Well, the past few years proved that.
had a conference with 50% trans/"non-binary" speakers,
It is aptly named Rust. They're the rust on humanity.
Yea? Remember 2015? And yet here we are, 9 years later and nothing has changed.
Things changed from the "center-right" openly being pro-immigration to even Ampel trying to pretend that it is anti-immigration. This doesn't mean they are, any more than the Union is, but it moves the Overton Window and it makes things previously taboo to be normal now.
Their strategy is to keep the AfD small with tricks (e.g. spoilers like BSW or giving citizenship to hordes of foreigners, "Geheimtreffen", Verfassungsschutz), cheats (e.g. software errors) and eventually a ban.
I don't think it will work. I can hardly imagine that they can possibly be that stupid, but given the fact that this is how the American establishment is dealing with Trump, it's not impossible.
The AfD is just a vessel. They don't crush opposition even if they do ban the AfD. They will just be at war with their own population, which is not bad because it will further discredit them.
Do they? Even without doing anything at all they're polling in first place nationwide.
And they're losing a lot of people who'd otherwise support them even while they, as you say, pretend to be anti-immigration.
The CDU is still staunchly pro-mass migration. Again: Merz's speeches are just PR and not representative of what the party is actually doing where its in power. The people in power behind Merz are still fully in the Merkel camp.
Yes, I'm not naive to think that the 'party leader' is actually in charge, especially when what he says goes against elite consensus. But even so, it is far superior to have anti-immigration be the mainstream and the majority (even if they just pretend as you say) than for it to be the fringe position of the "Nazis" and the "center-right" being the openly pro-invasion party.
Talk to the average normie about whether they think the establishment is totalitarian. They want to keep the normies on their side, which is unfortunately not very difficult when you are incharge.
There is no mess, and I'm not downplaying anything - when I made my comments, I wasn't even aware of the possible veto. The establishment got its ass whooped. The people who are disappointed had unrealistic expectations, and are basically hoping for a miracle.
Will they work together? They'll try. But like I said, you just need to look at the governing federal coalition. Three parties that are basically the same party, only charged with defrauding different groups of people, and they still do nothing but infighting.
Now add two parties that at the very least pretend to be anti-immigration and antiwoke, and what do you think the results will be?
I'm not sure they can actually do that at the state level. But even if they do, just refound the party under a different name. They'll gain nothing while exposing themselves as the totalitarians that they are.
Unfortunately, they're too smart to do that.
Our strategy has many problems, but I don't think "not ostracizing family members" is the cause of its lack of success.
If someone is insufferable, cut him off. If someone is dangerous, cut him off. Other than that, there is no harm in being an anchor of sanity.
I've never encountered anyone like that in real life. Most leftists are leftists because they repeat what they see on TV.
Most shitskins put family above everything. I don't think there is anything I could do that would make my family turn its back on me.
Even though Trump supporters have nearly all the guns.
Almost everything I see coming from these types reminds me of that Stonetoss cartoon where a guy has put them in concentration camps and says "honestly, we weren't planning on it but they wouldn't stop punching us".
Quite unfortunate. However:
All other factions - CDU, Left, SPD, BSW and Greens - now have a two-thirds majority and can change the constitution and fill judges' seats without the AfD.
This is excluding the FW fellow, right? This means they'll all have to follow the same line. It's going to be hard even if it were just these guys. Just look at how difficult it is for just the FDP, SPD and the Greens. Multiply that by a hundred and that's the result of this coalition.
That's the reason why Germany is doomed: people are falling for liars like Blackrock Merz. Even here it seems. He likes to talk big, especially before elections, but words are cheap.
Politicians are liars. I take that as granted. The question is: why has the Union moved from 'wir schaffen das" to demanding an immigration emergency.
It's because they keep losing. And they will continue losing unless they do something.
If you really think Merz had a change of heart
I don't know the man. Given that he is a politician, I'd say he has no heart and only calculations. The calculations at the moment is that it's very bad to come out in favor of immigration. That is a win in and of itself: to go from Merkel winning on a platform of "wir schaffen das" to anti-immigration parties making up a large majority.
It's all theater to deceive voters so the establishment can keep doing business as usual.
They will certainly try, if they can get away with it.
Sure, other left-wing parties lost some percentages but their main goal has been achieved
Their only goal is self-preservation. They believe in nothing.
It's not like CDU+BSW are going to do things differently than the red-greens
This may be true in an unconstrained situation. But here you have a situation where the AfD is breathing down their necks. They will have to.
I don't think there's any chance BSW will cooperate with the AfD. That's wishful thinking. They've said they wouldn't.
Politicians say a lot of things. It's so easy for them to evade what they said. The people have spoken. Or, now there is no other way.
And I don't think they have the fortitude to stand up the the barrage of attacks that the media, Antifa and the state would direct their way.
This may be true. It seems to be worse in Germany than even other European countries.
Very based.
I think of that Air France flight whenever I see 'Concord'.
They will hide the numbers, but not out of embarrassment. They are shameless.
This isn't Merkel's CDU, this is the CDU of a guy who called immigration a national emergency.
Worst case scenario is that anti-immigration sentiments are becoming even more mainstream politically, and a lot of CDU/BSW voters will defect next time to the AfD when they fail to deliver.
In a parliamentary system, this is a crushing defeat. You do not need a majority to make life almost impossible for the establishment parties.
Of course there's work to be done. The fact that even a single person would get out and vote for the establishment which has been destroying everything is sad.
They're stupid if they did that. The combined AFD+BSW vote is now greater than the AFD alone would have been. Hell, it looks like an absolute majority in Thuringia.
The BSW is against the regime on all the stuff that matters to them: immigration, wokeness, endless support for getting Ukrainians killed. They're left-wing on issues where all European right-wing populist parties are left-wing: economic issues.
I hope they try. The AfD will be refounded under a different name and reach new heights of popularity (see the Flemish party as an example). It would have been far easier to do this before the AfD became the formidable force that it is today, and they didn't do/try it then.
Why? Because it is against their interests. This will only damage the regime.
Too little, too late.
They're talking about 'deportations' of illegals, who aren't supposed to be here to begin with. To make any headway, they would have to deport all the people and their descendants whom previous German governments foolishly gave German citizenship.
I also think that they will exclude the AfD from a coalition, because the AfD has been demonized far and beyond any European populist party - and it's Germany.
Likely, CDU and SW (if they reach a majority) will have a coalition that will carry out the stuff that the AfD wants to take the wind out of its sails.
Second most likely is that they will say "the people have spoken" and flip-flop on not co-operating with the AfD like the parties in NL did.
That hamburger ain't fascism.