The German Election

He’s clearly continuing Bannon’s work in Europe and elsewhere. I wonder at what point Musk got that far right infection. I never liked him, but he didn’t strike me as a far right crazyman until some time ago.

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He is a nightmare. This is Off topic a bit, but Dugin posted this AI-picture today.
If he has been talking to Musk and Trump, then the nightmare is so horrid that I don’t know if I want to wake up tomorrow. I don’t think they speak, but I don’t know, and I would not be that surprised. But it would be frightening.

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This is absurd.

Their defence of this is also piss-poor. Freedom of speech does not equate to freedom of platforming.

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Important people with a ton of money, always manage to get a platform if they pay for it. But ideally, Musk should not get such a platform. But he is powerful, so…

AFD should though, since they are running for a democratic election. As long as their party is legal, and unfortunately it is, they should get a platform in Germany when running for election in that country. Ideally, unless they are in government, there is no need or obligation to give the ADF a platform in any country outside Germany though.

The role of ‘Die Welt’ and the Springer Verlag as a whole is the more interesting part of this. Die Welt has traditionally tried to play the more ‘respectable’ counterpart to their flagship BILD. They’ve been moving more and more to the right recently and I’ve seen rumours that big boss Döpfner allegedly asked Musk to write the piece and that AfD support tweet. Don’t know if that’s true, but I wouldn’t be shocked. Apparently there has been a heated discussion about it inside Welt editorial staff and there has been a public resignation from one of them over it.

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Yeah that was covered in the article. An absolute disgrace.

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Axel Springer bought the influential Politico in 2021 with Döpfner giving a clear message of his intentions to move them to the right. It was both a well covered story, but then also one that disappeared when it came to contextualizing their coverage of Trump’s rehabilitation.

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Yeah, I knew about Politico, though I don’t read them, so couldn’t tell how much they’ve changed.
In the German context it’s interesting that Döpfner & co seem to push this Musk/AfD stuff. Not sure what the strategic goal is here. Persuading conservative voters to go for AfD is likely mainly going to hurt the CDU and FDP, thereby weakening their position in any realistic coalition. Merz’ CDU is currently leading by quite a margin, FDP was just positioning themselves as Musk fans.

If they get weaker you’ll most likely get a more powerful centre left (SPD/Greens) in government.
Not sure what the endgame is here for Döpfner’s Springer tbh. Trying to push the CDU in an AfD coalition, which up until now is an absolute taboo for the CDU? Party like it’s 1933? Sure hope not. Maybe it’s just about clicks and being ‘edgy’. :man_shrugging:
Nice though that Musk finally got a platform to voice his opinion.

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Maybe he just really is a neo-Nazi and/or thinks that he can be the Musk of Germany.

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Yeah, I don’t really think so tbh (the Neo-Nazi part). But who knows, maybe he really wants to be the new Hugenberg. :man_shrugging:

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It could backfire in terms of coalition politics, but one explanation would be that he agrees with AfD’s ideas on immigration and wants to launder those positions into respectability so the more mainstream conservative parties have more cover to adopt them.

Really no need for that, largely already happened. Merz whole strategy is based on trying to win back AfD voters with that rhetoric (while demonising the Greens), FDP is adopting it too, even the SPD to a degree.
I also kinda doubt that immigration really is the main issue for someone like Döpfner. Maybe to a degree, but it’s largely just useful to agitate.

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Here’s Musk’s article.

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Yeah, absolutely brilliant, substantial analysis, isn’t it?

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Edit

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I can see a grand coalition again.

AFD won’t poll better than their opinion polling but it’s a decent amount.

Musk is a dangerous cunt.

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Musk interviews German far-right frontwoman Alice Weidel

I didn’t know that Hitler was a communist. It all makes sense now. :clown_face:

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This is a nonsense that recirculates in the US every so often, but has reached new levels recently with Musk endorsing these absurdly stupid arguments.

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Did they eat dogs at the time too?