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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.
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.
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.
I don't know about Pakistan, but Indians aren't really an ethnic group. 3000 years of caste-segregated breeding means you essentially have a country with thousands of ethnic groups, some of which are very smart. It's as if India was 5% Ashkenazi, 10% Chinese, 15% Polish, 20% Algerian and 50% Somali. Their smart fraction is providing half the CEOs to Silicon Valley while 20% of the country can't read.
I mean the other thing is simply India's sheer population size- if you have a billion people, you're bound to come up with the human capital to build a nuclear bomb or maintain jets, assuming that's where your priorities lie, even if your true population average is 80 or so.
Yes that's part of it, but there are 1.3 billion people in Subsaharan Africa, and that subcontinent isn't producing nearly as many smart fraction people. Nor are any Subsaharan countries doing the kind of O-ring stuff that India is managing.
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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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