Video: "Yes, we voted for the Nazis!"

The German "protest party" AfD (Alternative for Germany) and the neo-Nazi NPD appear to be joined at the hip: the voters make few, if any, distinctions between the two.  In the last elections the AfD emerged as the leading political party in east German state of Saxony-Anhalt, while the Nazis made surprising inroads in the supposedly more enlightened western Geman state of Hesse.  The ARD TV news program Kontraste sent reporters to to both areas to find out what the voters were thinking.

What they learned was disturbing.  Have a look at these "protest voters".

So the one voter visited Buchenwald and didn't see any gas chambers: voting for the Nazis makes perfect sense!

What is amazing is that these citizens all complain that the refugees are getting preferential ("bevorzugte") treatment, but yet can't cite any examples except that they were forced to wait longer at the hospital or clinic to see a doctor.  

They complain about all the crimes committed by refugees, yet can't explain why the statistics show that crime is down.  The crime statistics must have been fabricated by the "Lügenpresse"!

What is clear is that these voters are all animated by one thing:  racism.

We have a good description for folks like these in the United States:   Trump-Voters!

Comments

[Zyme]

Phew David, I first double-checked whether this was an April 1st posting.
I actually watched that video, hoping against hope that its content would be surprising.

Are you serious? You look behind so many curtains when analyzing literature and politics, are you really willing to remain on a first glance level here?

If you want to find out why the AfD has been so popular, the last source you should look into are the media whose very leadership is defined by the old parties. Trusting their AfD-analysis is like asking a Turkish public news anchorman, whether Erdogan seeks to limit freedom of speech in his country...

Maybe - just maybe - the success of the AfD has something to do with the fact that Germany did not have a Chancellor focused primarily on German interests for a very long time. The last one may well have been Kurt Georg Kiesinger (who lost his office in...1969!).
Wouldn't changing this be lovely? I can see no other party apart from the AfD which would provide us with such.

[David]

Does the AfD even have a political platform? What to they even hope to achieve, except incite more hate against foreigners?

And wasn't Kiesinger a member of the Nazi Party?

[Zyme]

In many areas of politics the AfD still has to define itself.

Which is another point it has in common with the early Green Party for example. When there is a few fundamental positions fueling your movement, you will only come to other areas over the course of time.

However one thing is clear already: They would focus on German interests primarily. Which is not a moment to soon, to put it mildly.

Kiesinger? I guess he was, like millions of others doing a great job in the second republic. So?

[KR]

Kiesinger's testimony that he did not realize until World War II was nearly over that “something ugly was happening to the Jews of Europe” while being a deputy leader of the radio monitoring department of the Nazi Foreign Ministry is disgusting. Klarsfeld did it right when she slapped him in the face.

[koogleschreiber]

@ Zyme
Once again you are talking about 'German interests', but until now I have no idea what you mean. You say, the AfD 'would focus on German interests primarily' unlike other parties which fail to do so. Is the AfD really right where all the others are wrong? I say: German interests must always be in second place. The primary focus must always be on .... what? Let's see if you are Vulcan enough to guess what it is.

[Zyme]

@ Koogleschreiber

Of course here you go, this is what I mean in examples:

a) When a Russian government seeks to address Ukraine's alignment to Europe, I would supply Ukraine with state-of-the-art weaponry and train their army so that they are a decent match for Russian irregular troops crossing the border.
If this doesn't help, a phone call informing Putin that Belarus's Western part is now in question might prompt Moscow to reconsider.

b) When US governmental agencies are caught spying on German citizens, companies and government, I would clear embassy buildings suspected of conducting espionage in those very rooms and smoke out those hideouts.
As a result of the scandal, I would instead provide US officials with a building at the city's outskirts until they have been able to convince the public that these wrongdoings have ceased.

c) I would readily welcome Austria's initiative in sealing off the Balkans and join Austria's interior minister when she says that we need a "Festung Europa" to protect our realm.

d) In the long run I would get rid of Nato and the American influence going along with it. Instead it would better serve our interests to find central European partners and found a new alliance with them (or use the European defense mechanism already in place). Of course this would implicate significant spending increases regarding our armament. However if a country as rich as Germany cannot provide for its own security, who could?

Now I am at a loss what your primary focus (in contrast to German interests) might be. Are you one of these people who think a document containing our constitution is more important than our interests?
A document which even starts off with a blatant lie ("hat sich das Deutsche Volk kraft seiner verfassungsgebenden Gewalt dieses Grundgesetz gegeben")?

[koogleschreiber]

Responsibility. It not only defines the extent of the authority exerted by any government (or individual), but also its interests. Remember what happened when we had a self-proclaimed caretaker of German interests with absolute authority but not the slightest responsibility?

You would smoke out embassies suspected of conducting espionage? Diplomatic, exterritorial entities? Is it your own idea or one of the 'German interests' the AfD would focus on primarily?

[Zyme]

I agree to your point that responsibility is important. However, don't you agree that we have gone all the way from irresponsibility to a total lack of insistence in our foreign politics?

The points mentioned are my ideas of course. And no significant party in Germany apart from the AfD would ever walk this path. Maybe the others simply can't help it, as they have all created their political DNA ahead of 1990.

Germany no longer is the divided country occupied by foreign victors. This obsession with our popularity abroad must end. To put it blunt:
Everybody's darling is everybody's Depp.