This party is among the most extreme in Europe. To protect our democracies, liberal parties must urgently change their tactics, says Cas Mudde, author of The Far Right Today

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/70552672

But 44% of the vote for a party that is officially classified as “extreme right” is not normal. It is a black day for European democracy, even if it occurs in a small east German state.

…

While Saxony-Anhalt (and Germany itself) may have dodged the worst outcome because the AfD won’t automatically fulfil its ambition of forming the first far-right state government in Germany since the Nazi era, there is no reason to assume it will be so lucky at the next election. Neither will other German states, such as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in two weeks’ time, or other countries, such as France next year. No country is immune from the far right and, perhaps even more worryingly, no far-right party or politician is too extreme for political success (as the US has shown). We must therefore update our analyses and strategies.

edit link removed because it is “highly unreliable”

  • 2pNza@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    24 hours ago

    I guess people who can not start normal life because of cost of living are so frustrated that they vote for them… Apartament prices are part of that I guess. Maybe lets support right-to-housing.eu as a solution for it…?

    • supersquirrel@lemmy.caBanned from communityOPEnglish
      2·
      21 hours ago

      The ruling class always makes the same fatal mistake of believing people who condescendingly have been denied meaningful help for decades will act reactionally when provided the alternative vision and opportunity to burn it all down, damn the consequences.

      I don’t know if it is irrational in a way though it usually ends up being a self immolating act for the desperate and poor, we are talking about human beings here, agency and free will are burning fires within us and given enough abuse that fire can be twisted into a rage that just wants everything to break around us in an enactment of a fantasy of eruptive “justice” coming to the people and systems that inflicted that suffering and denial of agency. When you corner an animal, instinct kicks in, we are no different.

      This is why neoliberalism leads to a collapse into fascism, it locks society into a place where help is condescendingly denied continually while the narrative that neoliberalism is superior to conservatism (which is true) is used to beat any criticism from the left into submission.