My little corner of Austria flipped from Social Democrat (SPÖ) dominance, to 41/42 towns in the district voting for our “far right” (FPÖ). The Communists and Greens lost most of their support.
Similar stories elsewhere in Austria. And there will be similar stories across Germany too.
The UK is heading in a similar direction, with the righteous rage over the murder of a white teenager being criticised as right wing racism. Our government is desperately trying to head off our Reform party, which has been attracting support for among other things its immigration policy.
We saw throughout Our Plague Era how easily people sacrificed their children for social acceptability. Perhaps this stark tragedy will make them remember a parent's first duty.
"It is a very bold strategy to set about winning these people back by calling them a bunch of genocidal Nazis."
Ya think? One of my own little enjoyable reveries is of encountering the sort of small talk one does, in a social setting, and replying to questions about how I spend my time by saying "I'm in my fascist years now and find them quite enjoyable..."
I ditto 😂🙌 I’m similarly responding with “well it seems I’m now a fascists, nazi, right-wing extremists and have all the “insert current phobias here”.
Lo before there were Substack comments sections there were letters to the editor and I wrote them relentlessly to our regional newspaper and then my son started reporting how many people he knew would ask "is that lady who writes those letters related to you?" Interesting situation for him.
Among the things I'm proud of is having always made clear to him, from the earliest reasonable age, that I did not expect him to share any of my own beliefs or attitudes if they did not ring true for him.
This is why I started declining all invitations from my son to attend occasional functions with his colleagues. I don't know when my self-control might give way.
I have none (or rather, often find myself unable to care enough about the feelings of idiots to bother exercising it) and so have likewise said similar things.
"Yeah, no, I know, I'm a horrible racist and fascist, maybe if you scream it at me a couple more times I'll start agreeing with your positions on things. No, never mind, that won't happen. I no longer value your input enough to pay it any attention."
I mean, I guess one could say that I'm burning bridges by being that brutally dismissive of people, but honestly, by that point, I think the span is already fairly well ablaze.
Fate has made me the face of the Peasants' Rebellion every place I've ever worked or volunteered at so I have becomethed quite hardened to the scorn of others.
But I also have maternal obligations requiring that I not embarrass or discomfit my own child and this forces me to quench my own flames as much as can be humanly done. I must toss many mischievous schemes on the trash heap with considerable sorrow.
This has crossed my mind too, but was there much choice? Here in the US there is none. Rotten fruit on both sides. I wish people would look at the small parties, but then again, we can see from ongoing elections that what people want is being sidelined, pestered, by bribed puppets.
I understand that's because of Merkel gutting the CDU of its talent. Prrsumably to secure her own position or as I suspect to make her (feel) secure in a particularly female mode of in-group social competition.
they issue specific election party programmes, so this is not exactly up to date, but otoh they haven't issued any later 'basic programmes' either. this the only programme in English that I know of.
Thanks for that, I remember seeing it some time ago and it looked pretty attractive.
Sadly, at the outset of the war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the AfD reportedly issued a statement (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/germanys-afd-ditches-trump-over-iran-a3101b54 - may be paywalled, sorry) opposing the action against the IRI. This would put the AfD on the same side as Bernie Sanders and Hezbollah, so I have to wonder just how "far-right" the party really is.
Opposition to Iran war is almost universal to the German party spectrum: Greens to AfD remain more or less against with varying emphases. Support/neutral positions for Iran war not found on the right, rather in some liberal-conservative corners – including a few people in CDU, probably also FDP, including aligned journalists.
In the US, the primary support base for the war on the Iranians -- aside from the military-industrial complex, AIPAC, and Jewish billionaires -- is the neo-cons and neo-liberals, both of whom spring from a group of mostly Jewish Trotskyists in the 1970s.
After failing to take over the Democratic Party, most of them donned "conservative" skinsuits and parasitized the Republicans. They were well-established by the end of Reagan's presidency.
They were helped by the common belief among Republican politicians that anyone who had read a few books and could speak in complete sentences was a genius intellectual.
Real conservatives, of whom there are still a few, opposed the Iran adventure and the Ukraine fiasco from the start.
Merz is projecting. He is the reincarnation of Uncle Adolph. AfD are supposedly right wing? What a joke! In the Third Reich, as in the Soviet Union, Alice Weidel and her long term same-sex partner from Sri Lanka with whom she is raising two children without an adult male, in a US style "family," would have been condemned as degenerates and rounded up and sent to a re-education camp.
And the beautiful photo at the end of your post reminds us that temporary human insanity as you describe, is transient and that the power of life is far greater, more enduring and attractive than the machinations of so many people.
Thank you for the continued filter-free view of what is happening in Germany.
So Merz came within a whisker of calling the AfD Nazis outright. But he has done that before. In Feb. 2025, he said some local chapters were "National Socialist." Evidently this is fine under German law, but if I were a common German citizen and called Merz an idiot for this comparison, I guess I could be fined for it.
Exactly, so my question to our host is: can't the AfD use the law against lèse-majesté towards elected politicians in Germany to drag Merz (who I understand is himself a heavy user of the law) to court to be fined?
What is the man babbling about? It is moronic to speak about pre-Adenauer. Just before Adenauer we have the 4 occupied zones in 45-49, but he is clearly saying indirectly that the AfD is Nazi.
Adenauer described the SPD as the heir to Prussianism and national socialism and we truly see that today. Now that the CDU and SPD are pretty much the same and rule together, the CDU has gone full circle to what Adenauer despised. Today's CDU has nothing to do with Adenauer.
I have to wonder if anyone in Germany under 30 even gets the reference to Adenauer. In case folks don't know, he was the First Chancellor of WEST Germany after the war. He was responsible for laying the foundation to make Germany the "Wirtschaftswunder." (With help of the Marshall Plan).
As far as Merz? You might be giving him too much credit. "In my opinion," (added for my own protection against the German law regarding insults), Merz is not so much a feckless idiot, but a poster-child of the festering sore that is afflicting most National politicians; that is that they are so either isolated from real-world issues, or they consider themselves the top of the "Animal Farm" hierarchy.
Granted, from what I have witnessed, (again my opinion), his vapid responses, pandering and waffling on just about every issue exponentially illustrate that he is almost as clueless a buffoon as Olaf Scholz was. Olaf was even more of a dull tool in a rusty toolbox. (Again my opinion). The only difference between the two is that Merz tries to cater to the optics. Unfortunately, while he tries to view/present the optics with rose-coloured glasses, the rest of us working for a living only see the rising tide of stinking shit and increasingly collapsing infrastructure.
As for the MF'ing Greens? (Again, my opinion). Those buggers have never held a shovel, done a day of work in their lives, crikey Bernie Sanders would be proud. The only compost they have ever made is that of the German economy.
I wrote about this previously at the last election when I was confronted at the local REWE by a CDU stand. When asked who I would vote for, I told them I could not vote because I'm an American Citizen. The young pup, around 30 yo, if I had to guess, asked me who I would vote for if I could. I said it's immaterial, I can't. If wishes were horses… the AfD. He then went of on the whole "saving democracy thing." (Where have I heard that before?) To which I responded, how is it "saving democracy" if the concerns/issues of many voters in the "system of democracy" are being ignored? What aren't the other parties noticing the will of the people and incorporating the issues into their platforms? Isn't that how "democracy" is supposed to work?
The entire cast of our political theater of Ourdemocracy is so obviously incompetent. They cannot even lie convincingly.
This suggests to me that the real power players (whoever they are) have completely lost interest in Germany. It is actually quite terrifying: Germany is being treated as disposable and simply cast aside.
My little corner of Austria flipped from Social Democrat (SPÖ) dominance, to 41/42 towns in the district voting for our “far right” (FPÖ). The Communists and Greens lost most of their support.
Similar stories elsewhere in Austria. And there will be similar stories across Germany too.
People are developing the courage to refuse to wear untruthful labels.
The UK is heading in a similar direction, with the righteous rage over the murder of a white teenager being criticised as right wing racism. Our government is desperately trying to head off our Reform party, which has been attracting support for among other things its immigration policy.
unlike the afd in germany your reform party is just another side of the same coin...
Agreed. Pure containment.
We saw throughout Our Plague Era how easily people sacrificed their children for social acceptability. Perhaps this stark tragedy will make them remember a parent's first duty.
"It is a very bold strategy to set about winning these people back by calling them a bunch of genocidal Nazis."
Ya think? One of my own little enjoyable reveries is of encountering the sort of small talk one does, in a social setting, and replying to questions about how I spend my time by saying "I'm in my fascist years now and find them quite enjoyable..."
I ditto 😂🙌 I’m similarly responding with “well it seems I’m now a fascists, nazi, right-wing extremists and have all the “insert current phobias here”.
Lo before there were Substack comments sections there were letters to the editor and I wrote them relentlessly to our regional newspaper and then my son started reporting how many people he knew would ask "is that lady who writes those letters related to you?" Interesting situation for him.
My goodness kudos to you! Part of gifting a strong upbringing I’d say.
Among the things I'm proud of is having always made clear to him, from the earliest reasonable age, that I did not expect him to share any of my own beliefs or attitudes if they did not ring true for him.
The only downside is you'll have to dress well. It isn't fascism if you are in leggings and a hoodie. Hugo Boss all the way.
hahaha good one, Bad Fairy. 😆
This is why I started declining all invitations from my son to attend occasional functions with his colleagues. I don't know when my self-control might give way.
I have none (or rather, often find myself unable to care enough about the feelings of idiots to bother exercising it) and so have likewise said similar things.
"Yeah, no, I know, I'm a horrible racist and fascist, maybe if you scream it at me a couple more times I'll start agreeing with your positions on things. No, never mind, that won't happen. I no longer value your input enough to pay it any attention."
I mean, I guess one could say that I'm burning bridges by being that brutally dismissive of people, but honestly, by that point, I think the span is already fairly well ablaze.
Fate has made me the face of the Peasants' Rebellion every place I've ever worked or volunteered at so I have becomethed quite hardened to the scorn of others.
But I also have maternal obligations requiring that I not embarrass or discomfit my own child and this forces me to quench my own flames as much as can be humanly done. I must toss many mischievous schemes on the trash heap with considerable sorrow.
Yeah, not saying you should give in, just that I *very* much understand the impetus.
Motherhood brought out in me undreamed-of capacities for self-restraint. But I must often hit "refresh" these days.
Selfless and heroic of double agent Fritze Merz to torch his public image to help the AfD to more votes. The bravest man I ever knew.
Gobsmackingly stupid move by Mertz, but is that not his trademark? How did such a colorless, clueless and uninspiring man become Chancellor?
The same with Queer Starmer. Such a loathsome, soulless man. I would say Merz has more of a personality, but the bar is extremely low
Brainrotted retards voted him in (the anti-AfD-coalition)
This has crossed my mind too, but was there much choice? Here in the US there is none. Rotten fruit on both sides. I wish people would look at the small parties, but then again, we can see from ongoing elections that what people want is being sidelined, pestered, by bribed puppets.
I understand that's because of Merkel gutting the CDU of its talent. Prrsumably to secure her own position or as I suspect to make her (feel) secure in a particularly female mode of in-group social competition.
She chose poorly.
The same can be said of DavidLammy
eugyppius, do you know if the AfD's current party platform/program is available in English?
their 'basic programme' from 2017 is available in English:
https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-12_afd-grundsatzprogramm-englisch_web.pdf
they issue specific election party programmes, so this is not exactly up to date, but otoh they haven't issued any later 'basic programmes' either. this the only programme in English that I know of.
Thanks for that, I remember seeing it some time ago and it looked pretty attractive.
Sadly, at the outset of the war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the AfD reportedly issued a statement (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/germanys-afd-ditches-trump-over-iran-a3101b54 - may be paywalled, sorry) opposing the action against the IRI. This would put the AfD on the same side as Bernie Sanders and Hezbollah, so I have to wonder just how "far-right" the party really is.
Res publica Islamica Iraniae delenda est.
Opposition to Iran war is almost universal to the German party spectrum: Greens to AfD remain more or less against with varying emphases. Support/neutral positions for Iran war not found on the right, rather in some liberal-conservative corners – including a few people in CDU, probably also FDP, including aligned journalists.
In the US, the primary support base for the war on the Iranians -- aside from the military-industrial complex, AIPAC, and Jewish billionaires -- is the neo-cons and neo-liberals, both of whom spring from a group of mostly Jewish Trotskyists in the 1970s.
After failing to take over the Democratic Party, most of them donned "conservative" skinsuits and parasitized the Republicans. They were well-established by the end of Reagan's presidency.
They were helped by the common belief among Republican politicians that anyone who had read a few books and could speak in complete sentences was a genius intellectual.
Real conservatives, of whom there are still a few, opposed the Iran adventure and the Ukraine fiasco from the start.
I assumed they just referred those interested to Mein Kampf, lol
I can't get this out of my head every time I see your Chancellor.
HA!
https://tinyurl.com/bdftn2fj
Merz is projecting. He is the reincarnation of Uncle Adolph. AfD are supposedly right wing? What a joke! In the Third Reich, as in the Soviet Union, Alice Weidel and her long term same-sex partner from Sri Lanka with whom she is raising two children without an adult male, in a US style "family," would have been condemned as degenerates and rounded up and sent to a re-education camp.
please refrain from comparison between uncle adolf and that mollusk.
Does Herr Merz ever have anything positive to report on the future of Germany, or does he spend all his time bad-mouthing the opposition?
Great commentary Eugy, don't let these idiots off the hook until they are off the public payroll and flipping burgers somewhere.
And the beautiful photo at the end of your post reminds us that temporary human insanity as you describe, is transient and that the power of life is far greater, more enduring and attractive than the machinations of so many people.
Thank you for the continued filter-free view of what is happening in Germany.
..... huh? ... oh that view of the Baltic Sea.... I just forgot about everything.
Hang on, I will re-read
So Merz came within a whisker of calling the AfD Nazis outright. But he has done that before. In Feb. 2025, he said some local chapters were "National Socialist." Evidently this is fine under German law, but if I were a common German citizen and called Merz an idiot for this comparison, I guess I could be fined for it.
Exactly, so my question to our host is: can't the AfD use the law against lèse-majesté towards elected politicians in Germany to drag Merz (who I understand is himself a heavy user of the law) to court to be fined?
What is the man babbling about? It is moronic to speak about pre-Adenauer. Just before Adenauer we have the 4 occupied zones in 45-49, but he is clearly saying indirectly that the AfD is Nazi.
Adenauer described the SPD as the heir to Prussianism and national socialism and we truly see that today. Now that the CDU and SPD are pretty much the same and rule together, the CDU has gone full circle to what Adenauer despised. Today's CDU has nothing to do with Adenauer.
I have to wonder if anyone in Germany under 30 even gets the reference to Adenauer. In case folks don't know, he was the First Chancellor of WEST Germany after the war. He was responsible for laying the foundation to make Germany the "Wirtschaftswunder." (With help of the Marshall Plan).
As far as Merz? You might be giving him too much credit. "In my opinion," (added for my own protection against the German law regarding insults), Merz is not so much a feckless idiot, but a poster-child of the festering sore that is afflicting most National politicians; that is that they are so either isolated from real-world issues, or they consider themselves the top of the "Animal Farm" hierarchy.
Granted, from what I have witnessed, (again my opinion), his vapid responses, pandering and waffling on just about every issue exponentially illustrate that he is almost as clueless a buffoon as Olaf Scholz was. Olaf was even more of a dull tool in a rusty toolbox. (Again my opinion). The only difference between the two is that Merz tries to cater to the optics. Unfortunately, while he tries to view/present the optics with rose-coloured glasses, the rest of us working for a living only see the rising tide of stinking shit and increasingly collapsing infrastructure.
As for the MF'ing Greens? (Again, my opinion). Those buggers have never held a shovel, done a day of work in their lives, crikey Bernie Sanders would be proud. The only compost they have ever made is that of the German economy.
I wrote about this previously at the last election when I was confronted at the local REWE by a CDU stand. When asked who I would vote for, I told them I could not vote because I'm an American Citizen. The young pup, around 30 yo, if I had to guess, asked me who I would vote for if I could. I said it's immaterial, I can't. If wishes were horses… the AfD. He then went of on the whole "saving democracy thing." (Where have I heard that before?) To which I responded, how is it "saving democracy" if the concerns/issues of many voters in the "system of democracy" are being ignored? What aren't the other parties noticing the will of the people and incorporating the issues into their platforms? Isn't that how "democracy" is supposed to work?
The answer? "But the AfD are all Nazis" SMH
The entire cast of our political theater of Ourdemocracy is so obviously incompetent. They cannot even lie convincingly.
This suggests to me that the real power players (whoever they are) have completely lost interest in Germany. It is actually quite terrifying: Germany is being treated as disposable and simply cast aside.