Online campaigns like these have helped radicalize a broad swath of Germany’s youth, making extreme-right ideas that were once relegated to the margins of German political discourse increasingly mainstream. The Young Alternative, the AfD youth organization that put out the dance video, has been classified by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency as an extremist group since last year.
We need to understand what causes them to be receptive to this kind of radicalisation. Understand the root cause and then mitigate the root cause.
If i had to guess, the right offers classic masculinity and certainty in the belief system. The world is good or bad, and it is easy to know which is which.
Meanwhile the left is basically everything but typically masculine, and makes little effort to appeal to men in its rethoric and demands (in fact, i personally believe the surface level hostility towards men is incredibly harmful to the cause and should be adjusted for less antagonistic language).
If i was a teenager today id probably feel very lost myself. Being a man is no longer “good”, men are oppressors and part of the partiarchy now, and previous male role models are dated without an alternative available. So where does that leave a confused adolescent?
I once called out quite specific misandrist statements, you could assume they might have disagreed with the evaluation. Instead, they straight up jumped to calling me a dangerous misogynist when my entire political and social stance is openly opposite. In the aftermath I read on their social media increasingly unhinged rants how only single rare exceptions of men are not perpetrators. Not surprised the left alienates large demographics, even their own allies.
I’m sure that’s a big part of it, but there’s also a massive cost of living crisis and a lot of straight up gaslighting in regards to immigration. I’m willing to bet if there was a left wing party that addressed a lot of those issues you wouldn’t see the same shift rightward.
The left has a lot of hostility in general. Towards men, towards centrists, towards white people, and towards the right.
As a centrist, it’s really disappointing to see, because at this time when the right has dropped the ball and sacrificed stability and moral soundness for power and populism, we need the left to be welcoming people with open arms, educating them, and encouraging voting in general.
Instead, there’s scorn and rejection, and denial of that scorn and rejection if it’s brought up - or even just doubling down on “they deserve it”.
And so, they feed their opposition, because they can’t take the time to find a common ground. Being seen to be “the right one” is more important to them - and they’ll “win” their way into a hole.
Is it the left’s fault the right are like an infested cricket hopping to its watery demise? No. But it’s their fault they rely on the easy lies of hate - that their position is morally superior, and so people who don’t agree are shit. Anything you’re accused of, just point at the whipping boy, and whip harder, because the right are so clearly wrong, you don’t have to inspect your own life.
Eventually, people will wake up. …or, one side will “win”, and try to suppress the views of the other, which will eventually pop up again anyways, because of the duality in the human mind. In either case, after a while, we’ll rinse and repeat.
Social media. Especially TikTok
This is just the seed. You also need fertile ground, which is what OP is talking about.
The shorts format itself is an issue. It reduces complex issues and possible solutions to a few seconds of content. That is how the young people want to consume content. But they only thing you can do is oversimplified bullshit I’m that amount of time.
I suggest to read this in depth analysis.
That still doesn’t make it the root cause. You should probably read up on what a root cause analysis is.
I am well aware what an RCA is. The issue here is that the “root causes” like immigration fear and “the economy” are mostly fabricated or blown up.
The AfD pushes propaganda to young people. And to cite from the RCA I linked you
You just surfaced 2 more adjecent layers, keep digging. I don’t know why you say you understand RCA when you stop after 2 whys.
Dude, a huge part of my job is doing RCA.
And I don’t stop after 2 why’s. I gave you a link to a good analysis you could read. Or just ignore it…
I am also active in german politics for 20 years, and I habe done youth work for 10 years. I have gathered my fair share of first hand knowledge…
OP said we need to find and mitigate the root cause. Your reply was social media, and specifically TikTok.
The article you linked doesn’t come to the same conclusion you do. They specifically mention lacking critical thinking and media literacy skills.
You could also argue for more regulation for algorithms. Or more equality/equity. Or communication from other political parties that is tailored to young people.
But no, you just say social media = bad.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what you do. And I recognize that the current state of social media is problematic. But it’s not THE problem or the root cause.
The kids are being fed endless lies and you say the liars aren’t at fault. Blaming the left instead exactly in the way the liars do. Like a fucking script.
Are you lost? Replied to the wrong comment?
Otherwise please explain where exactly I defended liars or blamed the left.
And a budget (like kremlins troll facrory)
Sorry to play devil’s advocate here, and I don’t mind if I get a million downvotes, but the causes are well-understood and have been for a while. It’s easy to dismiss AfD voters as a bunch of uneducated, disruptive rubes while failing to see how much employment in Eastern Germany is different from the one in the West. If you have a university degree, you’ll up and leave first chance you get because wages are so much higher in the West. Else, you’ll try to survive for decades on a string of one-year contract-low-skill-jobs somewhere out in the woods, as this is completely normalized in the East. The influence, even the very existence of labor unions and works committees is greatly diminished, too, compared to the West. Inflation and rent hikes hit just the same or worse, though. Towns and cities are getting depopulated big time, especially de-womanized. People in the East feel left behind by common-run big-city politicians, and AfD has been filling this gap very systematically and effectively.
They are uneducated. If they were they wouldnt vote for a party only profitting the rich, as shown by all their voting patterns. Whenever something is proposed to help poorer people they vote against it. If rich people only profit they vote in favour. If you want to change something there are more than enough non fascist parties in germany to vote from.
How exactly does AfD fill this gap??
It’s because they are fucking stupid, you know, just like America and everywhere around the world were people vote against their best interests.
It’s the same thing it’s been for decades, people just assumed that white people in wealthy countries were immune to it.
It’s because the other political content that reaches them is boring, cringe or not existant. The other parties missed their chance and are thinking too much and trying to be too correct to catch up.
There may be a question for how to solve it, how to make other perspectives more attractive. And let’s be real, who will foot the bill.
There is absolutely no doubt about the cause. It’s the economy and good luck fixing that.
E.g. unemployment in “Sachsen” may be only 6.5%, but the average wage is 3000€ while the average for the republic over all is 4300€.
source 3000 in german
source 4300 in german
Here is a map about Rent, but don’t let that fool you, the average price isn’t actually below 5€, price in cities is 8.50€ You’ll have to scroll a bit.
And average rent increase (2nd source) went from 5 to 6 and from 7 to 8. Which of course means that the absolute change was the same and the relative change was not. It doesn’t matter if it’s a “market correction”. What people see is that their rent goes up, dis-proportionally so, while wages don’t.
And of course, the meme that they can’t articulate themselves is probably true. They don’t see “the economy”. They see the state of their cities, the living standards of their friends and family and then the government spending money on anything and everything else but them and their concerns. (climate, migrants, factories for companies in different federal states, weapons to fight foreign wars, etc.)
Truth