blind, instituting fascism, etc.