European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1400

On February 25 2025 23:02 Harris1st wrote:


Actually no.
East Germany feels "left out" or "forgotten" and that why they vote for the "Alternative for Germany".
The main motivation isn't even to vote right. Just to vote for something different.
And a lot of old folks actually wishes communism back and have rose colored nostalgia glasses on (things were better, everyone had work, childcare was free and for everyone from an early age, stuff like that). The young inherit these values from their parents / grandparents.

On February 25 2025 23:44 Billyboy wrote:

That is interesting because here there is a lots of people who "escaped" communism in the 80's and they have nothing at all good to say about it. They talk about food shortages, lack of choice, fear and so on.

Edit: why isn't a far left populist party killing it?

On February 26 2025 01:13 Mohdoo wrote:


People need to look at the US and East Germany and understand something: Even if we assume these people are morons and totally wrong, there are a lot of them and we don't make the issue go away by repeating ourselves. We need to help these people feel better and I truly believe it can be done without fascism.

I will be honest in saying I don't grasp the dynamics of East Germany nearly as well as I do conservative "left behind" regions in the US. But I can say with confidence a lot of issues in the US inflaming fascism could have been fixed with more honest and courageous economic changes. In the US, we ignore major issues and hope we can solve the problem in a very indirect way. I would not be surprised if the same were true of East Germany.

On February 26 2025 01:58 Broetchenholer wrote:
It's not only east Germany, the villages in rural rich baden Württemberg also vote 25% AfD. The issue is worse where people feel left behind, even though I know quite a few AfD voters who are not particularly poor. It's sufficient to feel slighted by society and have a connection to the Internet. We are losing the impressionable at an alarming rate because it is better to have community among outcasts then no community. The east simply started sooner with the process, because real neo nazis were allowed to create networks on the void of a society without real roots and ideologies. That's why the east has the hardcore Skinheads and Neonazi groups but the stupid vote is everywhere because people feel left behind everywhere and will always come to the conclusion that those up there and the migrants are the reason their village has lost the baker and the postal service.

On February 26 2025 01:13 Mohdoo wrote:


People need to look at the US and East Germany and understand something: Even if we assume these people are morons and totally wrong, there are a lot of them and we don't make the issue go away by repeating ourselves. We need to help these people feel better and I truly believe it can be done without fascism.

I will be honest in saying I don't grasp the dynamics of East Germany nearly as well as I do conservative "left behind" regions in the US. But I can say with confidence a lot of issues in the US inflaming fascism could have been fixed with more honest and courageous economic changes. In the US, we ignore major issues and hope we can solve the problem in a very indirect way. I would not be surprised if the same were true of East Germany.

On February 26 2025 02:48 Nezgar wrote:


The problem is that some of those grievances are entirely fabricated and based on feelings, nostalgia and a complete lack of historical education. How do you fix problems that don't actually exist? Or that are minor but blown completely out of proportions? How do you make them feel better about not voting far right.
And if this was just about voting for something different, there are alternatives that aren't, in some cases, literal Nazis. You don't have to jump on the stupid train to nowhere.

But I think the "how" is what everyone is struggling with. And I don't want to claim that there aren't issues in Eastern Germany, or Germany as a whole. There was a lot of exploitation after the unification and for a while, things have subsisted on that.
Though I suspect that CDU is about the least likely candidate to fix any of that considering that they were the one who steered the ship into this in the first place. They were the ones in power that completely neglected investing into the future, both in the east and in the west. It's just that Eastern Germany started from a weaker position and felt this more quickly and more profoundly.

A LOT of especially older people completely forget that or flat out don't care. Memories are, unfortunately, short. I had this discussion a lot with older family members who wanted to or did end up voting CDU. Their mindset was "Let's get back to the good old days and not this current mess", completely ignoring that the current mess was the result of 30+ years of mostly CDU policies. Complaining that the current administration didn't fix things quickly enough with a global pandemic and a European war raging on is absolutely bizarre to me.
They fundamentally don't understand the problems and where they come from. And they either default to how things have been or go for something radical. I've heard arguments like "Things aren't great, how bad could things be with the AFD?" and they genuinely don't know that voting for fascists is a terrible idea.

It's an infuriating situation. It took a monumental effort to at least get my parents off this nonsense. There is also a vaaaaast body of disinformation out there. My mom at some point argued that "maybe a shift to the right is just what we need, with all the gendering and such" as if being respectful and tolerant of other people is somehow the reason for economic stagnation and a volatile political system.



And to quickly jump on this one, though it's purely anecdotal:
My family is rather well off and a lot of family friends are as well. AFD is not a rural and poor people thing. It's rampant in their golf and country clubs as well. And the stories they tell and lists as grievances are absolutely absurd. It has nothing to do with reality.
One example was that someone had read somewhere that kid's games don't use scores anymore to not make one team the loser. And that's all the result of being too compassionate and weak and soft, so they decided that AFD is just what we need to get rid of that silly stuff.
I tried to dig into that a little and it's often based on "Someone wrote this on Facebook" or "I saw this on Instagram" or "Someone sent me that article". In the best of cases, like the one above, it was because one small municipality had decided to test this to see how it would affect the kids. And that was taken up by the propaganda machine and spun into something that happens everywhere to everyone.
And it takes a considerable effort to go through this with those indoctrinated people. Who posted this? What is the evidence for this? Who reported it? Why might they have done so? "A housewive from X who posted this on Instagram" is not a viable source.
This is media illiteracy at a fundamental level.
And these people are older, wealthy and usually educated. They are engineers and doctors and lawyers.
The amount of batshit crazy articles my dad gets sent on a weekly basis by these people is staggering. A seemingly serious article about the questionable effect of climate change. You dig a little deeper and you find out that the same guy who wrote that article also believes that people were never on the moon and a host of other nonsense. But none of them dig even that deep. They skim the headlines, get upset and then send it to as many people as they know.

How do you combat this?

On February 26 2025 03:26 WombaT wrote:
There’s a huge amount of people that subscribe to what I like to call ‘decaf politics’, or ‘non-alcoholic’ politics. Which is a terrible name but I’ve yet to come up with better.

By this I mean people want the benefits of market competition, globalisation, culturally open societies, but none of the downsides.

And the real fundamental problem is, ya can’t do that. The second fundamental problem is people don’t believe you can’t do that. The third fundamental problem is that the far right say that they can do that. The fourth is that the far right are believed when they say that they can do that.

On February 26 2025 00:56 Godwrath wrote:

Why would it be? What most people consider the far left is not conservative. If you try to fit everything into the oversimplified left-right axis, you're only going to give yourself a headache. But honestly, it's surprising to see people still confused about this... especially after Brexit, Trump's first election, and the rise of the far right nearly a decade ago.

There is a clear need for answers and to regain control. f you can provide answers they can understand and give them the feeling that, thanks to you, they will regain control, or at the very least, take it away from 'the other side'... I'm not saying they will actually gain it, obviously, they are more vulnerable to snake oil salesmen. But that's precisely the point: a significant portion of them is in a vulnerable position due to growing inequality.

On February 26 2025 01:56 Vivax wrote:


Property is sacred which is an ancient law but those laws weren‘t equipped to deal with absurd imbalances.

Technically you could shave off 20% off everyone‘s private net worth for redistribution to treat everyone equally but hit rich people harder while poor ones would have less to lose anyway.

If they‘d be able to use the money to improve the situation of weaker parts of society is another question.

In my understanding:
Communism wants to abolish the concept of private property. You can manage something but it’s only lent to you.
Fascism puts it to work for the government‘s interest. You can still make a fortune by supplying a fascist government. Which you‘d almost be forced to do if they make the laws.

On February 26 2025 04:29 r00ty wrote:
Good input, thank you guys.

I think the eastern part of Germany rightfully feels left behind, because they were. But what do you expect? The unification was an enormous endeavor, everybody is still paying for it with their taxes. The Treuhand did some very questionable things, the continuing wage gap is very unfortunate and i don't really understand why it still exists.

But since the 90's, everytime i visit cities in the east there's a clear change of vibe. Nazism seems to be more acceptable over there. Be it grafitti or openly showing symbolism. That shit wouldn't fly where i'm from. They are here and they are plenty but they don't dare to show it, because there would be trouble.