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Absolutely agree, but the reason why they turn to AFD is because they literally have no trust in any of the classical parties. I think it is more of a longing for an underdog or almost a poker move - just bet everything on that (unfortunately rather racist) card because maybe they'd change something. It's already going down the drain if we continue the way we have continued for the past decades, so let's try something very new. Maybe we will have luck in this Russian roulette.

Now, this is stupid af. I would never in my mind consider AFD as an actual option. But for a lot of people it feels like this is the only Fuck You they can give the current government (I am including the CDU/CSU in this definition of "government" too).

Basically all other parties are moderate-middle at this point. They have some small differences but none of them actually fight for the working class, for underprivileged people, and basically all young people know they are or will be underprivileged. Yes we have a left party called Die Linke, but they have been notoriously busy with themselves and a split because a big chunk of the party was circling around Sahra Wagenknecht who was very controversial and shared some far right ideals. Maybe they will get a grip of themselves and become "vote-able" again in the future. But honestly, I'm not sure they are really left either.

When you basically vote for capitalism, either way, just in different shades, it feels like your vote does not matter. Desparte people turn to desperate and stupid measures.

For real, we don't have an actual, valid socialist party. I honestly wonder why. Most young people are so fed up with how things go. Yes we don't want to work anymore. Why should we? To get fired at random when a company goal isn't met? After we studied engineering for 8 years to get minimum wage +1€? To be part of a company that produces the 35th version of a shit emoji cushion, well knowing that we create a bullshit product that just unnecessarily wastes resources? So we can partake in killing the planet? So that we, after we have been fired for no reason, have to fight to collect unemployment for a short period of time, before we are being forced into a bullshit job under threats? So that we work full time until we are 70+ to hardly collect any retirement? When we have kids, we are supposed to not see them but give them to childcare asap to reenter the workforce. For all that bullshit. So I honestly wonder why there isn't a real socialist alternative to the classical parties. I have a very big feeling that a lot of young people would gladly jump over.

I think that "division of society" may be a euphemism for non-ethnically-homogenous society and friction resulting from that. I've seen similar uses before.

You did leave off the last one, flows of immigration. Still, that's only 1 out of 5.

Are German history classes shit? Do they not know what happened the last time a right winger got into power after inflation?

Same thing in Canada.... How did Trudeau manage to affect Germany so much?!?!?

Guess they buy into the simplistic views shouted by the far right.

People are not good at critically evaluating options and don't have the time or attention to do so. Not a knock on young people, pretty much everyone in 2024 has divided attention 24/7.

So we turn to heuristics, ways to short-circuit decision making. Like looking at what arguments experts make, how often we hear arguments, who is the most confident, etc. Those are easily exploited by right-wing populists.

My observation:

They position themselves similar to classic revolutionaries - they claim to be the counterpoint to the "establishment" or to the "out-of-touch elites."

That's pretty tempting for people who don't like the direction the world is heading in. Most don't see or don't want to see that the AfD is chock full of the exact people who rule them from the top down, police their opinions and take away their personal liberties.

What's tragic is that, historically, a left wing group would normally find itself in the position the AfD is holding now. Yet here we are, after 50 years of slowly shifting rightwards until the social contract began breaking, with a party that offers a harsh jump further right as the revolutionary cure.

They're either very selfishly shortsighted or dangerously sarcastic.

Vienna is certainly a great example for public housing done right, but I don't see how it's relevant to the post. As far as I'm aware, Austria's problem with right wing populism is even worse than in Germany.

Nah man, I agree. Many liberals (especially young) have this mindset of punishing people for "wrongthinking" instead of educating and getting them on their side, that shit only further radicalizes moderate people into the polar opposite of what you want. I've had this discussion with people before and it seems a lot of people either have a hard time telling the difference between unwitting ignorance from acts of bad faith or they just don't care at all and think anyone even a bit right from them needs to be in a shallow grave. I feel like this aggressive behavior is part of the problem of why so many people are getting "redpilled" into the far-right.

After living in left and right states for many years, there is a stupid amount of common ground over stuff like solar, right to repair, rent control and housing, railway infrastructure, healthcare costs, quality careers and compensation, education costs and more.

We might see something like solar for different reasons (climate change vs. energy independence), but there's ways of rephrasing a solution to have it both ways.

The only thing that really seems to get in the way are petty online disagreements that then snowball into stuff like accusing people of shitting in litterboxes, hypothesising that gender diverse people started an international war or accusing people of genocide because their underwear was just revealed to be made in a super repressive country. That's the noise that prevents us from getting shit like bullet trains in or healthcare costs drawn down.

People are so touchy about being judged, so ready to be insulted. It all works in favour of the authoritarians.

Sure, we need to talk out the terms and agree on things, but that only works when people have open minds and critical thinking. In the meantime the epic struggle is between those who work, and those who own.

All the quibbles about left and right, about borders and morality, about identity, is distraction from solving the problems of fundamental disparity.

Basically, living in a kleptocracy sucks. Owners vs workers, authoritarians vs egalitarians: these are the real battles.

There's no way you call yourself "super left" or "radical left" and identify with the term "liberal".. Liberalism is the polar opposite of "radical left"

elitist, college liberalism ideas

liberals are becoming way more rude, aggressive. Elitist,

young privileged, college liberals who look down on everyone

That smells an awful lot like ring wing indoctrination 101:

1. Restating several times to drive home the claim that liberals are elitist, aloof, rude, "looking down on everyone"
2. Claiming "they" are being aggressive and nasty against super polite people only a little bit to the right
3. Therefore joining the far right is a well-deserved act at getting back at these nasty liberals

.

You wrote two and a half paragraphs that are essentially just liberal bashing. My experience is that liberals are the people who don't judge you for personal choices, who reach out a hand even if you're worlds apart.

With a bit of digging, I turned up this: https://simon-schnetzer.com/trendstudie-jugend-in-deutschland-2024/

Kinda unprofessional for them not to link it in the actual article.

There is currently a massive movement against the far-right in Germany

Revently a meeting was leaked, where the AfD went just mask-out-the-window and openly talked about deportation (They call it "Remigration") of German Citicens who are the children of immigrants.

After that the vague threats to society have become tangible for a lot of people. Now an ever increasing ammount of the general public is turning against the AfD, who is further slipping into fascism as a reaction, prompting usuql fascist infighting and splitting.

Unlike in the US our judicial system is not quite as bad, but, with all things German, burocratic processes are quite slow. Also a lot of parties dont want to cooperate with the AfD in any regard, even the center-right (CDU) is having issues.

From the outside it looks bleaker then it is in reality, but the danger is still very real

I compared these numbers to the general population (Source: https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/ )

Support for the far right AfD is about 5 percentage points lower than among the general population (12% vs 17%)

For the conservative CDU/CSU it is 10 pp lower (20% vs 30%)

For the Social Democrats it is 3 pp lower (12% vs 15%)

For the liberal FDP it is 4 pp higher (8% vs 4%)

For the Greens it is about 4 pp higher (18% vs 14%)

For the Wagenknecht alliance, a weird mix of far right and far left, it is about the same (5%)

Unfortunately this article doesn't mention the socialist left, which for the general population sits at around 3%

So, to conclude (and from my own experience) youths in Germany don't deviate that much from the general population in terms of their political views. They tend to be less conservative and xenophobic. Most of them are somewhere in the center, having slightly more liberal tendencies than the general population.

Die linke Split into two Parties where one is useless and the other .. Well... we'll see. Problem is that the far right is just Very good at making TikTok content atm.