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Scholz urges caution on potential AfD ban despite 'extremist' label | dpa international
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this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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I think the major concern is that there is a chance that the ban doesn't pass the constitutional court. Which obviously would be devastating and ultimately would legitimize the AfD. I'm all for initiating the process, but it has to be done carefully.
The AfD is already legitimized with being votable. It gets more legitimized with every position, every Euro of funding, every interview in the news...
Nobody that wants to vote AfD is discouraged by some nebulous idea that they might be unconstitutional. If they were unconstitutional they would be forbidden after all.
there is only one real shot at banning the AfD. if the courts decide against it, I assume it would be almost impossible to try again. That's why I can understand that people are cautious.
"being cautious" with the AfD is what let us here. Trying to "fight the AfD with political content" only led to taking their positions and strengthening them even further. Almost all parties in the federal parliament would rather let the AfD take over than address social issues.
So inside the current system it is the only option left to prevent the Fascist takeover.
The origin of the AfD is that a stable euro was promised but not delivered.
Better and more honest politics would prevent the AfD.
But the main problem is that the media provided the attention. The conflict is wanted by the upper class. To resolve the AfD within the system, alternative media has to be established.
Could you please elaborate how the euro is not stable? I don't really get that point honestly, although I know the origins of the AFD are mostly about being against the euro
I haven't found a good article that explains the early AfD position so I try to explain what I can remember.
The core should be that one currency for an inhomogenuous political entity is not a good idea. Usually, countries with weak industries can devalue their currency to offer their goods at competitive prices on the global market. This effectively means taking value from whomever owns money or receives wages that don't adjust immediately.
If there is only one currency, and if that currency should remain stable, somebody else has to pay to adjust the prices. This can be seen in Germany after the unification when there were additional taxes in the west to finance the east.
Now the promise to the Germans was that the euro would be stable but also that they wouldn't have to pay for it.
Economically, this doesn't make sense, as scientists had pointed out, but they were ignored. (Thus the original AfD, to have an alternative to the established parties.)
Now the euro is quite stable. So who paid?
You realize though that Afd moved on from that discussion about the Euro, right? Social issues, including those resulting from the introduction of the Euro are important, of course. But there were quite a number of social cuts and austerity measures that were fairly independent from the introduction of the Euro.
The thing that really propelled Afd was that foreign people look different though and thus work splendidly as bogeymen.
Look up target2 balance and the reaction of European countries to the special assets of the army.
The latter made people worry that interest rates could rise. In other words, German austerity was a tool to keep interest rates low for the countries in Europe.
Without the Euro, those austerity measures wouldn't have happened.
Everybody says this so it must be true. Why can't there be real frustration with the established parties and the media motivated enough racists to join. By constantly saying that the AfD is racist, it became true, which disabled the threat of a real alternative.
Real frustration exists.
That is bogus. The Afd was founded around the time the proceedings against Npd were under way. A lot of people jumped from Npd to Afd very early on. Early financing for Afd similarly came from outright fascists.
Leading politicians have left the AfD because the party became too racist. This means that there was a development.
I read that Lucke calculated that he could use the extremists but keep them under control. A packt with the devil.
I think that Lucke's plan could have worked if not only racists would have joined. Then conservative citizens would still control the party. Lucke losing the election was when the racists took over. The media made it impossible for regular citizens to join without losing face.
But this is a minor issue. It doesn't matter if the AfD was racist from the start or turned racist. It's the media that gave attention in both cases. Lucke's new party and many other parties like Volt are ignored. Why did only the AfD receive the attention to become relevant?
Those leading politicians were no longer leading when they left, they were forced out.
There was. Right-wing extremism was more covert first, then conquered the Eastern part of the party before taking over the entire party.
The relative non-extremists (supposedly) leading the party, Lucke, Meuthen, Petry, and even Weidel now, are part of a strategy of Afd trying to make itself more palatable to moderate voters while the bulk of the party is free to find their crowd among radicalized Covid protesters and neonazis.
You don't need to be particularly bright to realize that this couldn't work. Especially if a large part of your financing also depends on pro-fascists.
To a large degree because Afd are polarizing, populist, and came first (unlike Werteunion, BD, etc.), and thus were interesting. Volt is a mixture of FDP and Greens that does not do enough to gain notoriety.
[What I find is worrying is that a belief in a massive worldwide conspiracy that appears to underlie many of your comments. I don't believe in that and I don't think that's a sensible thing to believe in.]
So the covid protesters could have become the majority if they all had joined.
AfD was not first, remember the NPD. The NPD could have been equally popular or the AfD could have been equally ignored.
Surprisingly I donβt know and I donβt care. The relevant part is that most problems have a solution which is ignored by those who should know better. Leaders donβt stand up but remain quiet.
There can be one, there can be many, there can be inertia or human shortcomings. The strange part is that people ignore issues as if they are indeed a conspiracy that they cannot change instead of pushing for change.
The AfD has received surprisingly much attention. Whatever the cause, that has to change or the successor party will become equally popular.
That said, there must be huge conspiracies. Cumex is one. There can be bigger ones, there are definitely many more smaller ones.
You don't seem to understand my point. If I say that there is only one shot we have for a ban, then I don't mean to say we shouldn't bother trying, but we should be careful and precise when we do. The bars for banning a political party are (somewhat understandably) high. I'm not opposed to banning the AfD - but speaking pragmatically, if the timing/conditions aren't right, the prohibition won't get through.