Jfc, this comment section is a cesspit. Looks like the fascist have come out of the woods today 🙄
We failed educating people.
Germany has a stellar education system. Former East Germany skews very conservative because of overcompensation from the days of the imperialist-with-communist-dressings-DDR. You see the greatest support for the AfD in Thuringia and Saxony.
Liberal governments failed people by assuming that their status quo policies weren't alienating younger generations.
It's being actively failed, it's a tactic to make the lies more effective
It's so easy not to be a gigantic far-right cunt. It's so easy.
Makes no god damn sense.
We need to understand what causes them to be receptive to this kind of radicalisation. Understand the root cause and then mitigate the root cause.
If i had to guess, the right offers classic masculinity and certainty in the belief system. The world is good or bad, and it is easy to know which is which.
Meanwhile the left is basically everything but typically masculine, and makes little effort to appeal to men in its rethoric and demands (in fact, i personally believe the surface level hostility towards men is incredibly harmful to the cause and should be adjusted for less antagonistic language).
If i was a teenager today id probably feel very lost myself. Being a man is no longer "good", men are oppressors and part of the partiarchy now, and previous male role models are dated without an alternative available. So where does that leave a confused adolescent?
I'm sure that's a big part of it, but there's also a massive cost of living crisis and a lot of straight up gaslighting in regards to immigration. I'm willing to bet if there was a left wing party that addressed a lot of those issues you wouldn't see the same shift rightward.
I once called out quite specific misandrist statements, you could assume they might have disagreed with the evaluation. Instead, they straight up jumped to calling me a dangerous misogynist when my entire political and social stance is openly opposite. In the aftermath I read on their social media increasingly unhinged rants how only single rare exceptions of men are not perpetrators. Not surprised the left alienates large demographics, even their own allies.
The left has a lot of hostility in general. Towards men, towards centrists, towards white people, and towards the right.
As a centrist, it's really disappointing to see, because at this time when the right has dropped the ball and sacrificed stability and moral soundness for power and populism, we need the left to be welcoming people with open arms, educating them, and encouraging voting in general.
Instead, there's scorn and rejection, and denial of that scorn and rejection if it's brought up - or even just doubling down on "they deserve it".
And so, they feed their opposition, because they can't take the time to find a common ground. Being seen to be "the right one" is more important to them - and they'll "win" their way into a hole.
Is it the left's fault the right are like an infested cricket hopping to its watery demise? No. But it's their fault they rely on the easy lies of hate - that their position is morally superior, and so people who don't agree are shit. Anything you're accused of, just point at the whipping boy, and whip harder, because the right are so clearly wrong, you don't have to inspect your own life.
Eventually, people will wake up. ..or, one side will "win", and try to suppress the views of the other, which will eventually pop up again anyways, because of the duality in the human mind. In either case, after a while, we'll rinse and repeat.
Sorry to play devil's advocate here, and I don't mind if I get a million downvotes, but the causes are well-understood and have been for a while. It's easy to dismiss AfD voters as a bunch of uneducated, disruptive rubes while failing to see how much employment in Eastern Germany is different from the one in the West. If you have a university degree, you'll up and leave first chance you get because wages are so much higher in the West. Else, you'll try to survive for decades on a string of one-year contract-low-skill-jobs somewhere out in the woods, as this is completely normalized in the East. The influence, even the very existence of labor unions and works committees is greatly diminished, too, compared to the West. Inflation and rent hikes hit just the same or worse, though. Towns and cities are getting depopulated big time, especially de-womanized. People in the East feel left behind by common-run big-city politicians, and AfD has been filling this gap very systematically and effectively.
How exactly does AfD fill this gap??
They are uneducated. If they were they wouldnt vote for a party only profitting the rich, as shown by all their voting patterns. Whenever something is proposed to help poorer people they vote against it. If rich people only profit they vote in favour. If you want to change something there are more than enough non fascist parties in germany to vote from.
Social media. Especially TikTok
This is just the seed. You also need fertile ground, which is what OP is talking about.
The shorts format itself is an issue. It reduces complex issues and possible solutions to a few seconds of content. That is how the young people want to consume content. But they only thing you can do is oversimplified bullshit I'm that amount of time.
I suggest to read this in depth analysis.
That still doesn’t make it the root cause. You should probably read up on what a root cause analysis is.
I am well aware what an RCA is. The issue here is that the "root causes" like immigration fear and "the economy" are mostly fabricated or blown up.
The AfD pushes propaganda to young people. And to cite from the RCA I linked you
Younger people in particular can be strongly influenced by manipulation strategies and disinformation. They can develop problematic views of the world and people that run counter to basic democratic values.
You just surfaced 2 more adjecent layers, keep digging. I don’t know why you say you understand RCA when you stop after 2 whys.
The kids are being fed endless lies and you say the liars aren't at fault. Blaming the left instead exactly in the way the liars do. Like a fucking script.
Are you lost? Replied to the wrong comment?
Otherwise please explain where exactly I defended liars or blamed the left.
Dude, a huge part of my job is doing RCA.
And I don't stop after 2 why's. I gave you a link to a good analysis you could read. Or just ignore it....
I am also active in german politics for 20 years, and I habe done youth work for 10 years. I have gathered my fair share of first hand knowledge...
OP said we need to find and mitigate the root cause. Your reply was social media, and specifically TikTok.
The article you linked doesn’t come to the same conclusion you do. They specifically mention lacking critical thinking and media literacy skills.
You could also argue for more regulation for algorithms. Or more equality/equity. Or communication from other political parties that is tailored to young people.
But no, you just say social media = bad.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what you do. And I recognize that the current state of social media is problematic. But it’s not THE problem or the root cause.
You can not fix the limitations of a growing brain. People are getting influenced in a young age, damage that is hard to undo. We can of course limit access (at least in theory) to such content. And then we regulate what? TikTok.
While am RCA goes hast to be done until we either can not further because of physical limitations for example, we must fix the thing closest to the root that can actually be fixed.
Young brains must be able to develop fast. Social media and specifically the short content format have a massive negative impact on this development.
We always had far right propaganda. Social media is what allows it the flourish in the minds of young people, future voters and politicians.
I don't said that social media is bad or that social media is responsible for far right mindests.
I said: social media is the root cause for the electoral success of the AfD and other far right parties in Europe.
The root cause for far right movements is "the human being". Of course we could go in depth here about the natural fear of the unknown, and the support dorbfar right parties is higher in places where voters are less like to see "aliens" in their neighborhood. But also, this is here much longer and European youth was left leaning for decades.
So let's focus on what changed that those parties get so much traction with young voters. Answer: social media
we must fix the thing closest to the root that can actually be fixed.
Then maybe say that instead of pointing to social media as the root.
I said: social media is the root cause for the electoral success of the AfD and other far right parties in Europe.
Sigh…
So let's focus on what changed that those parties get so much traction with young voters. Answer: social media
Ok, now you’re just conflating correlation with causation. Also I’ve heard this before: TV and Video Games are to blame, Music is to blame, Newspapers are to blame, Books are to blame…
I’m thinking mental health is overlooked and a big factor in a lot of things. But I don’t see it as root cause. There are other things that contribute to good or bad mental health.
Yeah, there are so many issues with differing root causes that all feed into the symptoms we see in the main OPs article. If we don’t take care of all of them and just concentrate on the easiest target, for example social media, then something else will come along and take its place. Next on the chopping block: VR/AR and AI.
And a budget (like kremlins troll facrory)
It's the same thing it's been for decades, people just assumed that white people in wealthy countries were immune to it.
It's because they are fucking stupid, you know, just like America and everywhere around the world were people vote against their best interests.
It's because the other political content that reaches them is boring, cringe or not existant. The other parties missed their chance and are thinking too much and trying to be too correct to catch up.
God damnit
The center cannot hold and the right is superficially more inviting to young men.
The far right is the logical conclusion to the centrist rhetoric of the last few decades. It’s underpinned by the same ideas, whereas leftist ideology is fundamentally different. That’s to say, far right ideology isn’t more inviting only to young men, but also to everyone else who has internalised capitalist ideology.
I can see that from an American perspective. But in Europe we’re also very familiar with socialist centrism. In fact, the word socialism no longer has any meaning here.
I’m European too, and our left wing parties have all started sliding towards the right. Which ones of them are actually proposing anything outside of the current neoliberal framework?
socialist centrism
Do… do you know what either of those words mean????
Yes but European parties don’t
Ya know, i keep telling everyone--there just isn't enough extremism out there these days ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ kids just need something to believe in, why not their races supremacy over all others?
no ; its the socks.
Rules: