And stil the state refuses to ban them, refuses to arrest and sentence their leaders.
It will be Weimar 2.0 with liberals being either too incompetent or too unwilling to stop fascism.
Fascism is not stopped at the podium or in parliament. It is stopped with bullets and bombs. The longer you wait the more bullets and bombs it will take and the more lives it will cost. We need a new, this time thorough, denazification.
Liberal does not mean leftist outside of the USA. Liberal actually means what is called libertarian in the USA.
in most contexts here ive heard “liberal” used to describe neoliberalism rather then leftism or libertarianism (though I know many conservatives in the US use it as a catch all for the left)
bullets and bombs
I think it’s enough to just do: arrests of leaders (and banning them from public speaking but for life) + breaking up the party + outlawing the party + banning people who decide to take up the mantle of/act as a declared proxy for the party and attempt to visibly pick up where they left off.
That last one I learned from my own country’'s current situation: in Romania, a crazy far right candidate came out of nowhere (on the wings of illegal undisclosed campaign donations) to win the first round, and as soon as that happened our mainstream far right party’s candidate started supporting him. Then they canceled the election because of the undisclosed donations (he literally declared 0 campaign spending!) so now, in the redo of the election, this other guy is basically running as his proxy and will likely try to appoint him PM if he wins.
Ideally arrests and executions will be enough. I think letting fascists live out their lives in prison is too dangerous. Too many political enemies have been released historically after government changes. Hitler himself didn’t even have to serve for life and was released early.
Weimar was a small civil war between soldiers who returned from WW1. That’s why both the left and the right had fighters. Where should the fighters who shoot the bullets come from now?
The fascists came to power because the elite feared that the communists could win. Otherwise, despite massive manipulation, the fascists never got an absolute majority.
There are many issues that other parties simply ignore. There would be far less voteres for the AfD if the other parties would listen. The AfD started with the demand that the rules about euro stability shouldn’t be ignored. That’s not a fascist position.
The other parties are not taking up AfDs made up causes because they are made up.
For example:
A sack of potatoes falls.
AfD: Foreigners are causing the sacks to fall! We must gas them! And the jews!
Other parties: This is so stupid it doesn’t even warrant a response.
General public: but the foreigners!!111!1!!!11 and the potatoes!!1! I am outraged!!!111!!!
Unfortunately, the other parties are very well taking up the Nazis’ lies. The Nazis are playing the political establishment like a fiddle.
To stick with your example of the potato sack, the established parties do just jump the Nazi bandwagon and parrot their narrative in a less extreme manner, like “Illegal immigrants kicking over potato sacks is a severe problem, we need to protect our potato sacks by border controls and increased deportations.”
Just as one AfD politician remarked last year, (after the election in Thuringia, if I recall right) the AfD is ruling without actually being in the government.
I don’t think that you make a good point if you yourself make up your point. Please quote the AfD to avoid all doubt.
I am not the one you are asking, but personally, in my honest opinion: An “emergency government”, lets say with a 20 year term, removing far right parties, doing the necessary changes to massively reduce our climate impact and prepare for the ineviteable fallout from climate change and doing other reforms wouldn’t be THAT bad of an idea…
Using bullets and bombs would make the rest not better than the fascists, so lets not use them.
War and violence have existed long before fascism. It’s not their invention or monopoly.
