These supposed right wingers, or old right or whatever you wanna call them, don't realize that the voters that went to AfD or similar will never ever go back to them. They could ban AfD and they won't go back to CDU.
Look at what is happening to Reiner Fuellmich in the German courts (there is a good summary on yesterday's <malone.news> )and project this onto treatment of AfD leaders.
Of course the government knows it can make them go away.
Doesn't matter. Voters who don't vote don't count, they disappear. Removing the AfD is about disenfranchising their voters, which is what all dictatorships want.
it strikes me that depending on how they go about the process, the AfD could reconstitute itself as the Germany for Life party, or something like that, with the same members and leadership. unless they ban anyone who was ever a member of AfD from voting, it seems that there will always be a party with the same goals, if not the same name.
so what! they'll spread among smaller parties and during the next elections, some of them will find that they are missing 0.3% to get to the threshold for entering the parliament and their votes will be distributed among the cartel parties. One trick at a time the ruling parasites can postpone any change for X*4 years. We can't get rid of those annoying people soon enough.
Sounds like the AfD needs to have a young charismatic leader start the "Not the AfD" party today so those voters have somewhere to go. Sort of steal a page out of the other sides playbook.
This figure of 26% is very close to the figures for the UK “far right” populist Reform Party [25%]. Also now polling higher than any other party I believe?
A dangerous outbreak of the worst sort of democracy!
Point of order, it's called "our democracy", and that's because it belongs to oligarchs. In this case a group of international gangsters weaponizing finance capital, the US military complex, and biological weapons known as brown people.
I agree, and a quickly unravelling one at that. More and more see through it. And lets be honest we aren't going to vote our way out of anything. A significant proportion of the population now vote along ethnic or religious lines anyway, which will quickly kill any semblance of democratic norms.
The UK the future we all want to avoid. I The UK elected 5 non-secular MP’s. These anti-civilization, candidates ran on one issue. “free Palestine”
One of the greatest empire’s the world has ever known is now jailing old people for writing mean things on Facebook and electing MP’s based on religious affiliation. That repugnant, triple chinned Starmer, cuts benefits to the IRL disabled, to fund the death of Ukrainians and Russians.
Maybe the empire should die. However, I would choose too be ruled by the demon spawn of cousin-marriage Monarch’s over an elected, barbaric, 12th century, religious cult. I fear we are all going to have to make this choice sooner rather than later.
There is no way to vote to solve this. The British have been against mass immigration for decades and voted against it. That failed.
Also inward immigration is set to significantly rise, all endorsed by the educated classes. There is talk of 5 million per year. They are truly brainwashed. If lucky it will look like Brazil, if not South Africa.
No maybes about it. Farage has always betrayed everyone on the most important issues whenever push comes to shove, and mostly long before that. The only thing he really fought for is his own bank account. He doesn't care a whit about yours, or anyone else who has been debanked.
I have no doubt that they want to ban AfD, but that would hand Vlady Putin an invaluable propaganda point: "You Westerners criticize me for suppressing the opposition in my country, but then you go ahead and suppress the opposition in your country. Thank you for making my point!"
I think it is more likely President Volololoddyymmrrrr Zelensskkkyyyyyyyyvvvvv would applaud banning an entire political party. After all, he's done quite a bit more than that in Ukraine.
That is my worry. All smoke and mirrors. That said, it can only work for so long. People have had in enough in European nations and they are all going down. Interesting times ahead.
I'd hope that a certain JD Vance might say the same. Thus "proving" - to the smooth-brains who produce our "democratic discourse" - that Vance and Putin are on the same side!
Before long we will perhaps have only one party, the Democracy Party. In this way nobody will ever be able to vote for an undemocratic party like the AfD ever again. This will ensure their freedom.
Yes, yes: all the traditional parties will merge into a Unity Party and the country will celebrate the progress of democracy by adding "Democratic" to the styling of the German Republic.
In my view the First Principle of civilization is to provide the average family with reliable piped hot water and the efficient removal of bodily waste products from the demesne, no matter how tiny,
American politicians have seen to their painful cost that things like low-flow shower heads can indeed turn the tide of history.
German politicians might not be learning anything but the populace sure seems to be noticing.
They have succeeded in painting themselves into a corner. They most assuredly cannot beat AfD on the merits, so they’re left with no recourse but to ban them altogether.
But even that effort will almost certainly blow up in their faces.
With AfD now polling higher than ALL other parties, (and it’s probably even higher in reality as so many people don’t participate in polls), were this government to then attempt to pull the rug right out from under such an enormous voting block of the citizenry I cannot see that being received well - at all.
They’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
Which is worse? That’s the whole calculus they must most definitely be considering right now.
Let’s hope the German people have finally had a belly full of these corrupt-o-crats.
If they do it, nothing will happen. AfD voters aren't the left, they aren't the rioting type. If the AfD is banned it will just disappear and its voters will disappear along with them.
That’s not how people operate though. When the pain reaches a certain breaking point people will coalesce around an alternative.
If AfD does get banned something else will spring up in its place. It’s just how things work in such circumstances. History itself is made up of just such things.
Even the boot of authoritarianism has a shelf-life.
On 1953-06-17, when the GDR was just four years old and they were trying to impose socialism on their citizens, there was a revolt in Berlin which quickly spread across the country. Only Soviet tanks in the streets saved the GDR, and the government was spooked very much.
There are no Soviet tanks in Germany anymore, and the American government would be sympathetic to an anti communist uprising, so I think your optimism is justified.
Also the more they ban or kill off legitimate parties the more their own authority dies. Take it far enough and people begin to realize they can't vote their way out. And we must remember just how organized the Germans can be when they put their minds to it. The French and the British are the same. They play a dangerous game and I think it will fail.
Ah, but Mr Merz is only applying the old saying from one of his Party's greatest, the first Bundeskanzler of the West-German B RD< Konrad Adenauer, who said ""Was kümmert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern" (Transl: "why should I bother about the platitudes I said yesterday")!
Oddly enough, in those times there were proper journalists who had not forgotten yesterday's platitudes produced by politicians and did ask. Nowadays, there are no proper journalists (or if they are, they're not employed by the MSM) and thus politicians get away with anything they say - except, of course, those of the AfD who are even lambasted for things they never said in the way the MSM quote them ...
European leadership, by and large are totalitarian. That’s the only explanation for this nonsense, for overthrowing the recent election in Romania, for standing aside & silent as the USA overthrew the Ukraine gov in 2014, lit the war fuse in 2020, blew up Nordstream, and has been funding that war since … and required voters to keep voting on Maastricht until they voted “correctly,” not even to note that NO country allowed to vote on a sovereign currency voted for the euro.
Europe is toast. Intelligent, driven, creative people with a family - or desiring one - need to move to the US as we are busy killing our deep state…
A belated Happy Easter to all of my readers.
And to you!
“Hope springs eternal!”
Happy Easter - still 48 days of celebration left.
Christos Anesti!
Same to you.
These supposed right wingers, or old right or whatever you wanna call them, don't realize that the voters that went to AfD or similar will never ever go back to them. They could ban AfD and they won't go back to CDU.
agreed, never going to happen.
Look at what is happening to Reiner Fuellmich in the German courts (there is a good summary on yesterday's <malone.news> )and project this onto treatment of AfD leaders.
Of course the government knows it can make them go away.
Doesn't matter. Voters who don't vote don't count, they disappear. Removing the AfD is about disenfranchising their voters, which is what all dictatorships want.
it strikes me that depending on how they go about the process, the AfD could reconstitute itself as the Germany for Life party, or something like that, with the same members and leadership. unless they ban anyone who was ever a member of AfD from voting, it seems that there will always be a party with the same goals, if not the same name.
I don't think the courts would allow such a re-constitution with the same people, at least.
CDU/CSU just don't get it, do they? (Or, they just won't admit it.)
so what! they'll spread among smaller parties and during the next elections, some of them will find that they are missing 0.3% to get to the threshold for entering the parliament and their votes will be distributed among the cartel parties. One trick at a time the ruling parasites can postpone any change for X*4 years. We can't get rid of those annoying people soon enough.
Sounds like the AfD needs to have a young charismatic leader start the "Not the AfD" party today so those voters have somewhere to go. Sort of steal a page out of the other sides playbook.
And don’t they run the risk of pissing additional citizens off if they do ban AfD?
Are you implying that if they banned the AfD, those voters would go somewhere better?
I hear you. Here in the US, we have the same issue of who-knows-who wanting to consolidate the western world into weird dream of
who-knows-what.
This figure of 26% is very close to the figures for the UK “far right” populist Reform Party [25%]. Also now polling higher than any other party I believe?
A dangerous outbreak of the worst sort of democracy!
That's because it's "democracy" only if the correct party wins.
Point of order, it's called "our democracy", and that's because it belongs to oligarchs. In this case a group of international gangsters weaponizing finance capital, the US military complex, and biological weapons known as brown people.
Reform are containment, just like Farage.
I agree, and a quickly unravelling one at that. More and more see through it. And lets be honest we aren't going to vote our way out of anything. A significant proportion of the population now vote along ethnic or religious lines anyway, which will quickly kill any semblance of democratic norms.
That’s the current problem.
The UK the future we all want to avoid. I The UK elected 5 non-secular MP’s. These anti-civilization, candidates ran on one issue. “free Palestine”
One of the greatest empire’s the world has ever known is now jailing old people for writing mean things on Facebook and electing MP’s based on religious affiliation. That repugnant, triple chinned Starmer, cuts benefits to the IRL disabled, to fund the death of Ukrainians and Russians.
Maybe the empire should die. However, I would choose too be ruled by the demon spawn of cousin-marriage Monarch’s over an elected, barbaric, 12th century, religious cult. I fear we are all going to have to make this choice sooner rather than later.
There is no way to vote to solve this. The British have been against mass immigration for decades and voted against it. That failed.
Also inward immigration is set to significantly rise, all endorsed by the educated classes. There is talk of 5 million per year. They are truly brainwashed. If lucky it will look like Brazil, if not South Africa.
If that was the choice on offer, I might agree with you. Unfortunately, it's not even that good.
Maybe but let’s at least move in the right direction.
No maybes about it. Farage has always betrayed everyone on the most important issues whenever push comes to shove, and mostly long before that. The only thing he really fought for is his own bank account. He doesn't care a whit about yours, or anyone else who has been debanked.
I have no doubt that they want to ban AfD, but that would hand Vlady Putin an invaluable propaganda point: "You Westerners criticize me for suppressing the opposition in my country, but then you go ahead and suppress the opposition in your country. Thank you for making my point!"
They wouldn't care about this at all. They'd just argue it's different when they do it.
They don’t argue at all. They have power, and that is enough
I think it is more likely President Volololoddyymmrrrr Zelensskkkyyyyyyyyvvvvv would applaud banning an entire political party. After all, he's done quite a bit more than that in Ukraine.
They'd much rather defang the AfD and use it as a holding pen to contain dissenting energy. This assuming it isn't this already.
That is my worry. All smoke and mirrors. That said, it can only work for so long. People have had in enough in European nations and they are all going down. Interesting times ahead.
I'd hope that a certain JD Vance might say the same. Thus "proving" - to the smooth-brains who produce our "democratic discourse" - that Vance and Putin are on the same side!
A small consolation to Germans for losing their country.
From over the 'cold pond'...it seems that they have!
Germany is the free-est country because it has 27 intelligence agencies that make sure you can only vote for the right people!
Before long we will perhaps have only one party, the Democracy Party. In this way nobody will ever be able to vote for an undemocratic party like the AfD ever again. This will ensure their freedom.
Welcome to America, we’re already doing the Democratic Party thing. It’s going about as well as expected.
exactly what the media and scholars here in the US drill into our heads every day. Democracy is "democratic" anything else is fascism and naziism
Yes, yes: all the traditional parties will merge into a Unity Party and the country will celebrate the progress of democracy by adding "Democratic" to the styling of the German Republic.
In my view the First Principle of civilization is to provide the average family with reliable piped hot water and the efficient removal of bodily waste products from the demesne, no matter how tiny,
American politicians have seen to their painful cost that things like low-flow shower heads can indeed turn the tide of history.
German politicians might not be learning anything but the populace sure seems to be noticing.
To promise to cut AfD support in half, but to double it instead, is a double-plus-good Merz magic trick.
Loved that Orwell reference. 😉
Merz successfully reduced AfD support by half, to only 27%.
What can eugyppius be complaining about?
They have succeeded in painting themselves into a corner. They most assuredly cannot beat AfD on the merits, so they’re left with no recourse but to ban them altogether.
But even that effort will almost certainly blow up in their faces.
With AfD now polling higher than ALL other parties, (and it’s probably even higher in reality as so many people don’t participate in polls), were this government to then attempt to pull the rug right out from under such an enormous voting block of the citizenry I cannot see that being received well - at all.
They’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
Which is worse? That’s the whole calculus they must most definitely be considering right now.
Let’s hope the German people have finally had a belly full of these corrupt-o-crats.
If they do it, nothing will happen. AfD voters aren't the left, they aren't the rioting type. If the AfD is banned it will just disappear and its voters will disappear along with them.
That’s not how people operate though. When the pain reaches a certain breaking point people will coalesce around an alternative.
If AfD does get banned something else will spring up in its place. It’s just how things work in such circumstances. History itself is made up of just such things.
Even the boot of authoritarianism has a shelf-life.
On 1953-06-17, when the GDR was just four years old and they were trying to impose socialism on their citizens, there was a revolt in Berlin which quickly spread across the country. Only Soviet tanks in the streets saved the GDR, and the government was spooked very much.
There are no Soviet tanks in Germany anymore, and the American government would be sympathetic to an anti communist uprising, so I think your optimism is justified.
Also the more they ban or kill off legitimate parties the more their own authority dies. Take it far enough and people begin to realize they can't vote their way out. And we must remember just how organized the Germans can be when they put their minds to it. The French and the British are the same. They play a dangerous game and I think it will fail.
AfD must win!
So much winning.
Ah, but Mr Merz is only applying the old saying from one of his Party's greatest, the first Bundeskanzler of the West-German B RD< Konrad Adenauer, who said ""Was kümmert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern" (Transl: "why should I bother about the platitudes I said yesterday")!
Oddly enough, in those times there were proper journalists who had not forgotten yesterday's platitudes produced by politicians and did ask. Nowadays, there are no proper journalists (or if they are, they're not employed by the MSM) and thus politicians get away with anything they say - except, of course, those of the AfD who are even lambasted for things they never said in the way the MSM quote them ...
Didn’t Herr Merz have a role playing the constantly befuddled neighbor on “l Love Lucy”?
Fred n Ethyl come to Deutschland 📺
😂😂😂😂
European leadership, by and large are totalitarian. That’s the only explanation for this nonsense, for overthrowing the recent election in Romania, for standing aside & silent as the USA overthrew the Ukraine gov in 2014, lit the war fuse in 2020, blew up Nordstream, and has been funding that war since … and required voters to keep voting on Maastricht until they voted “correctly,” not even to note that NO country allowed to vote on a sovereign currency voted for the euro.
Europe is toast. Intelligent, driven, creative people with a family - or desiring one - need to move to the US as we are busy killing our deep state…
I just wonder that a man who has been on the board of BlackRock-Germany is not aware of the slight difference between 2 and its reciprocal ... 🤔🤔🤔
He has?!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Merz
Congratulations on your brilliant new Chancellor!
Rest assured, our Mr. Trump is quaking in his boots at the prospect of having to deal with a mastermind like Mr. Merz.
Free Reiner Fuellmich!