I recently talked with German friends about this coming poll, and they are very worried. These people could do a lot of damage if they can reach the absolute majority. They are completely fixated on the past, and given their inability to find genuine responses for today’s and tomorrow’s societal topics, it’s shocking to see so many people wanting to vote for them.
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I wonder if there is an antisemitic undertone to that with the Bauhaus movement’s connection to Tel Aviv?
I find the “no money” argument a bit spurious as well. I visited the Bauhaus museum a couple of years ago and the surrounding area has had an absolute shitload spent on it. The depopulation is more of an issue, but the same thing happened to Liverpool in the 1970s and 80s. The turning point there was the Priority 1 EU funding because it made it a place that people wanted to relocate to rather than from.
The Solidaritätszuschlag seems to have had the opposite effect there.
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More depressing scheisse…
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I was reading some of their policies, and the parallels between them and the Nazi party of the 1930s are surprising, even down to their hatred of the Bauhaus movement.
If they were to gain power, they would be limited to some extent by Federal law, and their plan to replace the small number of migrant workers with Germans from other states is, frankly, pie in the sky.
I’d be almost tempted to let them crash and burn in public, but this is just grievance politics, and they would blame their failure on the liberal Federal Republic.
Interesting, we have local elections in Niedersachsen and I have seen very little from them. Just the usual political violence (they have vandalised clothes collection points from the Kolping charity again).
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Huh?
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The Kolping charity collect used clothes to fund their work. It’s similar to how the Salvation Army work in Britain.
Anyway, the charity carries on the work of Adolph Kolping who was a 19th Century priest and helped to educate tradesmen. Some of this involves providing hostels for apprentices and people training for work.
The AfD criticised Kolping because they also provide assistance to migrant workers and Kolping issued a statement saying that the AfD were incompatible with their Christian values.
There was then a spate of Kolping clothes collection bins being vandalised with swastikas. It’s frankly a pain in the arse, because they are also an important part of the whole household recycling system.
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Really not that surprising is it? Sachsen-Anhalt’s AfD is among the worst in the AfD, completely infiltrared by Neo-Nazis. The HDJ ones working for Siegmund are just the most blatant/obvious ones.
Of course international and national media will focus endlessly on this election, hardly anyone gives a shit about other recent (or upcoming) state or local elections where they aren"t nearly as big or succesful, although they might be in much more populous states. Understandable, but also frustrating at times. These fuckers always win the attention economy.
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I’ve been looking over our local election results in Niedersachsen yesterday. NDR have an interactive map here:
Comparing results between these elections and the Bundestag last year, the AfD appear to have dropped off in their vote share. Some media are comparing the result compared with 2021, but it’s a difficult comparison given the 5% requirement on some votes and novelty parties like Piratenpartei and Die PARTEI seemingly disappearing.
My wife said that the voting station was busy. There were actually 5 different elections: Landratswahl, Oberbürgermeisterwahl, Kreiswahl, Stadtratswahl und Ortsratswahl. Our local ones have all gone strongly CDU. It is a very conservative area.
What I did find interesting is that the turnout was surprisingly high, and in the Landratswahl and Kreiswahl which calls in the area separately, the AfD vote started higher in the early areas to declare and noticeably dropped as the later (presumably higher turnout) areas declared. I’m wondering if the vote in Sachsen-Anhalt has spooked people and shored up the CDU vote?
I think the only change for us locally is the Oberbürgermeister who was an independent (but strongly SPD and Grüne backed) which swung strongly towards the CDU.
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Tag der Deutschen Einheit…
Totally forgot about it. As it falls on the weekend I lose a day’s holiday. As it falls on a Saturday, I am now having to trail over to the Netherlands to get our bloody shopping in.
They really need to sort out their public holiday system.
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TdDE is me and the Missus’ anniversary, so we always celebrate with Jagermeister and Eisbein.
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