Yes. And?

... what else, ? ;)

I merely wondered whether there was something you intended to discuss.

A century or so ago saw idiotic authoritarianism emerge in several places.

Mussolini, to be called Il Duce by his followers, kick-started his fascist thing in Italy, 1919, with Bianchi. In 1921 he turned it into his National Fascist Party, and from 1922 he turned Italy authoritarian, one step at a time. In a typical strong-man gesture, Italy rolled into Ethiopia in 1935.

Not much says ruthless authoritarian like Stalin, who held the Soviet Union (+ Russia) in a murderous iron grip from 1924 to 1953. Some of the European fascists declared themselves anti-communist and acquired followers that way, authoritarianism against authoritarianism.

Hitler, Der Führer, learned from Mussolini's fascism, and went on to do his Nazi thing. He took over Germany in 1933 and initiated the 2nd world war in 1939. Some methods that were systematized (+ "industrialized") by the Nazis have found employ to this day (state-governed directed indoctrination and propaganda, what-have-you).

Dollfuss took on power in Austria in 1932. A milder authoritarianism that didn't get along with the Nazis, who murdered him in 1934 and took over Austria in 1938.

Salazar ruled Portugal from 1932 to 1968. A relatively mild authoritarianism.

General Franco, Caudillo, dictator'ed Spain from 1939 to 1975 after The Spanish Civil War. A good buddy of Hitler's and Mussolini's.

In South America, Argentina had a string of authoritarian rule during the period, Uriburu (1930), Justo (1932), Ortiz (1938), Castillo (1942).

France and the UK also had idiotic movements around the time (just took some political disillusion), that fortunately didn't quite catch on (some other European nations were less infected). Similarly, North America saw The German American Bund (Nazism) and The Black Legion.

The influence of some of these fizzled down with the end of the 2nd world war, though quite not all.

Roughly a century later, the creepshow seems to be rearing its head again, as if there was no history to learn from. Anything familiar? Other parallels, anyone? Can't accept ongoing democracy, responsible freedom, transparency, humanitarian values, separation of religion and politics, whatever? Disillusioned? Just leave the ruling to me.

Those who don't learn from our errors in history are doomed to repeat them.

As long as societies enrich and privilege some segments at the expense of others, there will be discontent, jealousy and resentment. These mental states are easy to exploit and direct against whichever scapegoat the demagogue chooses. People are volatile and impressionable - it doesn't take much to rile them up.

:up: :up:

, toss the occasional envy in there for good measure. ;) But there are political and cultural problems, lots in need of improvements and attention. Fascista-Nazista creep just ain't the answer. (unless you want to leave it to me of course)

Anyway, problem-identification is one thing, I'm less optimistic about avoiding the known pitfalls. Pointing them out doesn't seem to have done much. :shrug:

Anyway, problem-identification is one thing, I'm less optimistic about avoiding the known pitfalls. Pointing them out doesn't seem to have done much. — jorndoe

It got a lot of finger-pointers beaten, jailed and killed. History will rotate its big, crushing wheel when it's ready.

Pointing them out doesn't seem to have done much. — jorndoe

It got a lot of finger-pointers beaten, jailed and killed. — Vera Mont

Arguably, it was fin de siècle political culture in late 1800s Europe that gave rise to fascism/nazism, marxism, psychoanalysis, modernist art etc. A terrible tangle of ideologies, trends, new sciences, crumbling institutions, and power mad strongmen whose radicalised adherers fought each other as well as those who dared to point a finger or refer to reasoned argument.

Perhaps not as extreme yet in our current postmodern culture (?), but the recurring disregard for reason and objectivity in times of political unrest won't help us resolve disputes, errors, or injustices in civilised ways. Hence the strongmen and increasing acceptance for radical or violent solutions.

Why is that? — Vaskane

Innit obvious?
In a horizontal society - where everyone has much the same wealth, political influence, opportunities, support and access to the law - problems can readily be seen and issues dealt-with before they become intractable. In a vertical, stratified society, pressure from above keeps building up until it has nowhere to vent but in an explosion. Hence the French and Russian revolutions.
Even a three-year-old can spot when he's treated unfairly, and generally throws a tantrum. Trump - or some equivalent in other countries - gives them permission to cut loose, give in to their most primitive impulses. He doesn't need to be strong in fact; he can be a lardass of zero accomplishment: all he needs is the [borrowed] rhetoric of grievance. He is the human manifestation, the spark, of a collective tantrum. Once expressed, the madness does not subside until the mob has had its fill of lynching, looting and burning.

So you proposed to limit everyone's access to wealth? — Vaskane

That's an obvious start. Share the decision-making, share the labour and resources equitably; give everyone in the society respect and a chance to earn the esteem of others. It can't be that hard - primitive tribes do it all the time. But civilized societies can't seem even to conceive of such an arrangement: they're always organized in stacked order.

There's a reason Im wealthier than my parents and it sure as shit has to do with the energy I spent to obtain that wealth. My house cost me 18x what my parents house cost them. Imagine locking in a house at 20k, then while you're paying it off the economy is paying you instead of 4000 a year, now it's paying 50k. And it still took my parents 30 fucking years to pay that off... What ever were they doing? Wasting away in nihilism. — Vaskane

You're living in a dysfunctional economy and don't seem to know it. That's not surprising, when we're subjected to capitalist propaganda from the maternity ward onward.

Any socialist uprising is directly caused by the abuse of wealth. — Vaskane

Spontaneous uprisings are usually not about wealth at all, but about oppression. Once the society is stratified, fewer and fewer people exert more and more influence, wield more and more power. In order to maintain and expand their privilege, these 'upper classes' own and control more and more of the nation's wealth, demand more and more exertion, time and sacrifice from those below them, and when the exploited classes protest, more and more force is required to keep them in line: the pressure keeps building until the lowest classes erupt in violence.

No I certainly know it, don't get me wrong, it's not even true capitalism, but a pale reflection of an ideal that's heavily perverted and twisted towards those who regulate and produce. — Vaskane

Twisted toward those who own and control, against those who produce.
But this not unique to capitalist societies: it is the same in oligarchies, military dictatorships, so-called 'communist' dictatorships, monarchies and theocracies. All vertical societies are divided into bosses and servers, with several layers of facilitators in between.

I'm curious. What is 'true' capitalism and what is its 'ideal'?

The whole idea of a free market with a glorious trickle down that elevates society. — Vaskane

Yes, I've heard that one - it's a corker!
Elevates society over what?

Anyone can do it, they're just too complacent and timid to learn how. — Vaskane

Sure, we've all heard that one, too. Not quite so funny. If only some of them could find a red paper clip.... and enough suckers who own things they don't want.

Imagine how much more that's grown in the 10 years prior to that three years of 870% growth, total value is somewhere near the 5000% total lifetime growth. Unfortunately etrade only shows last 3 years max. — Vaskane

Investment is lending; the other side of lending is debt. Most of it at compound interest, so the smallest borrowers have to 'produce more surplus' (which in reality means sell their time and labour cheaply, just to stay afloat, so that the lending classes don't have to work at all) Over the rise of a cycle, as more wealth accumulates at the top of the economic pyramid, individual citizens, business enterprises and nations all sink deeper and deeper into debt, until the crash - or "recession" or "readjustment"; depression or a war; more often a depression followed by a war, often on bogus grounds, wherein enough of a nation's assets are destroyed that rebuilding creates a whole new economy.
Which is great, if you don't count all the people - mostly poor ones; the rich seem to come out of wars rather the better off than they go in - who suffer, sacrifice and die in the process.

All that marvellous growth has brought us to the brink of global nuclear war, plague, economic, then political, then environmental collapse, and imminent extinction.

Not an ideal I can admire.

Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course. (— Secretary Marco Rubio (verified) · May 2, 2025)

Some time ago, I wouldn't have thought Rubio would go down this path.

Marco Rubio’s language in his X post mirrors rhetoric that could have been applied to the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1932-1933 by framing the AfD as a legitimate opposition unfairly targeted by the state, a tactic the NSDAP used to gain sympathy before Hitler’s rise to power via the Enabling Act on March 23, 1933.

The NSDAP, like the AfD today, positioned itself as a populist alternative to the establishment, criticizing Weimar Republic policies such as reparations and liberal governance, much as Rubio critiques Germany’s “open border immigration policies” as the true extremism.

Rubio’s claim that Germany’s surveillance of AfD is “tyranny in disguise” echoes how the NSDAP decried Weimar government actions—like banning Nazi paramilitary groups—as undemocratic overreach, a narrative that helped them gain broader support among Germans feeling disenfranchised.

In 1932, the NSDAP was the second-largest party in the Reichstag elections with 37.3% of the vote, similar to AfD’s recent second-place finish in German elections, a parallel Rubio uses to legitimize AfD’s popularity while ignoring its extremist rhetoric.

The NSDAP capitalized on economic despair and anti-immigrant sentiment, scapegoating Jews and other minorities, much like AfD’s platform focuses on anti-Muslim immigration policies, which Rubio indirectly endorses by attacking the German establishment’s stance.

Rubio’s defense of AfD overlooks its documented Holocaust relativization, a stance that aligns with NSDAP’s early efforts to rewrite history—by 1933, the Nazis were already suppressing Jewish narratives and promoting revisionist history to downplay their crimes.

Historical context: The NSDAP gained traction by exploiting fears of communism, often falsely equating their enemies with communists, a tactic AfD mirrors by comparing modern German leaders to East German secret police, as noted in Wikipedia’s AfD entry [web ID: 1].

Rubio’s rhetoric fits a pattern of U.S. conservative figures like Elon Musk and JD Vance supporting AfD, despite its extremist ties, reflecting a broader Trump-era shift toward aligning with far-right European movements that echo historical fascist strategies. — Grok AI

Don't see much false here.
There are other concerning observations, both regarding AfD and the US.
The party hasn't been banned, but is under observation.

Marco Rubio decries Vladimir Putin as tyrant, calls on White House to push human rights
^{— Scott Powers · Florida Politics · Mar 30, 2017}
Marco Rubio criticized Germany. The foreign ministry hit back
^{— Stefanie Dazio · AP · May 3, 2025}
Germany hits back at Rubio's defense of far-right AfD party
^{— Mithil Aggarwal · NBC · May 3, 2025}

The AfD is not even remotely fascist or nazi.

It's a libertarian party, which is the diametrical opposite of the type of authoritarian far-right movements.

If you're going to make these underhanded suggestions, at least have the common decency to figure out what the people you're accusing believe:




The problem in Europe has long been the establishment itself, which is the party that shows the actual signs of authoritarianism, by ceding ever more power to the corrupt, untransparant, undemocratic cesspool that is Brussels, by cracking down on dissenting voices under the guise of 'misinformation', by calling everything to the right of themselves 'extreme right', etc.


People apparently have such a naive conception of how politics works, that they're unable to see how the establishment slaps labels of fascism and nazism on anything that challenges its power.

The problem in Europe has long been the establishment itself, which is the party that shows the actual signs of authoritarianism, by ceding ever more power to the corrupt, untransparant, undemocratic cesspool that is Brussels, by cracking down on dissenting voices under the guise of 'misinformation', by calling everything to the right of themselves 'extreme right', etc. — Tzeentch

Have they deported any innocent legal residents to El Salvador without due process of law recently?

That doesn't even register on the same scale of all the cooked up shit your government gets up to.

Also, weren't they gang members?

weren't they gang members? — Tzeentch

No

The AfD is not even remotely fascist or nazi.

It's a libertarian party, which is the diametrical opposite of the type of authoritarian far-right movements. — Tzeentch

It might portray itself as libertarian and enthusiastically talk about being libertarian, yet it's stance to immigration, not only just to stop it, but talk of remigration, shows that this clearly isn't the case.

I'll just repeat I put on another thread on the issue:

I'm usually pretty critical when some European party is marked as being far-right or extremist, but with the "Alternative for Germany" AfD, it's quite obvious and I totally agree with the German domestic intelligence service, the BfV, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. When a political party starts segregating citizens of the country on the base of their race or ethnicity and wants to sent somewhere away German citizens, that is a clearly a threat to democracy. There's no way to look away from that. That AfD leader Weidel used the term remigration, a term popularized in the German-speaking world by Austrian neo-Nazi Martin Sellner, which refers to forcibly removing immigrants who refuse to integrate with German culture, regardless of their citizenship status, isn't just an error. The AfD leadership had met Sellner himself and afterward used the term. And there's many incidents to show just how neo-nazi many in the leadership of the party are.

The idea of AfD being this innocent libertarian/populist party that is wrongly accused to be extremist by the powers at be is simply incorrect bullshit spread by the alt-right itself. Normalization of people applying for citizenship is one thing, but changing the status of people that are already citizens is a truly toxic thing to do. One of the best ways to spread hate and disagreement amongst a population.

And that's why Putin and the Kremlin simply love these parties. As I said years ago.

Nonsense.

Go read for yourself what they say about remigration: https://www.afd.de/remigration/

You've fallen for the good ol' fascist canard, with which the establishments of Europe try to keep any and all opposition out of power.

the problem with AfD is also due to their ties with unfriendly and hostile powers like Trump's US and Putin's Russia.

So it seems that you take as proof that this is an non-issue the fact that the AfD states on a webpage that they "firmly reject unconstitutional demands such as the arbitrary collective deportation of foreigners regardless of an existing individual right of residence, or even the deportation of German citizens with a migration background."

Well great, they say that they basically abide with the current laws and won't break the law. That's... a good start. :roll:

However what AfD says otherwise actually are talking about. Like this, just to give one example:



So when a political party promises to deport millions of people to sustain the national identity, yes, it's not your libertarian party, but your nativist anti-immigration far-right populist party. You can try to ridicule me and troll all you want, but that won't change anything. The "Libertarianism" of this party is simply window dressing in order that people who don't love the neo-nazi tag can join in.

And then there's the obvious polarization with Germans supporting the AfD and the rest:

- Only 20% of Germans with a favorable view of the party say democracy in their country is working well. Among Germans with an unfavorable view of the party, 65% believe their democracy is working well.

- Only 30% of AfD supporters have a positive view of the EU, compared with 72% of those who do not support the party.

- AfD supporters have more confidence in Russian President Vladimir Putin than those who do not support the party (45% vs. 10%). Nonsupporters, by comparison, have much more positive views of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (61% vs. 31%).

- AfD supporters also stand out for having significantly less favorable views than nonsupporters when it comes to NATO (39% vs. 71%).

Yet if you want to support German Putin-lovers, the AfD is the party for you.

Yes, well the tie to Elon Musk and Trump hopefully backfires. After all, the best thing to happen to the support of the EU in member countries was the shitstorm of economic calamity that the UK headed into when it did it's Brexit.

So when a political party promises to deport millions of people to sustain the national identity, yes, it's not your libertarian party, but your nativist anti-immigration far-right populist party. — ssu

What you linked isn't a political party promising anything.

It's some random guy no one has ever heard of posting a tweet. Sometimes politicians say edgy things to get attention. Big whoop.

I see no problem with AfD's policies on immigration and remigration. If people come here illegally purely to profit off the welfare state, start criminally misbehaving and show clear signs that they actually hate our society and our societal norms, then send them back to whatever hole they crawled out of. I couldn't care less about what happens to them. (I say 'our' because the situation in the Netherlands is very similar to that in Germany)

Of course, that doesn't include decent, law-abiding people who migrated legally.

It's some random guy no one has ever heard of posting a tweet. Sometimes politicians say edgy things to get attention. Big whoop. — Tzeentch

Your failing desperately in your defense of these far-right nativists:

René Springer (born 15 July 1979) is a German politician. Born in Berlin, he represents Alternative for Germany (AfD). René Springer has served as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Brandenburg since 2017.

This is a perfect example of these far-right populist parties in Europe: you have to listen what their members are actually saying. And this is just one example among many AfD politicians with similar rhetoric. Hating muslims is another topic these people love. Yeah, political parties can change their stances, but here I guess with AfD to do away with the nativist alt-right rhetoric would loose "the base" of the party.

Those who look at these issues objectively understand this. Those that will do anything to defend Trump/Putin -populists will deny everything.

Go along with the Musk-view that these are actually only libertarians who the evil established media is attacking.

After this, it should be very obvious that the US isn't what it was before. It's far more worse than a country like Hungary with Orban. If this is the way US Senators are treated in an government building in an press conference, it's really obvious what the US has come.



Hey, next you can have the Russian response with someone giving tranquilizers to the person manhandled to the floor.

The fact you see no problem with remigration really says it all. As if it doesn't echo extremist and identitarian talking points of the (neo-)Nazis. Like most right-wing parties nowadays the nationalist and anti-immgrant positions are straight from the early 20th-century fascist playbooks.

The whole idea that AfD is not a fascist party, is about pretending the acronym doesn't refer back to the Sturmabteilung even when prominent leaders say it out loud. Björn Höcke has been fined twice for using the banned Nazi slogan “Alles für Deutschland”, which was the official slogan of the SA. Every German knows this. It's the most obvious dog whistle in the world; just like Wilders' seagull is a nod to the national socialist movement in the Netherlands.

EDIT: Just to make sure you are on the same page on wwhat kind remigration they are talking about. The AfD has an ethnicity- and ancestry-based understanding of what it means to be German. They differentiate between Biodeutsche and Passdeutsche, where the latter is meant to exclude Germans who became German through naturalisation. Their remigration idea includes the mass deportation of naturalised Germans...

You can read their site if you want to know what their policy ideas entail, and they're nothing like you're making them out to be.

AfD is a populist party threatening the establishment, so the establishment works overtime to try and paint them as the big bad.

It's childish and boring, but undeniably effective.

What's childish and boring is pretending "their site" is the only source of information and pretending what they say and do has no relevance. There's a reason the AfD acronym is to be confused with the Sturmabteilung slogan, that they repeatedly comment on Biodeutsche and Passdeutsche in speeches, interviews and on social media and in far-right media outlet. It's not an accident.

The AfD has publicly stated they want to deport millions. René Springer explictly stated: Wir werden Ausländer in ihre Heimat zurückführen. Millionenfach.

Das ist kein #Geheimplan. Das ist ein Versprechen.

Für mehr Sicherheit. Für mehr Gerechtigkeit. Für den Erhalt unserer Identität. Für Deutschland.

Quite simply, you will never arrive at their numbers for remigration unless you subscribe to the distinction. There's a reason the term circulates in other right-wing neo-Nazi groups. There's a reason the term circulates in other right-wing neo-Nazi groups and fora associated with the AfD. That reason is that it is a fascist party and we're back at the Aryan bullshit of German identity.

Wake up. It's not "threatening the establishment" unless you mean it in the same way as any other fascist party from the early 20th century.