This would never succeed. Pretty sure the UK is the only EU country that's polled anywhere close to 50% pro-leave
In the most recent German poll I could find (a few months back, when AfD was polling at similar numbers), only 10% of Germans wanted to leave the EU (and 42% of AfD supporters)
Btw, am I the only feeling the media giving AfD all this attention is having a 2015 Trump effect? My German friends tell me AfD supporters just shout "fake news" at everything, particularly at the mass deportation story. I saw some messages and they were like, "the mainstream media lies, the meeting was between random irrelevants," "Alice Weidel says immigrant citizens are as German as the rest of us," "the AfD only wants to deport illegals and criminals." Sounds extremely familiar, only I think Weidel is a more competent fascist and better at putting a mask on then Trump?
It's very much a similar dynamic to MAGA in US. Neoliberal policies are resulting in a rapidly declining standard of living, people are becoming angry and disillusioned in the mainstream politics. Right wing opportunists come in and start criticizing liberal policies, which resonates with people because the criticisms are often legitimate. People see that somebody is actually voicing their concerns out loud and they jump on the wagon.
In a sense, right wingers are more politically developed than mainstream liberals because they are able to correctly identify legitimate problems. They don't shy away from talking about declining material conditions, corporate profiteering, and so on. The problem of course is that their solutions are bonkers. They will promote ideas like having less government, getting rid of immigrants, and so on. Unfortunately, these tropes fit in relatively well with the capitalist propaganda people have been fed.
The problem for the left is that we require people to rethink a lot of their base assumptions about how capitalism works, and that's a much bigger ask. Hence why the right tends to grow a lot more rapidly than the left.
This would never succeed. Pretty sure the UK is the only EU country that's polled anywhere close to 50% pro-leave
In the most recent German poll I could find (a few months back, when AfD was polling at similar numbers), only 10% of Germans wanted to leave the EU (and 42% of AfD supporters)
Btw, am I the only feeling the media giving AfD all this attention is having a 2015 Trump effect? My German friends tell me AfD supporters just shout "fake news" at everything, particularly at the mass deportation story. I saw some messages and they were like, "the mainstream media lies, the meeting was between random irrelevants," "Alice Weidel says immigrant citizens are as German as the rest of us," "the AfD only wants to deport illegals and criminals." Sounds extremely familiar, only I think Weidel is a more competent fascist and better at putting a mask on then Trump?
It's very much a similar dynamic to MAGA in US. Neoliberal policies are resulting in a rapidly declining standard of living, people are becoming angry and disillusioned in the mainstream politics. Right wing opportunists come in and start criticizing liberal policies, which resonates with people because the criticisms are often legitimate. People see that somebody is actually voicing their concerns out loud and they jump on the wagon.
In a sense, right wingers are more politically developed than mainstream liberals because they are able to correctly identify legitimate problems. They don't shy away from talking about declining material conditions, corporate profiteering, and so on. The problem of course is that their solutions are bonkers. They will promote ideas like having less government, getting rid of immigrants, and so on. Unfortunately, these tropes fit in relatively well with the capitalist propaganda people have been fed.
The problem for the left is that we require people to rethink a lot of their base assumptions about how capitalism works, and that's a much bigger ask. Hence why the right tends to grow a lot more rapidly than the left.