One-fifth of German voters now support a party that all others consider too extreme to govern with.
I don't believe one-fifth of Germans are fascist/racist/any other -ist, but they are concerned. It's time to have the uncomfortable conversations that voters demand.
https://open.substack.com/pub/theleopardeu/p/the-liberal-blind-spot?r=9o9b5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I don't believe one-fifth of Germans are fascist/racist/any other -ist, but they are concerned. It's time to have the uncomfortable conversations that voters demand.
https://open.substack.com/pub/theleopardeu/p/the-liberal-blind-spot?r=9o9b5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Comments
We absolutely SHOULD stop coddling them.
Alternatively, we could throw a 'hug a Nazi' party. Maybe all they need is a good cuddle. Bless.
At the end of the day, calling people thick and bigoted makes us feel good, but it rarely solves the problem.
You are a bigot
- “you’ve given no evidence against X, just assumed it, and in fact I have reason to believe X is true”
- “you’ll never win an election saying X!”
👆this sleight of hand is always available but it makes you look absurd. It’s embarrassing.
is this how grown-ups discuss matters of state? come the fuck on. what are we doing here.
it's to make them feel unwelcome, convince others to treat them as unwelcome, and hopefully get them to shut the fuck up
It is apparently the liberal worlds duty to help facilitate Fascists cutting our throats
When can I move to Germany?
most xtians will tell you god is what makes them good, therefore muslims cannot be good.
calif tried to get legal slavery out their constit and failed
most of us are shitty people.
Is there something wrong with you?
Don't concede the narrative. Don't give them an inch. They cannot be appeased, only opposed.
We need to confront this bigotry.
Yes at the root, but also at the branch, the flower, and the fruit.
We certainly haven't seen any of those before. Very original. Very challenging and edgy. Great work. Have a little badge.
Policing the language that's used to describe racists, fascists and bigots only helps them.
What I don’t recall is how do we call people who defend bigots… can you help me??
Hmm.....
No.
If someone hates Muslims so much they'll support the ethno nationalist party, then they should be called bigots and everyone else should agree their opinions should be ignored.
https://bsky.app/profile/sunanda.bsky.social/post/3liwl3x2brk2e
Maybe being accurate in calling people what they are would help?
Do you think bigotry is acceptable and something that should be normalised?
This bizarre idea that if you pretend bigots are not bigots they'll stop being bigots, where do you get it? Like is all of this new to you or something?
Or are you lying?
Me I'm a bit over "seeking to understand" because it's just normalised it all
Fear, low levels of education, contribute.
🤷🏼♀️
A decent education offering, from governments, would reduce it.
A lot of voters may not themselves be racist, but will vote for a racist party if it's the only one that will address those concerns. It's those people we need to understand.
What you need is tarring and feathering. Racist bastard.
There are two concerns. One is a logical fallacy that conceives of immigrants as labor supply that adds no demand, and racism.
And I hate to break it to you, Sam, but those voters voting for racists and racist policies....are racist.
NO THEY JUST HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT MIGRANTS
which ones?
"Oh you know the ones"
what are your definitely not racist concerns about migrants.
What we need to understand is why we're debating a racist, self-immolating nationalism rather than fixing the country.
Objectively, immigration is good for economies. Legal immigrants pay far more into the system than they take. 1/
Shut up, baldy
that makes them racists, samuel
So the voters are clearly racist.
Here's a Klan Campaign from 1923 about immigration: The Menace of Modern Immigration!
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/2976522
People consider it racist, because it is racist, dork.
The *only* reason migration is a concern for anyone is racism and/or bigotry. That's it. That's all it has ever been.
*Note: I DO NOT BELIEVE that anyone's existence should depend on their "usefulness" to one group or another. I only mean to point out that there is no legitimate non-racist reason.
If it walks like a Nazi, and if it talks like a Nazi, it’s a motherfucking Nazi.
“Far right” political alliances are motherfucking Nazis. Full stop.
America’s former Republican Party is now the MAGA Nazi Party.
Also your framing of legitimate concerns is false. It’s all racism.
Its been rammed down our throats for decades now that this is the most important thing in the world.
And I think that becomes quite obvious when you consider that the same people voice no concerns about white immigrants.
See? See how monumentally stupid your thesis sounds?
We don't need to understand ppl who vote for racists. If that's not a red line for them, they are racist trash, too.
Trump pointing at legal immigrants: THESE FUCKIN ILLEGALS ARE EATING YOUR DOGS!
They talk about "coming here the right way" but demonize asylum seeking, which is a legal form of immigration
Are you just ignoring the "Great Replacement" rhetoric, too?
Going “well that guy might be monster but he’s going to get rid of the brown people” is how you get Trump.
I mean, people are naturally concerned about immigration. Just organically. Just a thing that people in, say, Montana, care a lot about for Reasons. No racism here.
I agree that continuing to shout people down as bigots is not the solution, pretending this has nothing to do with racism is also a non-starter.
Got damn, get a clue.
I dare you to say "Come here legally" and then blow off discussing 9/11 immigration laws.
"If you think there is a migrant problem, then you either ARE a bigot, or you're so gullible that you've been manipulated by propaganda to believe in a problem that only exists because we made it impossible to come here legally."
i'm concerned that migration instincts aren't going to keep up with climate change and it may be too late for many more
So, no.
People vote for extremists when they feel they aren’t being treated fairly.
People are not born with those feelings, they are learned behaviors.
Either cough up the tax money to pay for their deprogramming and years of therapy, or get out of the way.
Or help us deal with them.
It’s tiring and best ignored.
Some people are bigots! Validating their bigotry, unsurprisingly, only makes them more bigoted!
Funnily enough I wrote about this: https://www.theleopard.eu/p/you-cant-say-that?r=9o9b5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Behavior is what matters. I don’t give a fuck what people think. I care HOW THEY ACT.
You're starting with your assumption - that bigotry is obviously *just wrong* - and interpreting it only as a slur.
If you want to use academic language, you can say "Authoritarian" rather than "Racist/Fascist".
Negative associations are unavoidable - if you feel ways about WWII - but it's as neutral as can be otherwise.
I'm glad 80% aren't, but it's a little farcical to think the country that was 100% Nazis 80 years ago is 0% Nazis today. You'd have to be a naive fool to genuinely believe that.
The problem is that you don't believe that 1/5 are fascist.
America tried the "Let's just give them the benefit of the doubt" for the last 20 years.
And this year our innauguration opened with a Nazi salute.
If you coddle them, they WILL take over.
People better wake up and realize that this type of hatred is normalized this way, there are that many out there and they are recruiting while people debate if they are serious or exist🥲
By legitimising their concerns as related to what the far right is telling them, it allows the real causes to continue unchallenged and unaddressed.
So no, we don’t have to engage in the way you’re implying.
Hate to break it to you but people have been gladly killing, marginalizing, and ghettoing people forever. You don’t need to compromise with them. One does not negotiate with the cancer.
Why is it so hard to believe when it is a constant part of history?
we already know that education is the kryptonite to populism.
this is not complicated.
Get fucked you nazi apologist.
https://www.scottsantens.com/the-hidden-reasons-authoritarianism-is-growing-and-how-to-reverse-it-ubi/
I've been far more threatened by Christians and their extreme homophobia far more than I have an immigrant or Muslim.
They only party with significant gains was die Linke, who positioned themselves in complete opposition to the AfD.
I’d actually like to see a mainstream party make a positive case for immigration.
#UncomfortableConversations
This is me engaging in respectful conversation and seeing to understand, which you claim to want.
CDU, CSU, Freie Wähler, FDP, BSW, SPD and the Greens campaigned on varying degrees of racist attitudes.
Sure, there are actual problems with migration, eg no care for mental problems, but most of the campaigns were exclusively about deportations.
It doesn't stop being bigotry because a certain proportion of people agree with it, Sam.
https://www.freiheit.org/mexico/limits-tolerance-poppers-paradox
What you're saying is that even if the reality is that 20 percent of Germans ARE racist, that you've made a conscious choice to ignore that because it makes you uncomfortable.
You've decided feelings outweigh facts.
"concerns" of the not racist, not fascist fifth of germans :
immigrants, trans, wokes, Jews, Roma...
Sounds like “that” conversation isn’t actually very important
Fucking Nazis
You know what we call them now?
Fucking Nazis
So, that means you're here defending fucking Nazis while publishing on a platform that is VERY cool with platforming Nazis
Good job
That's weird, given that one-fifth of them voted for AfD.
And surely there are some fascists/racists/other-ists among the non-AfD voters as well.
Yes they are.
When they tell you who they are, believe them.
I do, but thankfully for the rest of Germany, that's quite low. Here in the U.S., it's about 2/3.
The same broken logic was tried in 1930 from the conservatives, to try to moderate the Nazis.
It's actually insane seeing in real time, history repeating itself *exactly*.
https://bsky.app/profile/zincsaucier1.bsky.social/post/3lgb6ughnik27
GMAFB Sam.
But now, by so much time has gone since ww2, many dare now to say what they thought the whole time.
And its getting worse.
Greetings from Germany
-Sam Wilkin in 1932, probably
Remarkable.
If you think you can have a 'reasonable conversation about reasonable concerns' with racists and bigots then good luck. The rest of us will call them what they are and work with the 80% who aren't.
How many of those fine, upstanding people paid with their property and lives by 1945, for their willingness to take the fascist and racist minority seriously?
How much are you willing to pay?
We quite reasonably think citizens voting for a party means they generally support its program in broad lines. Why an exception for today's far-right parties?
E.g. would you doubt Harris voters to be (broadly) liberal or NSDAP voters in 1933 to be fascist?
also we never get this shit for the left. gotta work with people who believe in universal health care, they make up a good percentage of society
And I think you should know that the left prefers to avoid harmful ideologies
bro wouldn't know "observable data" if it was sitting on his face
Sorry, dude. If you voted for a nazi, you're a nazi.
I'm sure the 80% would want a reasoned debate on their own important issues, rather than wading through the ill informed bile of the AfD.
Have a great day.
But you bang on about how this (sizable) minority need to be listened to more than the majority.
Keep banging the AfD cymbals, if it makes you feel better.
Say like never.
Get lost, dumbnuts
The reality is that the economy is shit. Trying to play with the far-right ideas on immigration is a losing platform and yet moderates keep trying that. Germany has been in recession for 3+ years.
Jesus Christ read a history book!
(by which i mean it is extremely urgent to not give it time)
I forget how it ended though, probably important
Wilkins is rationalizing.
But if a survey finds that a majority of LGBTQ+ people perceive a *particular* threat from within the Muslim community, isn't that a valid concern?
If most LGBT people are islamaphobic, that doesn't inherently say jack shit about islam.
Many WW1 German veterans believe Jews and socialists stabbed them in the back. We must investigate
The answer to the question "Is
And 20% isn't a majority.
-you, right now.
But any survey that asks about queer people's views on how scary Muslims are, but not on how scary Christians, Jews, Hindus etc are, either has an agenda or will be gleefully misinterpreted by racists.
Carolyn Bryant's threat assessment will always be completely irrelevant when it comes to what actions should be taken against Emmett Till.
Swapping which bigotry you focus on doesn't change that.
I'm a gay man and I know many Muslims and don't see a greater threat from that religious group than any other.