Elon Musk is under fire after publicly backing a far-right political party in Germany, suggesting the current government should not be re-elected over its position on the current migrant crisis in Europe.
Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Elon Musk is under fire after publicly backing a far-right political party in Germany, suggesting the current government should not be re-elected over its position on the current migrant crisis in Europe.
In 2022, it was ruled that the BfV may classify and monitor the entire party as a suspected right-wing extremist group. A corresponding lawsuit by the AfD was dismissed because "there were sufficient factual indications of anti-constitutional efforts within the AfD".[36] On 26 April 2023, the BfV, after four years of investigations into the Young Alternative for Germany, categorized that group as a confirmed extremist organization. This allowed the chief of the BfV Thomas Haldenwang to place the youth wing under even more intensive surveillance than the tapping of phone and the use of undercover agents that had been the case until then.[45][46]
Just summarizing here. They are right wing extremists that have taken over old Nazi talking points and are gaining popularity with anti immigration, anti climate change and populist propaganda.
They're also famous for very much being “blind on the right eye”. They didn't ban the neonazi party “NPD” (for reference: the original Nazi party was the NSDAP) and their last ex boss (Hans-Georg Maaßen) is a far right conspiracy nut.
They've partially come around apparently as they're now watching the AfD (which is far stronger than the NPD ever was) as well as Maaßen.
BfV cannot ban parties.
Only the highest court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) can.
The only reason they did not do it was because the NPD has too little meaning to be a thread to the German constitution.
Russia, China and the Republicans have been propping European far right parties for the past x decades, and now the recessions and the wars are generating easy support for the populists
What actually resulted in far right becoming a serious force in Europe was the economic war with Russia. These parties have been fringe for decades, and now they're polling high in most European countries.
The right took a stance against the war from the very start, while the left shat the bed by siding with the liberals. Now that support for the war is collapsing people are moving to the right.
It's the final straw (at this moment in time) yes for a situation which has been brewed for a much longer time
Saw your edit
The right took a stance against the war from the very start
This relates more to the moderate right. The far right was openly supporting Russia and against sanctions even after the Crimean invasion. Only after 2022 mobilization they've started to hide this
As the economy is once again in shambles thanks to how capitalism works, the voters are easy pickings for those with empty promises
The hardships that the working class is suffering are direct result of the policies basically all governments in the world have pursued over the past four (or even more?) decades.
And thus the landscape to gain support for reactionaries is ripe for picking.
Europe isn't alone. Capitalism slowly races wages down, the North America Trump play bolstered manipulating voters in places where voting is even possible, and then there's the places where elections have been a bigger sham already.
Sure, the solution to the problem is to move away from the capitalism system and the exploitation inherent in it. There seems to be no real progress in that direction, and instead we're seeing a shift to the right and fascism.
Russia and China don't have to do shit when Europe's greatest ally is as right-wing as it it's been. In fact, there's even a group for this: the International Democrat Union.
Would the Russia and China far right connections and actions then be happenstance in that hypothesis scenario and how could they be explained to be unrelated?
Russia and China are irrelevant because their interests in Western economies are tertiary at best: it neither affects them ideologically nor economically.
Whether Western governments buy Russian oil is entirely independent of what government it is. Whether Western governments buy Chinese manufactured products is entirely independent of what government it is. There's this puffed up sense of Western self-importance that doesn't really exist: Russia and China both see that the future of global economic growth will be in the Global South and are allocating resources appropriately.
In contrast, the International Democratic Union (and similar organizations) have a strong ideological reason for backing right-wing parties and a stronger personal reason to do so: it nets them more funding from corrupt corporations looking for tax breaks and decreased regulation.
There's this puffed up sense of Western self-importance that doesn't really exist: Russia and China both see that the future of global economic growth will be in the Global South and are allocating resources appropriately.
In addition to each northern superpower abusing the hemisphere, they do fight for influence between the northern smaller ones – the aforementioned propping of accelerationist and/or reactionary movements being one way amoug the trade ones you focused on.
IDU is a good example, while it seems to be just one path to the efforts
What's the purpose of US/China/Russia influencing others? Destabilization, dependancies, just to gain power for immediate or later use purposes? It's a mighty big question that'd summarize the whole history of geopolitics. Always been happening in different forms I guess.
AfD is mostly populism. Apart from immigration they hardly agree on anything and have a lot of internal conflict about what the stance of the party should be.
The current situation is that the established parties (and especially the media) don't engage much in discussion with AfD and just call them nazis, which divides the country. Admitting publicly that you vote for them will also get you thrown into the corner of people everyone calls nazis.
It is not just populism. The party is full of racists and homophobes. A member in my area even admits to believing in the great reset, which is an ultra right and anti-semitic conspiracy theory.
The AfD is a cesspool of dyed in the wool Nazis. What their official positions are is entirely irrelevant to that. And yes, if you admit to voting for them, people will think you're a Nazi.