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Far-right AfD win in Germany is ‘grave moment’ for Europe, politicians warn
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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AfD winning is a grave moment for Europe, but nobody should be listening to mainstream politicians about anything since they're half the cause of this mess.
More than half, if you're talking about centrist/conservative politicians.
The other half belongs to their rich backers.
This is playing into pro-AfD propaganda. "Mainstream politicians" didn't suddenly change and become less competent than before.
The re-emergence of fascism in the West has nothing to do with the failure of "mainstream politicians" to address problems. This is especially true in East Germany, where living standards have risen dramatically since the fall of communism.
Maybe, but they're less restrained due to the death of radical labor. There's a reason social welfare in most of Europe develops to more or less its current state between 1945 and the 80s and just stops there.
Actually increases in standard of living have proportionally basically the same in all of Germany since then, but also that doesn't make the housing crisis or insane energy prices sting any less. Radical politics in general takes off due to a perception that the mainstream politics isn't doing the job.
That's largely because social democrats did what they set out to do and delivered on their promises, which left them questioning what was left to do. In essence, the social democrats are victims of their own success.
That's not to say European social democracies are some kind of utopia (nor that I personally think there is nothing left to improve), but they are still the strongest economies in the world. There is emphatically no economic reason that explains the recent surge in popularity of fascist parties.
That relative increase in HDI is more impactful when starting from a lower value. Sure, there is still a gap between West and East Germany, but it's much less than it used to be. The development of unemployment rates especially has been a dramatic improvement.
Housing prices and living costs are especially high in places like Munich, Frankfurt/Main and Hamburg... where the AfD is especially weak. The AfD is strongest in areas that are the most affordable.
Exactly, a perception. And where does that perception come from? Before the 90s, media were dominated and curated by intellectuals. Nowadays, they are dominated by racist and fascist hate speech. And this obviously benefits racist and fascist parties.