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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8034 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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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?

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

Trump has made me very fatalistic about this. The two options seem to be the following:

  1. Elect politicians who are competent at pushing forward political changes, but then they tend to be liberals at heart or at least very concerned about getting re-elected, so they do nothingburger changes.
  2. Elect politicians who are aggressively anti-immigration, but these are almost always scoundrels who put the optics of satisfying their base over actual productive changes, like Trump sending ICE goon squads to Minnesota where the story quickly became that they were gunning down random civilians. Then the national mood swings against aggressive immigration enforcement as the anti-immigration side pisses away their political capital.

This captures why most people aren't actually against immigration. When they reach the precipice of telling other people: "No, you can't live here with us", they buckle. And it's not really a surprise given the media most people consume. For decades, news and entertainment have inundated the public with emotionally charged narratives venerating empathy for the outgroup. When boundary enforcement is systematically framed as moral cruelty, conservative voters absorb and even revel in that emotional conditioning. They favor closed borders in the abstract, but the moment execution demands personal backbone, their media-ingrained impulse to 'be soft' takes over.

To put things in context, conditons haven't been this bad for the left base since Bush Jr. Their footsoldiers are getting killed or jailed for their anti-ICE stunts that provide no tangible political or material benefit to them. They are to some extent demoralized to a point where their political coalition is fracturing in very polarizing ways.

All the right wing has to do is put their foot on the pedal and drive it home. Do a Charlie Kirk legislation, then do another, and another. Demonize 'protestors' who don't strictly abide by every law in the book. Arrest them on the spot. Call them terrorists. Raid their chat groups for dirt, sick the FBI on their parents or neighbors and ask about their childrens or neighbors potential terrorist activities. Every high card has been in the right wings hand for what, a year now? But no, neither the republican politicians or the republican electorate has the guts to maintain their society.

Law and Order is a slogan, not an actual thing most right wingers believe in. They feel angry when reading stories about repeat violent offenders miraculously getting off scot free for the umpteenth time, only to go out to maim or murder again. But there's no organizing around that problem. No consistent emotional animation. Not having law and order when convenient is just another thing the left gets to do that's filed under 'I guess that's just how things are now'. It's actually easier for right wingers in general and conservatives in particular to tolerate the raping and pillaging of their village than kicking out the rapists and pillagers since one has no positive emotional resonance in media whilst the other does. Not all outsiders are pillagers and rapists, don't you know?

Disagree. The Right's problem on immigration really isn't that it lacks viciousness that the Left supposedly has. It's that it's bad at harnessing popular anger against immigration mismanagement under Biden into durable political change. Part of that problem is Trump Cultism. Another part is valuing the optics of dunking on the Left over long-lasting results. The Right had plenty of political capital to do this, it just spent it ineffectively.

The right in the United States is actually achieving results on immigration- it’s just that online right believes immigration crackdowns will make American 90% white. That’s not going to happen.

The right in the United States is actually achieving results on immigration

Is that the case? Show me the numbers. Show me the durable changes that will likely stick through the next Democratic President.

that will likely stick through the next Democratic President.

Why is that a requirement? Democrats have the right to implement their own policy they win. It's their decision, and not the Republicans job to cast magical spells that are supposed to stop them?

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