cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/25151353

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.09-095416/https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germanys-far-right-afd-tops-poll-first-time-blow-chancellor-in-waiting-merz-2025-04-09/

BERLIN, April 9 - Germany’s far-right AfD party topped a major poll for the first time on Wednesday in a sign of growing dissatisfaction with mainstream parties as chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz seeks to seal a coalition government deal.

Support for Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which won the February 23 election, fell by five percentage points to 24% while the Alternative for Germany (AfD) gained three points to land on 25%, according to the Ipsos institute’s poll.

The AfD came second in the election, the best performance by a far-right party since World War Two.

  • helmet91@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    What did these people smoke?! Seriously! Especially in light of what’s been happening in the US. Like there’s a scandal for every day since that idiot stepped into power; how can the nazis get even more popular? Or what kind of poll was that? One made by Russia?

    Rhetorical question, it’s one of those things in life I’ll never understand.

    • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      I guess this questions also reflect back to the politicians: What the fuck do they think, trying to maintain their status quo? Do they not see that complacency ruined the DNC over there? Do they really think they can survive by maintaining a fascade while patting themselves in the back?

      • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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        7 days ago

        They aren’t even maintaining the status quo. The coming German government is planning on doing a lot of what the AfD wants, notably halting practically all immigration and cutting down what’s left of social welfare. The only remaining question is, why should people vote for the watered-down copy when they can vote for the original instead? They’ve been trying to copy the rhetoric and policies for years, but it hasn’t been working (in terms of not making the AfD even bigger) and there’s no reason to believe that it’s going to start working now.

        • mumblerfish@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          The same strategy was used in Sweden. Say they are right in their worldview, adopt very similar policies. All the rightwing parties (christians, liberals, conservatives) except one now collaborate with them and defend them.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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        6 days ago

        A society that does not accept the blame for the actions of its own people has no hope of changing the course in a positive direction.

        • angrystego@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          A society that does not accept the blame of not being able to curb the pressure of foreign propaganda also has no hope.

    • solo@slrpnk.net
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      6 days ago

      I just wrote a comment to a person that said we should kick out fascists. Copy-pasting it here:

      I would like to add that we should also kick out capitalism and representative democracy out of the way because fascism is a byproduct of both of them.

      Capitalism, when in crises uses fascists to restore its status quo and this is how they get elected in parliaments. We can now tell with certainty, that all the worldwide measures/reforms that took place after WW2 were not effective. If they had been, fascists would not be on the rise everywhere.

      There are plenty of alternative systems of organising societies for the benefit of the people, they are just not promoted by the media, this is why we don’t hear about them as solution. I often use the example of kings to illustrate my point. During their era, everybody thought that this system could never change, but it did. So we can do this change as well. Actually we have to.

      • Bigfishbest@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        You seem well read and would probably agree that capitalism will climb or remove any barrier. The post war years that gave the boomers the biggest part of wealth creation in history was the result of policy that has since been dismantled bit by bit until we are once again back at the conditions for war, Fascism and social division.

      • helmet91@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        I don’t think capitalism has anything to do with this, especially in Germany.

        It’s pure lack of education and common sense.

        • solo@slrpnk.net
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          6 days ago

          I think it’s capitalism in crisis specifically, because during crisis common people may turn to leftist ideas, so in order to prevent that, capitalists promote nationalim and fascism as better alternatives to leftist ones. Of course, I could not pretend to be able to resume all parameters in one sentence.

          Apart from that, and if I got you right, I am surprised you mention that for Germany it’s the lack of education. I was under the impression that since WW2 there was a lot of effort through education to avoid specifically the rise of fascism again. Did I get this wrong?

        • punksnotdead@slrpnk.net
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          6 days ago

          Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.

          https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas

          Capitalism most certainly has everything to do with this.

          Capitalism robs the workers of most of their value and siphons it up to the owners. We then end up with, those who have far far more than they need, and those with not enough.

          The internet allows us to communicate and see these injustices easier than ever before and the Arab Spring brought home to those in power just how powerful the internet can be. It is now aggressively being used against us to promote ultra capitalism and fascism in an attempt to prevent communism/socialism proliferating. And frustratingly, so far, it appears to be working.

          • Bogus007@lemm.ee
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            6 days ago

            The fact that capitalism cannot be blindly blamed for everything is shown by the example of Switzerland, which I would say is THE example of capitalism. Have you ever heard of a war in Switzerland in the last 150 years or that Switzerland is in crisis?

            I also do not understand why helmet91 is being downvoted, as the user neither attacked someone directly nor said something generally offensive. However, downvoting helmet91 just shows how heated people are, losing common sense, and suggests that he or she is probably right.