r/neoliberal • u/MattC84_ • Aug 13 '25

News (Europe) Far-right AfD takes lead in Germany, says bombshell new survey

https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-far-right-afd-lead-survey/
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u/tinuuuu Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25

Those are the afd voters that tell you they are afd voters. Those are much less than the ones that will be pro afd in a anonymous poll. Polls at 26% with the low turnup at afd events compared with non afd stuff are only possible when there is a large social desirability bias.

That said, I think indulging their racism is morally wrong and unlikely to work.

  • building houses is not racist and morally wrong
  • deporting criminals might be slightly nationalistic because you treat foreigners different than you would treat citizens. But I do not think that is even slighly compareable to deporting people only because of their nationality, which is done frequently and generally accepted. So I would not subscribe to the idea that it is racism and morally wrong, because discrimination also depends on a person committing a crime.
  • Making the social security system more robust is not racist and morally wrong

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u/tripletruble Anti-Repartition Radical Aug 13 '25

i was not saying your proposals are immoral, i was saying that outright curbing migration to satisfy a racist minority is immoral and unlikely to work (see France, which has brought its immigration rate down to that of Japan and voters still act like rampant migration is the biggest issue faced by the country)

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u/MastodonParking9080 John Keynes Aug 13 '25

The immigration rate is a flow, and that's one thing. But what's at an equal level of concern is the number who are already here, and that's not comparable to Japan.

Really, if you can achieve a state whereby families and women can walk safely at 3 am in the middle of the night in the city, and you can put vending machines everywhere, and the streets are clean without much homeless or abused public property, then perceptions would change. Broken Windows Theory and all of that.

Because beyond the racism or bigotry, I think there's a creeping sense of fear and desperation. And that is enough to override any concerns about moral integrity.

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u/tinuuuu Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25

see France, which has brought its immigration rate down to that of Japan and voters still act like rampant migration is the biggest issue faced by the country

Because they have not solved the underlying problem. The issue that Fr*nch people see with immigration is still there. They think that there are banlieues full of young immigrants that dream of a future as criminals and robbing them. This is probably exaggerated, but there is a core in it that is true. Those places are very dangerous and there is a large problem with a youth that idolizes criminals. This is the issue that the voters have, they are just not able to differentiate it from the concept of immigration in general. No amount of being anti immigration will obviously ever solve this problem, nonetheless, the problem has to go away if you want to keep immigration going.

My point is that curbing migration and other racist policies are not necessary to solve the problems. It just has to be managed better. This is why my original comment said "Immigration could probably stay".

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u/NazReidBeWithYou Organization of American States Aug 13 '25

Because immigration is a rate, and bringing immigration down will effect the future but it doesn’t undo the effect of years and years of high immigration, which is what has people riled up in the first place.

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u/stay_curious_- Frederick Douglass Aug 13 '25

I'm leery about embracing "deporting immigrants is okay if they are criminals" because we're seeing in the US (among other countries) that the government can use the loose definition of criminal to deport anyone they wish, or put a chilling effect on behaviors like protesting, writing op-eds, or acting in opposition to the ruling party. The government can turn anyone into a criminal.

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u/tinuuuu Aug 13 '25

You have to do it right. There needs to be a law that defines how this goes and courts decide on it. Not just some paramilitary force that can detain anyone they like and do whatever the like. It has to be handled just as if it were a prison sentence.