this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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Where did AfD voters come from, and where did they go? (www.tagesschau.de)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Even more voter movement charts.

Bonus: "Do you think Germany's economic situation is good or bad?"

not even asking about personal economic conditions, just the overall state there's a massive fucking difference in perception.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Who are those 50.000 that went from green party to afd? What kind of reason could there possibly be for that?

Also interesting how it's the same as in the us where the answer to "how's the country doing economically" vastly depends on your news sources since only a very low amount of people in Germany are out of work, the Dax is hitting multiple records in recent months, the economy is growing, inflation is going down and the unions are achieving raises above the inflation level

But for some reason all you hear about is the food prizes which actually didn't increase that much compared to the normal shrinkflation. Or everyone was portraying how there would be disastrous power outages after the switch off of the atomic generators but nothing like that happened. Or how Germany had the lowest inflation amongst most European countries despite having the biggest dependency on russian gas because the political decisions made where actually really on point.

But for some reason nothing of this is reaching AFD voters so they keep ignorant and think the economy is failing.

Kind of similar to how regions with the fewest migrants are the most racist since the media has full control over the scare tactics targeted at them without any reality interfering

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Who are those 50.000 that went from green party to afd? What kind of reason could there possibly be for that?

Misguided pacifists that believe that the AfD would negotiate a peace deal with Putin in Ukraine. I personally know some like that... who just barely stopped short of admitting they considered voting for the AfD because of that.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I would imagine those would go vote for the Bündnis Sarah Zarenknecht instead

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Sure, mostly. But especially in east Germany there are some with a deep aversion against voting for "communists", which is why they voted Green and not LINKE before.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

the Dax is hitting multiple records in recent months, the economy is growing, inflation is going down and the unions are achieving raises above the inflation level

Stock market figures only benefit the wealthy. It is an entirely meaningless figure for measuring the economic situation of a country's population.

inflation is going down

Inflation "going down" doesn't mean there is no more inflation. It only means that there is less inflation than before.

the unions are achieving raises above the inflation level

Only a minority of the German workforce is even represented by those unions, also, most of them barely managed to get raises covering the recent inflation. Inflation adjusted salaries in Germany have been stagnating and even shrinking for decades now, so whatever has been achieved by the few unions isn't really that impressive in the long run.

The reality of the majority of people in Germany is vastly different from what you are describing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Inflation “going down” doesn’t mean there is no more inflation. It only means that there is less inflation than before

Keep in mind that "inflation going down" is usually shorthand for the year-on-year inflation rate going down.
If the yoy inflation rate goes down from one month to the next, then prices are still higher than previous year but may very well have fallen since last month.

[–] Badeendje 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Massive difference in perception, or actual effects for the voters. Cause they seem to be mainly situated in east Germany.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

A lot of high earning people vote for AgD too

[–] Badeendje 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'll bet. I'm not German but I saw the maps of where the afd vote was geographically. And have some knowledge of German history so I asked the question in Ernest.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Hemington approves

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Might have a lot to do with the relative state of infrastructure and, generally, their surroundings.

That is, you might be personally fine off economically, but you're seeing abandoned buildings all over the place, the trams are run down, and the schools have leaky roofs because the municipality has no money because half of the population moved west and all the infrastructure is oversized.

Meanwhile, the stereotypical Green voter is living in a city driving their Cayenne to the horse pasture enjoying the quaint surroundings. (I mean of course you need an SUV you're towing the horse once every two years)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

That is, you might be personally fine off economically, but you're seeing abandoned buildings all over the place, the trams are run down, and the schools have leaky roofs because the municipality has no money because half of the population moved west and all the infrastructure is oversized.

Same thing in the West. Infrastructure is not that far behind in the East actually, so this is a bit of a myth. Generally German infrastructure has been suffering a lot over the past couple decades, also thanks to the 16 years of the Union not wanting to spend money on anything important. But I guess voters forgot that already.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

also thanks to the 16 years of the Union not wanting to spend money on anything important.

Actually that's way too short sighted, Austerity became German state religion much longer ago. Neoliberal sell-out and wholesale neglect of public property and infrastructure started under Helmut Kohl, and was seamlessly continued under Schröder to be equally seamlessly continued under Merkel and Scholz just went on with it, too. There is no large political party in Germany that is innocent of this crime.

Now that they have collectively sold out and run down the country and are doing little to nothing to remedy their past ~~mistakes~~ crimes, they are acting surprised that this is driving people into the arms of Nazi demagogues.

It's still deplorable to vote for the Nazi scum that is the AfD, but propaganda is a powerful tool and the Nazis are deliberately targeting those who have been shat on by the political establishment for decades by now. That their propaganda is a bunch of lies and they are only going to sell out the country and its people some more doesn't matter. People are stupid and easy to convince with propaganda. Keep in mind how the education system is a part of the public infrastructure that has been continuously and systematically neglected and sold out for almost half a century by now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Over here in SH urbanisation is actually reversing a bit. Only a bit, but on average villages aren't dealing with a draining population any more. Lots of really small places that have issues, but OTOH the people there drive regularly to some village populous enough to have a supermarket and see that it's quite stable. Just don't ever visit Neumünster.

And I also think that plays into the "great replacement" perception: There's a difference when a place of say 20k gets 100 refugees and that's it vs. getting 100 refugees and 1000 leaving to work elsewhere. Still nowhere close to rightoid conspiracy narratives, of course, but the incline of the curve looks quite different, it's much easier to spin a narrative out of such a situation.

[–] Badeendje 5 points 5 months ago

For east Germany it also does not help that within an hours drive you cross an arbitrary meaningless line but on the other side of it people will work for cents on the euro. So companies will not go where the higher wages are to be paid.

This also does not help the us and them rhetoric.

And yes, the left seems so hyperfocussed on migrants and citizens with a migrant background in their rhetoric that they alienate a lot of people that feel like they are not represented by that left. And this translates to.. so they are spending all the money on the brown people and nothing is left for us... While in reality everyone is fucked... Except a very small group.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's one of the problems of the Greens, they and their voters are largely a relatively wealthy urban bubble who see three trees and think that's nature. That's why a lot of their environmental policy is based on greenwashing shit like CO~2~ certificate trading and subsidies to new electric cars only rich people can afford in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

CO~2~ certificates don't attempt to greenwash, but to artificially give pollution a price. That way companies have a financial incentive to lower their CO~2~ pollution. And at the end of the day money is all companies care about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

The whole system is a joke if there's too many certificates around, though, for whatever reason.