You know far-right political parties are on the rise in times of economical hardships. And now you have pretty much good conditions for such parties to thrive. The cost of living is increasing every day, the middle class is getting squeezed and their disposable income is getting lower, rents and real estate prices are almost at historic heights.
In such times people are desperately looking for a scapegoat and someone to blame, and those parties are giving them exactly that. They have always been in the opposition, so they feel they are guilt free for the current situation. And people being the irrational beings they are, are looking for a saviour in such “alternative” parties.
The scapegoat thing is a big part of it, but the other problem is that there is no credible “working class” left party left in the German political spectrum.
The SPD abandoned social democracy long ago, under Schröder. The Greens were in a government coalition with the SPD at that time and also turned big time neoliberal. These days they’ll form coalitions with anyone only so they can get into government. Their environmentalism is mostly feel good easing of ecological conscience for people who can afford a brand new electric SUV, at the expense of people who can’t. Their “leftism” is pretty much limited to some bickering over “gender neutral” language. The “Left” party is plagued by the typical infighting problem of any left movement, also they are stuck up the arse of Vladimir Putin, a fascist dictator, of all people, so where is their credible leftism? Often mentioned by right wingers is also the heritage of the Left being the successor of East Germany’s one and only party, but pretty much every German political party has some less than pretty heritage left over from past German dictatorships, this is only the most recent party having such a problem.
The Greens […] also turned big time neoliberal
This is not the first time I hear this claim but so far nobody has made any effort to really support it.
What specifically makes the Greens “neoliberal”?
When they joined the coalition with SPD in the Schröder government, they went all in with free market ideology and happily supported wholesale slashing of social security and workers’ rights and sweeping privatisation of the public sector. They haven’t really gone back from that since. Most of their subsidies programmes to incentivise more environmentally friendly technology are furthering the redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top, because in order to qualify for those subsidies, you need to be wealthy enough to buy something pretty damn expensive in the first place. This mindset was best portrayed by the Green prime minister of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, during the energy price crisis in 2022, when he advised poor people to stop showering and using a washcloth instead to save money on energy bills, while at the same time boasting how he himself had upgraded his house with new heating in order to become independent from fossil energy.
The scapegoat thing is a big part of it, but the other problem is that there is no credible “working class” left party left in the German political spectrum.
At least in East-Germany people simply may not want a left party. They are voting far-right because they are far-right / neo-Nazi themselves.
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The study also found a high level of approval for right-wing extremist statements in the eastern German states. Chauvinistic and xenophobic statements were rejected by only a minority of respondents, the project leaders emphasized. Elements of neo-NS ideology were not expressed openly to the same extent, but anti-Semitic and Social Darwinist statements also met with approval - a third of the population agreed with them completely or in part. The approval is pronounced in the German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, he said. "Here, the potential for extreme right-wing and neo-Nazi parties to find voters is thus particularly high. One in two wants a ‘strong party’ that embodies the ‘Volksgemeinschaft’ as a whole. Instead of pluralistic diversity of interests, a völkisch community is desired," Brähler explained. Decker added: “Our study shows that currently many people in the eastern German states do not want more democratic participation and the safeguarding of basic democratic rights, but rather the apparent security of authoritarian statehood.”
According to the survey, satisfaction with democracy as it functions in everyday life is weak. Not even half of the population feels that they are part of it. This corresponds with the high level of political deprivation: Two-thirds consider it pointless to be politically active, and hardly anyone believes they have any influence on the government. This is matched by the fact that, next to authoritarian aggression, the conspiracy mentality is the most widespread element of the authoritarian syndrome. “So we observe a pronounced foreignness with democracy, it is not understood by many as something of its own,” adds Dr. Johannes Kiess, deputy director of EFBI, who was involved in the study. These values have remained constant for about 20 years.
The longing for the GDR is pronounced, two-thirds share it. Three quarters felt themselves to be East Germans. However, many also felt German and a citizen of the Federal Republic, so several identities can exist in parallel. Only half count themselves among the winners of German unity, while a third count themselves among the losers. This retrospective view of the GDR is related not least to the desire for a one-party dictatorship, as illustrated by the high level of agreement with the demand for “a single strong party that embodies the national community.” These results show that extreme right-wing parties with their ideological offerings have numerous points of contact with the breadth of the population. Consequently, most AfD supporters have extreme right-wing attitudes.
Of course, a good percentage of the AFD voters are actual Nazis and lost causes, but the thing is that an increasing number of people aren’t voting at all because the existing political landscape doesn’t have anything credible to offer. Due to the 5% cut-off for getting into parliament, voting for a small party is frequently seen as wasting a vote, which exacerbates the problem if none of the big parties are seen as deserving a vote. With fewer people voting, all it needs is every Nazi out there to go and vote AFD to create a scary high percentage of votes for them.
Well, if you look at the Ampel, the Greens seem to be the only party, that still cares about climate change. “Climate Chancellor” Scholz always supports the FDP when it comes to policies against climate change. Just take a look on the law on heating, how it changed from the original one proposed during the coalition talks. The Greens had to heavily compromise on it several times, because they received no SPD support for their stance. Now the law is a joke compared to the initial one. You can definitely charge them with not standing up for the necessary policies, but not for them not trying.
Scholz was never a “climate chancellor” He has always been an advocate for big money, he even is most likely personally involved in the cum ex tax evasion scheme. The Greens also give little to zero shits about people of lower income, which makes them easy targets for hate and drivel by AFD and friends (this includes CDU/CSU and the entire Springer media conglomerate). Not that those have any interest in helping low income people, either, but they are seeding hatred amongst them in order to farm votes.
Can somebody shed some light on which sort of immigration is causing an increased support to this party? Are we talking of legal economic immigrants from e.g. the EU, illegal immigrats from wherever, or war refugees? If it’s refugees, where from?
I’m just trying to understand what’s driving this change. I have family in the UK and a lot of the anti-EU sentiment around Brexit seemed to arise from the perceived effect of an influx of legal immigrants from the Eastern bloc of the EU.
I think the answers others have given you definitely apply to the very far right voters. They are against all form of immigration. But that doesn’t explain the AFD’s rise in popularity. So I’m going to talk about the more moderate rightwing people here. There is a lot of immigration into Germany, EU migrants and legal, as well as illigal immigration from outside the EU. Plus Ukrainian refugees. Most people on the right don’t mind EU migrants as well as Ukrainian refugees. Ukrainian refugees btw. are mostly women and children. Legal migrants from outside the EU are more complicated, and I’m sure there are various levels of acceptance. The real problem though are illegal immigrants, mostly from the middle east and Africa. They are mostly men with poor education and in many areas the infrastructure to accommodate them are at their limits. It doesn’t help that these places are neglected and violence does break out at some of them every now and then. These stories obviously spread on social media like wildfire.
It’s mostly just the fear of immigrants in general and populist right wing stuff like “they take out jobs”, “they will replace us” and such. It’s general xenophobia against all kinds of people, be they eastern European, from the Balkans or Mediterranean.
Ironically, studies have shown time and time again that the areas with the highest concentration of AfD-voters are also the ones with the least amount of immigration. Adding to that, the AfD has a very large social media presence and there are a ton of people spreading fear, propaganda and, to a large part, Russian disinformation. They always make the most outrageous claims and offer the most simple solutions that have no basis in reality. Some people are unhappy with rising prices and stagnating economy and are blaming it on the “new” government that hasn’t had a chance to clean up after 16 years of conservative Christian rule and was elected in the middle of multiple global crises.
that hasn’t had a chance to clean up
…might want to add that with the Liberal party being a part of the government, there is no capability to clean up this mess even if the government wanted to, because the liberals will block anything that isn’t tax cuts for big business.
The whole situation is also a result of the blatant failure of the entire political system to get anything useful done. It looks increasingly like the final years of the Weimar Republic.
It’s the immigration of people with darker skin color that Germans don’t like. Nobody ever talks about EU-immigrants. Or Ukrainian refugees. The media don’t mention them, the politicians don’t propose laws to give them a hard time here. It’s all about African, Afghan, Syrian, and even the quite well integrated people with Turkish roots.
