The rise of Germany’s leading right-populist party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) or “Alternative for Germany”, is unprecedented in the German political system.
:orly:
They're currently polling at their highest ever since the party's founding :agony-wholesome:.
A mixture of right wing conspiracy theories, petty bourgeois brainworms of the "the foreigners are going to drive us out of business/the government is biased against small business, taxes are too high!", gradual increases of wealth inequality, media signal boosting them and a fear that Germany might be losing its hegemonic status in Europe are a prime breeding ground for fascism.
Them being the only party that's not reluctant to criticize sanctions against Russia (for "Putin is based" reasons) gives them anti-war credential credibility. The Left Party is mixed between people criticising the war, advocating against sanctions and radlibs angry at the party leadership that the current party line is against sending weapons to Zelensky. The communist parties are tiny, and there is a current movement towards a socially conservative, German nationalistic trend in the mainstream of the communist movement.
Sahra Wagenknecht, a controversial figure in the Left Party is the catalyst with her "idpol is a waste of time" class reductionist view. Except that she's a Danish-Style socdem (literally married to the SPD leader from the early 90s) who advocated for example for immigration caps in the past... but she's been trashed in the media for calling the sanctions against Russia an economic war. Objectively correct, sure, but I guess DKP etc. people are willing to either overlook or outright embrace her other positions because of that.
She tries to ally with the popular right to create a strong left movement. That didn't work when the KPD worked together with right leaning unions in Weimar and doesn't work now. Turns out that, while it is important to reach workers who have reactionary views, people who like right populism or extremism do like it more if it comes from right wing parties.
Sarah got less than 3% of the vote and the worst results in her district in years, while districts that embraced intersectionality, working with projects like DWEnteignen (expropriation of commercial landlords), with a hint of class based internalism got stark increases of votes.
The last point is true only as long as they remain more or less trusted to not breach with those things within the first coalition they do.
It's also a fact of being despised by half of her own party and the chuds that like her unsurprisingly voting chud parties
Exactly. The fun thing about
despised by half of her own party
is that the German party law makes it really hard to exclude people from your party. "Parteischädigendes Verhalten" is a key word (behavior hurting the party). Funny enough it is quite easy to exclude socialists though, for example the young socialists in the SPD in the 60s/70s.
:seen-this-one:
Maybe the libs can see the trend of small business tyrants fueling fascism and realize that the only counter is socialism this time.... Right?
