The far-right AfD party won the state elections in the eastern German state of Thuringia with 30.5% of the vote on Sunday (1 September), according to exit polls, marking the party's first win in a state election.
Nothing will change except more people feeling emboldened by the results. This isn’t going to change much for non-whites in the state. If they were treated badly before, they’ll continue to be treated badly now. That isn’t going to change.
But I bet this party won’t achieve much in the next 4 years. Germany is a federation, Thuringia is a state. There’s not much AfD can do at that level that wouldn’t be rejected at national level, maybe even already by the state court. They can’t change the constitution, they can’t “ban immigrants” from their state, in short they can’t implement their “program”.
It’ll be a constant fight to get anything through and after 4 years, I bet they’ll have very little to show for it. All they’ll do is blame the other party for not cooperating.
But federal states have a lot of power on their own exactly because too much centralized power is dangerous. But the political system also wasn’t design to defend itself against a new fascist takeover in many ways, so if a federal state goes rogue that can have very serious consequences.
Unfortunately I don’t have an English source for that but there was an article in German that covered all the possible ways how they could fuck shit up.
One thing I remember is that they could officially host people like Trump or even worse people and get representative resources for that. And they would have significant budget to do networking events with Nazis everywhere iirc. It would massively enable them to take over other federal states as well and legitimate themselves in national politics. If you look at Austria, they have broken the barriers a long time ago and their Nazi party is part of the government regularly, it’s absolutely bad and I’m very worried the same will happen in Germany.
I think, you misunderstand… They will probably not be part of the government(s). The other parties made that pretty clear. This is Germany. You need 50% of the seets. Does not matter who has the most votes.
And no, it wouldn’t be fun for lots of minorities.
Lol, sure. Look at the parties will form a coalition there. Wikipedia says CDU is center right (23%), Linke is far left (12% --> 35%)), SPD is supposedly social democratic and progressive (6% --> 41%), and BSW is all over the spectrum (15% -->56%).
The only thing they have in common is that they are political parties.
I wouldn’t be surprised by AfD + CDU + BSW, honestly. They are politically much closer together than the other possible coalition.
I’m from Germany. If you want to bet with me that AfD will be part of the government, let’s do it…
From all 16 AfD sub parties, the one in Thüringen is the most extreme one. Proven to be far right… If you build a government with them, it’s pretty much political suicide for you.
If you add up numbers without understanding the local politics before and after the election, you might think that those 3 parties find together. But otherwise, it’s very, very, very unrealistic!!!
BTW: 5 years ago, even getting and relying on votes from AfD politicians in Thüringen crashed the Kemmerich government. It took only one day to collapse.
Do you think the 4-way coalition is more realistic? Isn’t BSW just AfD but with a left twist? Would the coalition just leave them outside and have a minority government?
Why 4-way? CDU + Linke + BSW have enough seats together as far as I know.
I don’t even think that they will build a coalition together. It will probably be some kind of 1-party-government or 2-parties-government, which is only accepted by the other(s)… Thüringen had a Linke (left) government that was accepted by CDU the last years.
By the way: BSW was pretty much one part of the left party “Die Linke” until one person did their own thing. No, it is not a AfD. They were only able to “steal” voter from the left party (Linke), but not really from the AfD… They might say similar things about migration and Russia, but one of the parties is classified as 100% far right. One party wants to distribute to the poor, the other wants the opposite. I’m not a fan of BSW, but comparing them with AfD like that is not fair.
And to answer the question above: Yes. I think, that those 3 parties working together against AfD is realistic. That’s what all of them are saying for like 10 years. Hoecke (who you can legally call facist by the way) in power would be way worse.
I don’t think they got it that wrong. It’s absolutely true that there’s a lot of overlap between AFD, CDU and BSW especially in Thüringen. Even the left party in Thüringen is pretty racist and Zionist. It’s a weird place. For now it remains a taboo to make a coalition with AFD but I don’t think we should take it for granted that this taboo holds.
Even the left party in Thüringen is pretty racist and Zionist.
What? You are talking about the Linke of Ramelow? I don’t think that this is what most people think about that party…
For now it remains a taboo to make a coalition with AFD but I don’t think we should take it for granted that this taboo holds.
True. I’ll go deonstrate on the streets as soon as I think, this could change and many others will do that, too. The “Collectiv” incident gave me hope regarding this.
Yeah I really want to like Ramelow because I always used to see him as an alternative from the left to actually channel the frustration of people into a productive direction. But he is participating in this bullshit regarding payment cards instead of giving refugees cash even though it’s just another way to harass refugees, and also an expensive way to do that. Also, just to gain sympathy he went into that „not all AFD voters are Nazis“ direction.
I know that’s not what most people think because as the polls show most people don’t give a shit about the racism, but it’s there and if a party calls themselves left I hold them to a certain standard that includes being anti-racist and unfortunately they’re not meeting that standard.
Good on you going to protests, I wish more people would do that, would donate to anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-surveillance groups, independent journalists, etc. I honestly think that we only have a couple years left until it’s too late to fight this anti-democratic trend.
Also, just to gain sympathy he went into that „not all AFD voters are Nazis“
Well… There are nazis and there are voters who vote for nazis.
It’s also clear that he can’t say the opposite. If he says “Every voter of them is a nazi”, it will cost him votes, too… And it makes sure, that the number of base voters of AfD increases.
I would not call payment cards racism. There are of course different views on it, but I honestly prefer one solution over 16 different approaches how to distribute the money, which is usually the German way.
Let’s see what they’ll achieve. Gonna be fun to watch.
Not so much fun to live through, I imagine. Especially if you have the “wrong” skin color.
Nothing will change except more people feeling emboldened by the results. This isn’t going to change much for non-whites in the state. If they were treated badly before, they’ll continue to be treated badly now. That isn’t going to change.
But I bet this party won’t achieve much in the next 4 years. Germany is a federation, Thuringia is a state. There’s not much AfD can do at that level that wouldn’t be rejected at national level, maybe even already by the state court. They can’t change the constitution, they can’t “ban immigrants” from their state, in short they can’t implement their “program”.
It’ll be a constant fight to get anything through and after 4 years, I bet they’ll have very little to show for it. All they’ll do is blame the other party for not cooperating.
But federal states have a lot of power on their own exactly because too much centralized power is dangerous. But the political system also wasn’t design to defend itself against a new fascist takeover in many ways, so if a federal state goes rogue that can have very serious consequences. Unfortunately I don’t have an English source for that but there was an article in German that covered all the possible ways how they could fuck shit up.
One thing I remember is that they could officially host people like Trump or even worse people and get representative resources for that. And they would have significant budget to do networking events with Nazis everywhere iirc. It would massively enable them to take over other federal states as well and legitimate themselves in national politics. If you look at Austria, they have broken the barriers a long time ago and their Nazi party is part of the government regularly, it’s absolutely bad and I’m very worried the same will happen in Germany.
I think, you misunderstand… They will probably not be part of the government(s). The other parties made that pretty clear. This is Germany. You need 50% of the seets. Does not matter who has the most votes.
And no, it wouldn’t be fun for lots of minorities.
Lol, sure. Look at the parties will form a coalition there. Wikipedia says CDU is center right (23%), Linke is far left (12% --> 35%)), SPD is supposedly social democratic and progressive (6% --> 41%), and BSW is all over the spectrum (15% -->56%). The only thing they have in common is that they are political parties.
I wouldn’t be surprised by AfD + CDU + BSW, honestly. They are politically much closer together than the other possible coalition.
If the Thuringian CDU gets into the government with the AfD they won’t be CDU for long. As in: They’ll be kicked out of the party.
On the contrary, their federal level seems to be softening their stance on Die Linke. And given the results they might not even be in the nasty situation of having to elect a Die Linke minister-president it’s gonna be Die Linke voting a CDU one into office.
I’m from Germany. If you want to bet with me that AfD will be part of the government, let’s do it…
From all 16 AfD sub parties, the one in Thüringen is the most extreme one. Proven to be far right… If you build a government with them, it’s pretty much political suicide for you.
If you add up numbers without understanding the local politics before and after the election, you might think that those 3 parties find together. But otherwise, it’s very, very, very unrealistic!!!
BTW: 5 years ago, even getting and relying on votes from AfD politicians in Thüringen crashed the Kemmerich government. It took only one day to collapse.
Do you think the 4-way coalition is more realistic? Isn’t BSW just AfD but with a left twist? Would the coalition just leave them outside and have a minority government?
Why 4-way? CDU + Linke + BSW have enough seats together as far as I know.
I don’t even think that they will build a coalition together. It will probably be some kind of 1-party-government or 2-parties-government, which is only accepted by the other(s)… Thüringen had a Linke (left) government that was accepted by CDU the last years.
By the way: BSW was pretty much one part of the left party “Die Linke” until one person did their own thing. No, it is not a AfD. They were only able to “steal” voter from the left party (Linke), but not really from the AfD… They might say similar things about migration and Russia, but one of the parties is classified as 100% far right. One party wants to distribute to the poor, the other wants the opposite. I’m not a fan of BSW, but comparing them with AfD like that is not fair.
And to answer the question above: Yes. I think, that those 3 parties working together against AfD is realistic. That’s what all of them are saying for like 10 years. Hoecke (who you can legally call facist by the way) in power would be way worse.
I don’t think they got it that wrong. It’s absolutely true that there’s a lot of overlap between AFD, CDU and BSW especially in Thüringen. Even the left party in Thüringen is pretty racist and Zionist. It’s a weird place. For now it remains a taboo to make a coalition with AFD but I don’t think we should take it for granted that this taboo holds.
What? You are talking about the Linke of Ramelow? I don’t think that this is what most people think about that party…
True. I’ll go deonstrate on the streets as soon as I think, this could change and many others will do that, too. The “Collectiv” incident gave me hope regarding this.
Yeah I really want to like Ramelow because I always used to see him as an alternative from the left to actually channel the frustration of people into a productive direction. But he is participating in this bullshit regarding payment cards instead of giving refugees cash even though it’s just another way to harass refugees, and also an expensive way to do that. Also, just to gain sympathy he went into that „not all AFD voters are Nazis“ direction.
I know that’s not what most people think because as the polls show most people don’t give a shit about the racism, but it’s there and if a party calls themselves left I hold them to a certain standard that includes being anti-racist and unfortunately they’re not meeting that standard.
Good on you going to protests, I wish more people would do that, would donate to anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-surveillance groups, independent journalists, etc. I honestly think that we only have a couple years left until it’s too late to fight this anti-democratic trend.
Well… There are nazis and there are voters who vote for nazis. It’s also clear that he can’t say the opposite. If he says “Every voter of them is a nazi”, it will cost him votes, too… And it makes sure, that the number of base voters of AfD increases.
I would not call payment cards racism. There are of course different views on it, but I honestly prefer one solution over 16 different approaches how to distribute the money, which is usually the German way.
I mean Franz von Papen thought something like this too in 1932 about Hitler and we all know how it ended.