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So... big win for AfD last night: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4zejgz3z9o. How important is this?
Since I'm not one to closely follow European politics, at first I thought this meant that they had won control of the entire national parliament. But then I noticed that, no, it's just one state election, and they're still short of a majority. In every other state, they have far less support, and every other party is still maintaining a rule to never work with them, so the AfD is still effectively shut out of power everywhere.
I suppose it's another sign of their trajectory, though. They seem to win more and more votes in every election. I remember when, not long ago, they were an extreme minority fringe party. Now they get enough votes that it's difficult for the other parties to form a coalition without them.
Is this a sign that the people of Germany are secretly longing to Nazi again? I doubt it. They seem to still be, on the whole, an extremely leftist-liberal nation. Pro-immigration, pro-welfare, anti-militarism, anti-nationalism, and anti-nuke. So I wonder how much this surge in support for AfD is driven by immigration, or how much of it is just them being the only real conservative party that gives voters an alternative to the status quo?
I also wonder what the AfD would actually do if they came into power? There's a big range between "slightly restrict immigration" and "force all the immigrants to pack up and go home." I suspect they haven't entirely figured it out themselves, since for now they're still just a protest vote. Not to mention how they'd have to figure out their policy on every single other policy issue. It's easy to make big promises when you have no actual power to deliver on them.
But I don't know! Maybe I'm wrong. I really don't know much about German politics, I just saw this and I thought it was interesting. Anyone else have thoughts?
Europe is seeing an increased support for anti-immigration policies. Not only is there a desire to limit future migration and increase requirements for applicants, a significant amount of people want to kick out people who managed to achieve citizenship without assimilating, alongside descendants who also did not assimilate. As I understand it, this kicking out of citizens who should not have gotten citizenship in the first place is the goal of AfD and similar parties on the continent.
This makes sense to me on some level; If you hate all of western society and want to rebuild the caliphate, then you have no business here. The middle east can have you back for all I care.
On the other hand, this seems like a slippery slope that draws into question what citizenship even is. Making it possible to kick out people recognized as citizens seems like a dangerous Chesterton's fence to tear down. For one, it gives the government the ultimate power to kick out citizens it dislikes. This seems like a real danger to a democracy where people are supposed to have disagreements and come to agreements through dialogue. It also draws into question what it even means to be German in the first place. Would anyone be safe if such a law was allowed? Is there any amount of generations that a family can live in Germany after which it becomes German? Or will everyone have to watch what they say in fear that their opinions may one day be recognized as against the national interest?
It makes sense then, that the existing conservative parties would be concerned about a newcomer which wants to make such radical changes. At the same time though, I don't understand why they seem so disinterested in at least limiting future immigration. There is a real concern here from a substantial proportion of the population, and political parties are supposed to represent their constituents. If the established parties would take on the more reasonable parts of AfD policies (limiting immigration and increasing requirements for applicants), that would probably net them a lot of voters and weaken AfD, without having to concede to the more extremist demands of kicking out legal citizens.
Having blood ties to the area from before 1969 (that includes marriage). Simple definition. Minor exception for people that actually assimilated. Any son of Mustafa that is named Gunter, baptized into Christianity, wears Lederhosen and eats pork bratwurst with a lot of mustard and prodigious amounts of beer should have way to stay.
Also there a lot of people in Germany that are not citizens anyway.
Agreed, but try to turn that into legalese!
Simple, you do it step by step. Step one outlaw NGOs. Step two start dismantling the law infrastructure imposed after WW2 with all the rights to this and that, then start outlawing religions and practices. If they don't like it they should be forced to pretend or choose violence.
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Some variation of the Swiss system, where (simplifying a bit) local residents have to approve citizenship requests, seems like it would do an okay job of this. Or at least it would as long as the local residents aren’t all of an “import the world” mindset.
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It's always fun to hypothesise about all the things you could build after cutting down a (Schelling/Chesterton) fence, but the thing with a fence is that it holds back people on both sides. Do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that will blow once "strip citizenship from someone on the enemy team" is on the political menu?
More generally, I find it kind of fascinating to see this enthusiasm, time and time again, of oppressed political fringe groups that briefly get within swinging range of power to make their first move be "empower the state to move against my opponents in unprecedented ways"; when the tide recedes, it always winds up being used against them, to much pikachu-facing and gnashing of teeth.
The fence has not held back people on the other side. But it's okay, because when we have successfully done whatever we consider necessary, if the other side tries to do things back in response, you will definitely deploy this argument against them, and it will definitely work, right?
I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to keep mentioning it because it seems inescapably necessary: For more than a decade, I have seen moderates deploy arguments in the form of "you shouldn't do this thing, because if you do, how will the other side respond?", have that advice ignored, and then when my side side moves to respond, the moderates tell them "you shouldn't do this thing, because if you do, how will the other side respond?".
It seems to me that such arguments are fundamentally self-defeating. If you are going to argue that the other side should get protections of a principle that it has clearly violated, then either you are willing to do the same for my side, in which case your arguments can be safely ignored, or you are not willing to do the same for my side, in which case you are my enemy. In neither case does this moderate argument hold water. Even in the first round, before the results were known, this flaw should have been clearly anticipated. Now, after repeated iterations, there is no excuse.
You appear to be claiming that there is a causal link here, that the oppressed political fringe groups are in a worse situation specifically because they attempted to use political power to secure their interests. I think it is self-evident that using political power to secure one's interests can in fact result in bad consequences in at least some cases. I do not think it is a supportable argument that using political power inevitably does so, or that using political power in this way is obviously or necessarily a worse alternative to the status quo.
In particular, I would like to see how this analysis applies to the civil rights era, which has entirely consisted of "oppressed" political fringe groups getting within swinging range of power, empowering the state to move against their opponents in unprecedented ways, and then reaping massive economic, political and social benefits from this exercise for multiple generations running with essentially zero negative consequences of any kind, with the clear expectation even from the moderate center that this is totally fine and should be maintained indefinitely.
With a track record like that, why should I and mine not emulate their model, adapted as necessary to our own circumstances?
And if that doesn't work, there are always further escalations available. After all, haven't you heard? Political violence is solely the responsibility of the individuals committing it, it's not like broad movements are in any way accountable for the actions of their partisan fringes.
...Speaking as plainly as possible, you should consider the idea that the situation is sufficiently fucked that these sorts of arguments don't really work any more.
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Except, quite clearly in reality, it doesn't. Horribly asymmetric, incredible first-mover effect.
"They can let in millions of people all at once; you have to remove them one at a time and they get near-infinite appeal opportunity. They get to commit endless fraud and lie through their teeth; you have a nigh-insurmountable standard of evidence to do anything about that."
Pretending the fence holds back both sides is naive, unilateral disarmament.
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For many on the right, demographics is existential. There comes a point (and maybe we’ve already past it) where the cake is baked and there is no way to reverse and as a result the country is gone.
Worrying about tit for tat makes sense in a somewhat stable democracy.
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There is difference in citizenship by blood and by fiat. And in a way it doesn't matter - Islam is existential threat.
There are only 7 high quality* Muslim majority countries - Bosnia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Malaysia. 6 of them are white, the 7th is ruled by the Chinese. There are no high quality black majority countries. And the subcontinent remains awfully underdeveloped. And this is the people that Europe is accepting in droves.
So it is existential because they just don't know how to build or maintain a country once they get in power. What germany will look like when they are a majority - you just have to look at their countries - they are inhabited and ruled by people like them.
*If we are generous.
As a quibble, Bermuda is 52% black per the local census (and about 60% black if you follow the American rule and count black-other mixes as black). It's definitely high quality, although you can argue about whether it should count as a country - it's a British colony where the elected local government has de facto full control of everything except foreign and defence policy.
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The interesting thing about the subcontinent is that they built nuclear bombs, run high end-intelligence programs, and Pakistan has a heck of an Air Force. These are very hard problems, and subcontinentals achieve them- there don't seem to be Chinese ‘advisers’ doing the maintenance on their jets. So clearly they can do them, they’re just ok with living in badly dysfunctional societies for some reason.
Your list of Muslim countries is pretty secular of a list(gulf Arabs use white tech reps to maintain their industrial civilization), it must be pointed out.
Nuclear weapons are easy. The delivery is the moderately challenging part - and so far we haven't seen that they can deliver.
Don't throw me ready lines about Indian and Pakistani intelligence ... programs. I have spent enough time in E9 in Islamabad. More than I would like honestly. They were ... ok. Aside from the 24/7 blasting anti India propaganda. But it is easy to have good air force if you are willing to spend money on it. Which is true for almost everywhere in the third world - if the top guy or the hunta wants something they usually get it. Getting everything to work ok in a country seems to be beyond their reach. Back in 2022 I was amazed how frequently there were short blackouts. Which I didn't experience in Burkina Faso or Togo.
Feel free to amend the Muslim countries list. I left out the Gulf states because they really go overboard with the whole exploiting the indentured servants thing. Probably Oman could turn into nice place to live eventually - they seem a bit more mellow.
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A lot of people got blackpilled during Covid / Summer of Floyd when it was clear that laws don't actually protect anyone given sufficient public hysteria.
Punching the bully in the nose is sometimes better than playing dead and taking his blows. Not always of course. But the advice of "don't antagonize the bully" has mixed results at best.
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Which rightward parties entertain the idea of removing citizenship from their domestic, coethnic political opposition? If political opposition is along racial lines then this is a nonissue, it’s just standard remigration targeting. Otherwise, in the worst case scenario, it is certainly preferable to the status quo of endless foreign invasion.
The original question that drove this thread is "are AfD far-right?"
You can argue whether "remove citizenship from natural-born citizens and deport them on the basis of ethnicity" is a good idea or not, but I think it is clearly a far-right policy.
If that's what is driving the thread, than it has gone completely off the rails. Here's their position on remigration, I have admittedly only scanned it very quickly, but I am not seeing "remove citizenship from natural-born citizens and deport them on the basis of ethnicity" anywhere in there.
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The fence is down. If we can grant citizenship to infinity foreigners, then the blowing wind is sending them back.
I don't believe any law or norm or principle or logical consistency would stop the extremists on the other side from trying to denaturalize me if they thought they could get away with it.
Of course, but if you successfully denaturalize their allies, surely they will be more likely to think that they can get away with denaturalizing you.
Your argumentation is one of many that roughly has the shape of "the other party has already escalated maximally, there is nothing to lose from escalating back". I see this deployed left and right in internal culture wars, and even in real some-holds-barred wars like Ukraine/Russia. Yet, in each of those, it always turns out the other side did actually have more to escalate back with, and the cycle continues. Do you actually think/feel that you have nothing to lose, in your current situation?
The issue I have with this is the Chesterton Fence you propose has not historically existed. Remigration has happened many times in history. It’s often happened more often during war times but it has happened a lot in history. The Reconquista of Spain occurred. Haiti did it. Israel is basically doing it today. It was debated as a solution posts civil war. White Flight in America was basically forced migration.
Usually populations combining are fairly rare and only happen during conquests. Mass migration has only really happened to western civilizations over the last 30 years. Every other mass migration like Spanish to Americas or Normans to England happened during war times.
Well okay, by the same standard extermination has happened many times in history too. Ancient Rome did it, Russia did it, Germany did it.
Why not just take all the leftists into a room somewhere and shoot them in the back of the head? Why not just go full Sulla on anyone who stands against your political objectives?
Pinochet is one of my favorite politicians so I have no fundamental issue with doing that when necessary, though in a way that limits life losts. It’s a reasonable response to present things like communism.
Which I will remind you was backed by the US and the government was being ran by the University of Chicago at the time.
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Sorry, there's a big fence here called "natural born citizen". They would have to be crazy to think about tearing it down.
It's not an escalation. It's an undoing of a previous escalation. A deescalation, even.
No, I think I have everything to lose. Which is why I want to win.
And again, beating this same drum for the thousandth time, this sort of argument only ever goes one way. No one even bothers trying this sort of argumentation on leftists because everyone knows they don't give a fuck. Mainstream, high level elected Democrats support open borders, mass replacement migration, packing the Supreme Court, abolishing the filibuster and their more extreme flanks are talking about abolishing the Senate.
It is an absurdity to look at that and then tut-tut about conservatives wanting to send back ethno-narcissists and communists who got a piece of paper two years ago.
They are crazy, and they will if they can. The attempt to flood the country with unwanted paper citizens is an attempt to do exactly this, in fact. The insistence that Mahmood who broke into the country a few years ago is EXACTLY as German as you is an attempt to dilute the concept out of existence. Equating blood citizenship and paper citizenship serves only to devalue the former.
Moreover, though, yes I don't think deporting their pets would cause any noticeable change in their plans.
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