Summary
Elon Musk livestreamed a conversation with Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, on his platform X, endorsing her and urging support for the AfD ahead of Germany’s February 23 election.
The livestream, which drew over 200,000 viewers, raised concerns across Europe about Musk’s influence in foreign politics.
AfD, under observation for extremism, has gained popularity amid discontent with Chancellor Scholz’s government.
Musk’s promotion of Weidel and controversial remarks on other European issues are being monitored for violations of the EU’s Digital Services Act.
When large parts of the population say they’d like less islamic immigration and, instead of listening, politicians patronise them, what you end up with are Nazis…
Don’t politician have to serve their country? In Germany’s case that means promoting immigration, to have any chance at keeping up the pension and welfare system as it is, because Germans don’t get anywhere near enough kids. Being against immigration right now means being for less pension, higher medical costs, worse infrastructure etc. Merkel realized that (more than) ten years ago. The average afd dumbo is still too fucking thick to think further than from wall to wallpaper. There would be other options, of course. Consuming less, getting rid of the thought of eternal growth, but not even worth a thought as long as sexy Christian is still alive and foamy.
I would further and say just immigration is not enough. We need to provide equal rights and opportunities to immigrants as well. Because as long as immigrants can be exploited for lower labor, Germans will also be exploited indirectly.
Whether its about crimes, poverty leads to crime not immigration. Which immigrants tend to be.
Or if it is about equal pay, cuz if immigrants don’t get equal pay that will just lead to lower pay for everybody industry wide.
AfD knows this because they serve the rich not the people. They want the threat of deportation to immigrants so they work for cheaper and rich get richer.
And at the same time, when Germans get angry, AfD tells them to direct it towards immigrants not the rich.
Its crazy how many of the world’s problems can be solved by having empathy and humanity.
While I don’t disagree that there’s a serious class battle going on people are also allowed to want there to be less immigration, especially of islamic culture, no? That’s democracy. Steamrolling over this, as if it’s a totally invalid thought to have, is what leads to the disconnect between urban elite politicians and the mass of people who are frustrated that the border seems to be porous to objectionable social values. You could have a moderate solution, but by ignoring people you end up with them feeling they’re only understood by more extreme ideologues.
Obviously the way Merkel and CDU did immigration and the way it is still done is far from ideal. Germany needs to change the way it looks at immigrants in general. But I doubt Fritzl sees it that way so yeah, tough times to hope for a better future…
While I personally don’t agree with them, what you are doing here is exactly the kind of patronising I was talking about. The choice between poorer services and immigration should be a democratic choice. People should be allowed to be ok that the country will be poorer but less culturally diverse. If that’s important to them. That’s that point of having democracy at all- it’s not obvious which matters are the more important ones. You may have you own opinions, they may in fact be thoroughly based on data and utilitarian greater good, but as soon as you say ‘this whole mass of people must be thick because of what they value and I’m going to ignore them’ you’re engaging in the exact kind of behaviour that you think you’re fighting.
IF(!) people were voting AfD while acknowledging that it will result in less money, general quality of life etc. for them: fair enough. If they made an informed decision to live a shittier life by voting against immigration because that’s their priority: all right (he he). But we both know that this is not the case. They fall for the dumb and blatant lies of the populists, telling them they will have more money, better social security, better infrastructure, a better life in general.
No. This is the fundamental of democracy, it’s weakness we have to bear with (but only because all the other options are worse). Despite all the bullshit (and there is a lot of bullshit) democracy has to rest on the fact that a population of adults can make a decision. That en masse their bullshit detectors work good enough. Else we become anti democratic ourselves and start favouring a vanguard of the insightful, educated, tasteful, moral, high thinkers “such as ourselves!” that get to patronise everyone else and disregard their opinions.
A lot of people thoroughly dislike conservative Islam. Both as a concept and from firsthand experience. There are other things wrong with the country too. But acting like people have no right to want there to be greater discernment at the border, and in fact call them churlish and mentally deficient for expressing anything of the kind, is what leaves them (and the are many of them) disconnected from the political process, frustrated, and open to the rhetoric of more extreme ideologues.
I myself dislike conservative Islam, same as all religions and ideologies that want to govern other peoples private lives. So fair enough. I’m not acting like people have no right to worry about immigration as it is, those are words that you putting in my mouth. But there has to be a difference between worrying about who comes to this country and calls to expell every brown person from Germany.
In the world of today, don’t you worry about democracy, when you look at how easy it has become to influence people based on the vast amount of data collected on every single person, by companies headed by people like Elon Musk? Are you not afraid of the accuracy of algorithms, that can form and modify the opinion of people without them noticing? Are the bullshit detectors really that good? Do you think most people have an accurate idea of what huge amounts of information they generate just by browsing the web and using a smartphone? I think the goal should be to help more people to make informed decisions, as free of external influences as possible. If you think that’s patronizing and that we should let things just run their course, I’m pretty sure you’d have to also accept the possibility of the end of democracy in a not too distant future.
It’s Mexican immigration they care about. But if they wanted their jobs to be taken by skilled immigrant workers, they’re gonna get that with trump. Whoops. Leopards.
Wrong continent