'Never again': Huge protests against far-right continue in Germany

World News@lemmy.world – 710 points – 5 months ago

'Never again': Huge protests against far-right continue in Germany - I24NEWS

Hundreds of thousands of people took the streets across Germany this weekend as the nation enters a second week of protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Around 100,000 gathered outside the Bundestag in Berlin alone, said the police, with up to 200,000 counted by the organizers in Bavaria's Munich. Significant turnout was also reported in the cities that represent traditional the AfD voting strongholds in eastern Germany, like Leipzig and Dresden.

Finally an article mentioning that CDU members were also present and supporting the plans of the AfD. They are the enablers and cause for the "Rechtsruck" with their policies and rhetoric, trying to fish for far right votes for years.

They are enablers but at the same time it's impossible for them to position themselves into opposition to the ruling parties because they've been "the establishment" for far too long. So the anti-establishment right flocks to the AfD as the only viable option for them and gets radicalized.

Wish we could have something like this in the US, but apparently we’re just going to let the Nazis take over instead.

There have been great lengths taken over the course of decades to make protestation on this scale prohibitively difficult for Americans. The exact numbers are apparently up for debate but between 40 and 80% of Americans can't afford to miss a single paycheck. Splinter protests across the country do fuck all for federal issues and since most people can't afford to make the trip to DC we're stuck with a non-starter until things get so bad that it doesn't matter if people are getting paid or not.

Protests aren't going to stop the Nazis in Germany, either.

Support of AfD rightwing extremist party is down 2% which is maybe not enough, but it's something.

Not true. In Germany, extremist parties can actually be banned.

Are they banned by demonstration? Or is there a process that is under way? One that'd actually keep the individuals from simply moving parties.

Raising awareness of a problem is the first step towards solving it. The AfD and its followers are nothing but alt-right fools.

Are protests the only way people communicate? That has some serious, "don't take my statue, how would I know history!?" false logic energy there.

Protests are an expression just like a riot. Riots are outright damaging while protests make people feel better. What they specifically do not do is solve any problem that cannot be solved in much better ways.

Making people feel better without actually doing anything to slow down bad people... is not a positive gain from a situation. If anything, people who feel better about a situation are less inclined to DO something about it.

An important point for them is the belief that they are the "silent majority". Showing that they are not might help to reduce some of their support

It would at least help the completely ignorant from simply going with the flow, though many would argue someone so detached from the concept of freedoms hardly deserves them. Like Thomas Jefferson, "When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither."

Contrast that with, "When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty." and it should become VERY obvious he and many other defenders of freedom throughout history were very OK with punching Nazis, even if they lived before Nazis were a thing.

First they came for the Nazis, and I said nothing. Because fuck Nazis.

The End

First we came for the Nazis. Then everything was really chill and nice so we went home and had a good night's rest.

This is just so good to see. A giant majority coming out against an insane minority to tell them that they are insane.

I'm in this picture (not literally, I was in Halle) and I like it!

The AfD, polling second in nationwide surveys...

Since the AfD is the 2nd strongest power in Germany and in the parliament for quite some time now, I would say its about time to protest against it. I mean great they do, but I don't see any bottom-up sharp reflexes, given their recent history.

What recent history do you mean?

There were various secret meetings that became public afterwards. From plans to storming the Bundestag like Jan 6 and the Capitol to meetings with far right Nazis that are on watchlists of the local secret service, the Bundesverfassungsschutz.

Latest meeting was on the topic of „How to deport political opponents and immigrants after seizing the political system“ which not only featured known Nazis but members of the CDU Conservative Party (Merkel‘s Crew).

That was the drop too much that ignited the whole protest we see now. And it is well overdue if you ask me

The Verfassungsschutz is nothing like the Secret Service, it's more like Homeland Security or the FBI.

Mayhaps, I don’t have an equivalent table comparing all the services here to others in the world 😅

The Secret Service, AFAIK, is mostly tasked with protecting the president (and related persons), they are basically bodyguards.

Protecting the president (and other eligible high profile individuals) and dealing with currency fraud, apparently.

They'd get SO pissed if someone slipped Bill Clinton a bogus $20 bill!

Both BKA tasks in Germany, the FBI is a good comparison though aside from those bodyguard tasks and reserves the states can call upon (which then act under state law) without boots on the ground. That'd be the BPOL, roughly speaking boarder and coast guard, your Amtrak cops and the TSA. Then there's the Parliamentary Police, and the Zoll, the armed wing of the finance ministry. And that's actually all police forces we have (on the federal level), mostly because not everything is its own agency. The states pretty much mirror that structure (investigative vs. boots vs. financial police), with possibly the addition of the forces of the justice ministries, they're cops in a sense (court ushers, prison guards, suchlike).

2nd??? SPD/FPD/Grün Ampel I guess are 1? CSU/CDU is less popular now than the AfD? That's wild.

Support for Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) hit an all-time high of 23% in a poll on Tuesday as the party continued to benefit from the fallout of a budget crisis. Although the ruling coalition last week agreed a budget for next year after a court ruling upended its financial plans, mainstream parties fear that economic uncertainty could push voters to the AfD before elections in three eastern states next year. The Forsa poll put the AfD up one percentage point from last week, a record high for the institute, closing the gap with the opposition conservative bloc which was unchanged at 31%. The radical left Linke slipped one point to 3% while other parties were unchanged. Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) were on 14% and the Greens and pro-business Free Democrats, who share power with the SPD, were on 13% and 5% respectively.

Reuters 2023-12-19

Support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) dropped slightly in two polls published on Tuesday after 10 days of nationwide protests against the far-right party, although it remained firmly in second place. Support for the AfD dropped 2 percentage points to 20% in a Forsa poll, the lowest level in four months. The party remained behind the opposition conservatives on 31% but still well ahead of all the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left coalition, who together were polling 32%. The AfD dropped 1.5 percentage points on the week to 21.5% in the poll by the German Institute for New Social Answers (INSA), behind the conservatives on 30.5% and the ruling coalition on 31%. "The demonstrations against the AfD are supported by 37% of Germans and they are showing an impact," INSA chief Hermann Binkert said.

Reuters 2024-01-23

It seems like it has only gone down 1.5% since the protests. 20% support is quite worrying.

It would be weird if the protests had a big effect on the predicted votes. Who would be all for the AfD and then suddenly go "yeah well, I changed my mind now"?

The protests should mainly convince the government to finally start the process to ban the AfD.

It looks like the numbers of polls from INSA in 2024 were 7 and the percentage number for AfD varied from 18 to 23.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_next\_German\_federal\_election#2024

[edit: So in that sense one could rightfully argue that we saw a raise for AfD in 2024, despite the drop in the last few days.]

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They are only 2nd if you count individual parties, not coalitions. So "2nd strongest power" is misleading

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This weekend, there is even a protest in my tiny 30k people town. You love to see it. I will participate, as I did last weekend in Braunschweig (Brunswick).