The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has gained ground in three recent state elections, caused an uproar in the Thuringian parliament and triggering another debate on whether to ban the party outright.
I mean I do think banning them is a good idea, and in general I think nazis should be taken on helicopter rides, most especially the enablers of nazis, their financial leash handlers which basically bootstrap them into these positions in order to push the dialogue further rightward in service of corporate interests, and probably also in this case in service of “geopolitical security” since we’re going to be seeing oncoming climate refugees in the coming years, and combatting that in any way but increasing the security apparatus is off the table.
More than that, though, I worry that realistically just banning them, though a great temporary measure, won’t do much, say, five years or a decade down the road, because it’s not gonna solve the core hypocrisies and discrepancies that neoliberalism is not so keen to solve. If you want to actually solve this problem long term then you need to combat those core problems. Instead, though, I think that probably the party being banned will just see them either form a new party, or else tone down their rhetoric to an acceptable degree, or just join the next furthest right party and then decide to push them further right, and so on and so on, until we’ve all collectively just shifted rightward to an incredible degree.
Ad nauseam, et cetera, regardless of the political apparatuses at work, until collectively the western world plummets towards fascism.
So, for the sake of argument, if AfD is banned would they not just became a paramilitary group?
What’s to stop them from devolving into something more ‘nefarious’ if they are stripped of political power?
What stoped the kpd? Or the groups that wanted to rebuild the NSDAP? Would you rather have them pull the strings instead? I mean yea a ban could be dangerous, but letting them take over the justice system, the finances and police of Germany seems like a horrible second option.
Oh I’m not advocating for letting them remain in a position of political influence.
I’m asking what mechanisms beyond simply banning them will need to be implemented? I’m thinking banning them is only a bandage solution.
Well there are mechanisms that should keep Nazis in check. Unfortunately these positions in the police and secret service are full of Nazis :). We’ll see
The ease with which they can build such structures would go down. Building while hiding is harder than building while not having to hide.
Having central coordination, for example in the form of a party or some other form of organization, means that strategic goals can be planned for and resources acquired and allocated in a more efficient manner. The previous bigger neonazi party, the NPD, fulfilled that role for quite a while.
Organizations and people are not that interchangeable for these purposes. Workflows, institutional memory, leadership all matter. That’s why targeted assassinations of leadership even in cell-like structures can meaningfully disrupt e.g. terrorist organizations’ effectiveness. Similar things can be accomplished by simply disrupting business-as-usual.
I’m guessing they’d still be under observation after they get banned because of exactly that and I also think there’s steep step between political engagement and serious criminal activity.
But that gets decided by a court and as a German I think the judiciary is the most trustworthy of the three powers. I think if it even comes to that they deal with the motion in a sensitive way.
I am not a German, so I appreciate you explaining that to me. As an American I’d love to say the same about our judiciary.
We, Germans, cannot allow 30 Jan 1933 to 08 May 1945 to repeat itself. Also, the communists in “Die Linke” can go straight to hell with the neo-Nazis.
Fuck you trying to separate the left. That’s what happened last time and that’s what didn’t work last time.
Nah, Russia’s fuckbuddys can go straight to hell regardless of their political side.
Didn’t they largely leave to join the BSW querfront? I actually don’t know the numbers, but at least some of the more prominent RF aligned people left the Left.
Tankies are not communists
What are you talking about lol
History moron and there are plenty of idiots that would allow it to repeat itself.
or sell thüringen and bayern to the lowest bidder…would work for me.
LOL! The damn Austrians would snap up Bayern. As far as Thüringen goes, break it up equally for the neighboring provinces to govern.
Exactly what we need: more social division. Good job.
Social division is quite the euphemism for racism.
The nazis thought they did a great job uniting society, but then again so did Stalin and Mao.
a the centrist has appeared. leftists, nazis…same thing.
Sorry for not condemning roundabout 15,5 Million people by default. You’re making it seriously easy for yourself.
But keep throwing labels to void others’ arguments. Reminds me of far right methods.
Whenever you squash a community of cockroaches, they tend to scatter and infest nearby communities.
It is nearly always a much better strategy for them to have their “safe space” so they can be more easily identified and de-converted. Being able to pick off the lightly/conveniently indoctrinated is extremely helpful, as it prevents them from being radicalized like a wholesale community squashing will do.
FINALLY. And to everyone who is like “tHiS wiLl MaKe ThInGs WorSe!!11” or “bAnNiNg ThE pArTy WoN’t hElP”. SHUT THE FUCK UP.
These are LITERALLY Nazis. Even more than the US Trump-Rep’s.
And since Russia is not willing to throw 25 Million People on them again and is much more keen to join them, since they are heavily involved with the AFD:
-https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/putin-afd-zusammenarbeit-100.html
-https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/petr-bystron-afd-russland-100.html
-https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2024/kw15-de-aktuelle-stunde-russland-afd-997398
-https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2024-04/afd-russische-regierung-strategiepapier
I’m not willing to take any chance on that. We have Laws for EXACTLY this scenario, time for our government to grow a spine and starts protecting democracy!
We did it once, we can do it again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Reich_Party
If discourse and argument fail to quell the intolerant, a tolerant society must be willing to use censorship and even violence to defend itself. If we let them trample all over our values, tolerating them for the sake of being the “better person”, we’ll be the better corpse sooner rather than later and history will remember us “Look how nobly they did nothing!”
If our history is ever written, that is.
I think their party should be banned and all funds currently donated and accounts related should be redirected to counter facism efforts and education.
They banned NPD and AFD happened.
All you’ll get is a new party filling up the political vacuum and their audience being even more die-hard radicals.
In a democracy where some 30% vote nazi, banning them won’t solve anything. Anything.
No, I won’t shut up, because you and people like you are part of the problem. If you think the solution is to jail and ban your political opponents, I got bad news for you.
Nearly everything you said is just plain wrong:
- The NPD never got banned (supposedly because the party was “insignificant”).
- They renamed themselves “Die Heimat”.
- If banned, a follow up party from the AfD would be automatically banned too.
- You make it sound like 30% of Germans vote AfD, while they get that many votes mainly in the eastern states.
- You talk about democracy and call Nazis “political opponents”. I got news for you: Those fascist scums’ only goal is to get rid of democracy, sell Europe to Russia and maybe start a third world war.
So keep on talking as much as you like, everyone with half a brain can see right through you.
ah, ok, tell me please, what exactly do you see right through? I wanna know. For research purposes. (And to report it to the headquarters, so we could improve our sabotage operation).
I guess he was just polite, assuming someone making all those false claims would at least do it with some purpose.
Oh yeah, that last implication certainly is full of polite implying. I’m honored.
You know what I see? Someone who’s afraid that their world order will change. And their solution is “lock them up while we’re in the majority”.
You know what I also see? A failed German re-unification, extreme arrogance of the west Germans towards east Germans, a bouquet of additional socio-economical problems that have been ignored for decades. And a consequent voters’ revolt.
And their solution? Tell all those angry people that they’re nazi and their problems will continue being ignored. I’m sure that will solve it.
The party in question, AfD, is fuckin scary. They, in fact, are openly nazi. And, yet, I promise you, banning them and continuing to ignore the underlying issues will only make things worse.
– Your Polite But Malicious Kremlin Bot
There is nothing to add. Well said!
Most of your points were already correctly dismantled. But I’d just like to ad to
In a democracy where some 30% vote nazi, banning them won’t solve anything. Anything.
Is a sentiment I often feel too. I believe that we have to do so much more to fight against Fascists than just Vote and “use the democratic system correctly”. (I.e. fight fascism in the streets, offer actual political solutions to peoples problems…). But to say this won’t do anything is a huge understatement.
Banning the AfD will:
- Disband the party leaving them in shambles to reorganize
- Stop the money flow which is going to the AfD (and in turn to other right wing groups
- Finally delegitimize the AfD and their main actors in a Democratic setting
A ban would be an amazing feat but it would just be a little breather in the fight against fascism.
You can only ban them if they seriously threaten the democratic order. Which some of their members might claim to want to do, but so far the whole party hasn’t shown much of action in the direction.
If you do ban your political opponents because “now they need to reorganize and won’t get money”. You will only strengthen their point that the current democratic order cannot be trusted and that their voters are ignored by the system. You will turn 10% of hardcore voters and 20% of rebel voters into 30% hardcore voters.
And then good luck to you with having any democracy whatsoever. Or do you plan to maybe institute a special democratic police and jail everyone with antidemocratic views? What about jailing some 30% of a certain region of your country? How do you imagine this will go down?
Yes you can only ban them if they threaten the democratic order. Or to be more precise:
