Revelations that members of Germany’s far-right AfD discussed mass deportation plans have pushed tens of thousands of people to protest and sparked debate on whether the anti-immigrant party should be banned.
From Cologne to Leipzig to Nuremberg, Germans across the country have poured into the streets over the last week, with another 100 demonstrations expected through the weekend.
Many of the demonstrations have been held under the banner “together against the far-right”, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also joining a spontaneous gathering in Potsdam, where they live.
The vast majority of us are normal, we need to reinforce that from time to time.
Good
Currently standing at a demonstration in Nuremberg. Lots of passionate people here.
Remember there’s a petition going to take that party’s leader’s right to be elected: https://aktion.campact.de/weact/hocke-stoppen/teilnehmen (link is German)
That’s the wrong way if doing this. We need to pull out the rag of under those, that vote for him and his shitty stuff, we also have to pressure the media to do better and present more facts instead of opinions…and so on. Back to the roots, basically
The voters don’t care about facts. That’s the problem. We need to dismantle that party while we still have democratic (read: sane) people in charge, because arguing with someone who thinks COVID was a hoax to suppress the people or that the government has a secret agenda to replace the German population with muslims is futile.
I really, really hope AfD gets banned. Germany has strong anti-hate protections, but enforcement on small groups is avoided because they’re too small and not worth the trouble/attention, and enforcement on large groups is avoided because they’re too large and powerful, so it’s barely useful.
Canada often does the same thing.
But sadly they still have a lot of voters and will be probably one of the winners in the next election phase…
The people who vote AfD don’t follow the mainstream conservative media, so probably don’t even know there are protests, like Trump supporters who follow news outlets that support Trump. It would help if, for example, a number of famous football teams were brought in to promulgate a more inclusive message. That would likely be more effective than a few minutes on the ARD or ZDF News.
Isn’t “silent majority” the term used by the American far right?
Since this article is coming from Germany, the term used locally would be “schweigende Mehrheit”. This is based on Elisabeth Noelle-Neumanns work on the spiral of silence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence
In this case the head of the German Verfassungsschutz (one of the spy agencies tasked with fighting extremism) asked the silent majority to stand up against right wing extremism and Nazism and therefore this term is used here. Those american far right idiots don’t have anything to do with it. Could be that they heard something about Noelle-Neumanns work and didn’t understand it, but even that is unlikely
It’s used as a lie by the American right. It doesn’t have the same associations everywhere.
It’s a lie wherever it’s spoken, the delusion that “the people really agree with me, even though no one shows up or says anything.”
It’s just obvious rhetorical deception on its very face, anyone can claim it for any thing at any time because it just means “I don’t have proof the people support my policies.”
If anything the “silent majority” staging a mass protest against a still minority party just proves no majority in a democracy is silent.
