Germany's far-right AfD maintaining its lead in the polls

I thought Germany had laws banning fascist parties?

Take a lesson from Canada. Someone put it in Trump's head that he needs to step in and support AfD.
- Musk already went there and did that.
- Just start saying trump supported them. They won't bother to check.

It's really unbelievable how stupid people are. I mean, if the inhuman ideology of these damn Nazis isn't enough to put you off, then at least one look at the States should be enough to make you realize how incompetent and corrupt they are.
- We want change! Usually the only options are neoliberalism, which has failed us completely, or that new shiny fascism which allows us to vent our anger at minorities. We honestly should start building communes while we still have a bit of freedom.
- Something that comes out after guys like Trump have been in power is the voter regret. When asked why they voted for him they usually say the same 2 things: Either he was the only one talking about stuff the voter cared about, or they figured he would “shake things up” and/or change things. Note in that last part, the voter doesn’t really care what’s going to change or how it will happen, they’re just sick of the status quo.
  All of this is to say that yes people are stupid, but that also holds true the politicians who’ve been pedaling the status quo, or minimal change, for generations and ignoring the growing anger of people who’ll eventually vote for craziness in the name of “change.”
  
  they figured he would “shake things up” and/or change things.
  Well, sure, but in this case it's like getting annoyed at the soup always being too salty at the cafeteria, and switching to cat diarrhea instead... Sure, it does "shake things up" and it may even be less salty, but come on...
  
  Also center left parties deliver right wing policy, demotivating their voter base
  
  There is usually also a general lack of education and awareness involved how much worse things can get.
  
  Here's my problem with the latter. "Shaking things up" can only be the better option when things are completely in the shit. Like nothing is ever going to change, ever. But some voters (especially rural, low-information voters) seem to think it's always the best idea - that no matter what, the person who "shakes things up" is better than a more measured candidate who seems to have ideas, even if they're not great. It's infuriating and I can't give them a pass anymore.
- People are stupid. But when history is taught without a perspective of historical materialism they are so often unequipped (even if educated) to understand the incentives of these types of white supremacists (German supremacy).
  Fascist can lie and hide behind liberal ideas. Fooling liberals unequipped to recognize them. So AFD can shout "Germany for Germans" and they still won't realize what it means. They see themselves as "German". But we all know that definition narrows more and more as fascist take power.
- In my experience people like that don't read international news at all. They only read a highly editorialized view of national news too (e.g. BILD and similar "news"papers or the equivalents online).
- It's not stupidity. It's desperation.
  It's very much an easy/west split in Germany, and the fact is the east is still feeling the effects of soviet control. What works for the richer west is not working in the same way in the east because the problems are different.
  When you're hurting, more of the same isn't a rational option.
  
  Aka killing the golden goose to get more eggs.
  
  However, the AfD pursues a largely neoliberal economic policy and will therefore not do anything for the socially disadvantaged or for East Germany. But this fact is effectively disguised by the constant slogans "Foreigners are taking jobs away from Germans" and similar nonsense.
  In this respect too, the AfD is quite similar to the MAGA people and, strangely enough, both are especially popular with the socially disadvantaged who vote against their own interests.

This shit is truly horrifying
The lessons of history aren't being forgotten, they're being used by those as a guide for how to do horrible things better this time around
- Not only that, but they aren't even hiding it anymore. If this is truly what people want than we are fucked as a whole.
  
  It's showing just how fucking horrible people can be
  This is why I like my dog so much

The other parties have refused to work with the AfD.
Though, the CxU's oath is as valuable as my 5 year old self swearing I didn't eat all of the candy.

Parteiverbot. Jetzt.
- Einfach. Nächste.

- Well, they are rebooting everything else, so why not some of history's worst atrocities, they were such a world-wide success last time...

One thing that tells me that most people don't understand history is people's defense of Germany not being antisemitic anymore is that "they support Israel".
Like, the state that planned to ship off all Jews to Madagascar as one of their "solutions" to the "Jewish Question" is in support of a state that says it is "the only safe place for Jews?"
It's an entire country that learned literally all the wrong lessons from its history. The AFD and even "liberal" parties in Germany are using "defense of Jews" (when they really mean defense of Israel) as a reason to oppress and otherize immigrants within their country. Literally the same "they don't belong here" shit the Nazis did.
They absolutely will turn around and start oppressing Jews as "nongerman" as soon as they are done. Do not be fooled by these fascists lies. They will have zero concern for Antisemitism as soon as they are done using it to opress anyone that is critical of Israel.
The AFD defends Israel just long enough until it becomes acceptable to ask "well, why can't we have our own Ethnostate like Israel does?". This is absolutely where this is going. These people believe in a German Ethnostate. They are taking the steps that can to get there. And that begins with using immigrants as their target first. But it won't end there. It never does.
- I wouldn't say that Germany learned "all the wrong lessons", there was probably more of an effort to critically examine history in Germany than in most other countries who still revere the times when their own atrocities happened.
  However, Germany did two things wrong, they learned an overly specific lesson "never again should Germans do something this horrible to Jews" rather than "never again should any group or individual do something this horrible to any other group or individual" and the emphasis was also often more on remembrance rather than examining how it started and how we can prevent the same thing from happening again.
  Meanwhile most other countries seems to have skipped even that little bit of effort and gone with the comforting "look how evil Germans are, this could happen in our country of good people (TM)".
  I would say better effort than most countries but still not enough to push it all the way through to the lesson all of humanity needed to learn.
  
  Germany did two things wrong, they learned an overly specific lesson “never again should Germans do something this horrible to Jews” rather than “never again should any group or individual do something this horrible to any other group or individual”
  Nope, we're very much aware of the distinction. The first foreign deployment of the Bundeswehr was based on the latter.
  The AfD surge is about the other parties' structural inability to deal with the actual issues people face, in particular economic uncertainty. Feelings of political powerlessness. It's accelerationist shit.

I'm sure locking people up for wrong think is really helping the Democratic politicians. What happened with Trump winning a second term & AfD can be fixed, but requires acknowledging & fixing the broken systems that elevated it. If one party is already acting like fascists, then don't act surprised when it causes other forms to rise.
- Their downfall is actually precisely the opposite, they are so afraid of appearing like fascists that they dragged out the decision about banning of this fascist party until it was too late and never even considered banning the media that makes up pretend problems like immigration when in reality we are fucked without immigration due to our age distribution here.
  
  So you think banning other parties & the media you don't like is the solution against fascism? The irony.

When led to believe that the only options are the status quo and fascism people choose fascism, how unthunkable!
- You don't understand!
  I'm too smart, I would never fall for that again!
  
  Voter who fell for it three times in the last 6 election cycles