To be fair, Germany is still far better off than the US or some other European countries. In the national election that just happened, the far right party won about 20% of the votes and the (traditionally) centre-right party won while moving further to the right. That said they're still about as far right as the Democrats in the US.

It's just that Germans are on alert about the rise of fascism and are raising the alarm bells now, before the fascist actually take over control.

in fairness, Germany's right-wing CSU/CDU could just as easily form a coalition with AFD. It is unique that they're still willing to stand by their principles and work to cut AFD out of the government, going as far as threatening a ban. The American Republican Party jumped into bed with the fascist Tea Party immediately, without hesitation, and rode the Trump train.

I still don't expect the new centrist coalition to materially address the underlying economic concerns that are driving AFD support, and it seems likely that they'll be too big to ignore by the next election. A future centrist L, if you were.

I don't want to start a war or anything but as someone from neither the USA or Europe, Europeans online often come across as even more exceptionalist than Americans, despite the reputation to the contrary. Because, at least in leftish or liberal spaces, no one is more ready to shit on and call out the USA than Americans. And I don't mean they're anti-American or whatever, they just want their country to be better, so they call out all the shit.

Europeans on the other hand often seem more proud and / or defensive about their countries. Maybe they speak openly in their own country specific communities but I don't get the sense that they're as open and friendly to outside input or criticism as the Americans are.

The way I see it, we're all hooked onto the same stream of memes and billionaire owned news sources everywhere across the world. So thinking we're immune to being overtaken by dangerous alt right nonsense and ignoring all the obvious signs would be a very stupid move, wherever you are. If they're not taking this seriously, they're doing exactly what the Americans did and have done since 2016.

"Centrists stand for the status quo, they would never change for the worse."

"What if the worse is the status quo and normalized with decades of propaganda and brainwashing?"

"That could never happen!"

Average centrist L.

Centrism is just seeing an elephant about to step on a mouse and trying to make a compromise.

to be fair, this is the image the center parties have and upkeep. I, as a farly left person, already question if this seperation to right extremism will still be upheld in 4 years. Our Center-right partie CDU falls more and more for populist rethoric, which reminds me of the republicans or the toris.

So what you have been told is not wrong per se. But there is a significant amount of people in the country and politicans in the parlaiment, that argue the seperation between right exremism and center parties did already collaps behind the scenes.

Whoever told you that was the one with the tiny brain. This is fucking scary and we have had warning signs for decades. /a German

Definitely not true. It sounds like you are German and if so it is pretty sad how little you keep up with your own election even though it happened just a few days ago. There are more AfD voters in eastern Germany but most Bundesländer have >18% AfD votes.
People tend to forget that Hitlers NSDAP only needed 18% in 1930 and a rigged election in 1933 to completely take over the country.
Coping doesnt get us anywhere. Its not always "the others" that vote far-right. Its the whole country, the educated just as well as the uneducated, the poor and the rich. Almost everyone has family members or friends that vote far-right and we need to talk to them, try to understand their motives and make them understand that AfD wants to make everything they fear 10 times worse.

Yeah, sorry, but that is like looking at the map in 1930 from these ones and saying "the NSDAP voters come from East Prussia only, don't complain about the Nazis in Germany!"

The shit AfD voters come from the Oklahoma and Mississippi of Germany, Thuringia and Saxony.

That's only kinda true. The east has way more Nazis, but just because the AfD is stronger there with 32% of the votes, doesn't change the fact that 18% of West German voters voted for them too.