I believe that in view of Germany's history, they have a deeply ingrained desire for continuity. So even if they utterly disagree with what's going on, the fear of something different happening is greater still.

It took the German Greens about 20 yearrs from being a joke to being a joke that people no longer laughed at. AfD understand this perfectly and they are thinking long term. They are not so much saying things that will win them votes here and now but saying things that in years to come people will remember and see that they were right. I think they are the first right wing party in German post war history to understand this. For example when they walked out of that TV debate. Nobody else would have done that. Most right wing politicians believe it is still better to be barraged by the others as long as you can say something in between. In years to come nobody will remember what anybody said in that debate, but people will remember who has the balls to walk out.

Hmm, I am having fun watching Germany's elections. I know exactly whom will they bash, which themes will be discussed and which will be avoided. It's all the same, people must be given the illusion that something is done. Of course, everything according to the correct norms and rules of conduct in the political and public scene.
Cute.

Oh, and at present, watching all the debates in the West is like watching old congresses of the communist party from back home. Great fun.

From the outside, it's really hard to understand this mentality. Look at Helmut Kohl, ran the country into the ground, and they kept him in power for 16 years.

Part of Helmut Kohl's luck was the SPD's seeming inability to find a candidate who was sufficiently electable and could find much resonance outside of the SPD's core voter demographic.

It seems history is repeating itself.

Germany may be on the verge of electing its first ever black member of to the Bundestag.

To the great embarrasment of the mainstream parties, Achille Demagbo is being elected on the AfD ticket.

Demgabo was born in Benin and immigrated to Germany,

I guess it's unlikely for him to have been born in Germany (since you mention Benin). Him being an AfD member is of course remarkable. Weidel, Tassis (gay and head of the AfD members immigrants section), Demgabo ... will probably be interesting to see what that party turns into.

i expect this is the AfD's brexit moment...


they'll get in to the Bundesrat (their 'brexit victory'), and then be shown up for the amateurs they are. come the next election, or even sooner, they'll be wiped out.


The best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) thing that can happen to these fringe parties is actual power. When they become part of the establishment, which is what they aspire to, they lose the support of the people that got them there, because it suddenly dawns on them that they are entirely incompetent.


Sit back and watch the show.

First of all it's going to be interesting to see the old parties spin the election of the first black MP into a dark day for tolerance and multiculturalism.

I think you underestimate the strategy of the AfD. We're not in the 1990's any more and they're not Die Republikaner. They're not seeking to be elected to power any time soon, but seeking to confront and challenge the ruling parties from the comfort of opposition. That means other parties will be copying their policies to stem their popularity, and if they fail, AfD will benefit as they can say, you stole our idea but did it wrong. This is going to be very interersting.

Especially as in contrast to countries like France or Austria, Germany is still a virgin country when it comes to dealing with such parties, and you can expect lots of people in the other parties to makie newbie errors and walk straight into simple traps - as indeed you can already see happening now.

What a beautiful time to be a troll.

This morning I was listening to NPR while getting ready and they interviewed some first-class tool who was talking about Germany back to Germans, we don't like immigrants, we don't like muslims, the traditional family, and so forth. I did not catch his name, but unfortunately caught all the hateful BS he was spouting. Any thoughts on who he could be? Someone who's running?

I don't follow German politics much, but was not impressed by the message I heard this morning.

First exit polls have Merkel's CDU and the SPD doing worse than expected. AfD better than expected. Merkel will remain in power however will be significantly weakened by this result.

True, if she partners with the SPD again then they will certainly have over half the seats so I do not know what you mean by "significantly weakened "? So far as I know a simple majority is all that is needed to pass legislation.

Will be interesting to see how the AfD manage their time in Parliament. Often Conservative right wing parties split into different factions; look at the US Republicans as a prime example!

Alexander Gauland maybe?
I don't really follow German politics either though.

The SPD have been smashed. They're on 20% of the vote after being in a coalition with Merkel. They're the traditional opposition to the CDU and going into another coalition with them could prove to be suicidal.

Right winged parties are becoming not only bigger but also more adult and should be considered a stable part of the political system in several countries. Look what Marine Le-Pen is achieving with Front National, she is smoothening the image to shake of the extremist heritage it carried thanks to her father and is doing a good job on that, look at Wilders in the Netherlands, second biggest party now and finding rest and is stabilising after turbulent first years, Åkesson has smoothened the Swedish Democrats and making them a party which is still gaining more support (according to the polls for over the last year the 2nd biggest party) and a much more open character, they also managed to shake of the past and even tho they were spit out by almost everyone in the 80's due to being part of the white supremacist movement are now also an established party which support growing strong. In Belgium the Flemish populist party Vlaams Belang is growing steadily. The Dansk Folkeparti (Danish party of the people) established in 1995 is under Dahl doing very well and has become the second biggest party of the country.

Society is polarising and the extreme's on left and right gain support while the mid is becoming smaller, the immigrant crisis, the terrorist attacks and growing hatred towards the European union is also helping the right winged parties. They have become the 2nd party in a bunch of countries which is something hardly anyone would have believed if you would have predicted this 15 years ago.

Like it or not, Right has become adult and time is on their side, where and how it will end is something nobody knows.

A sane conservative party showing the CDU how it's done? Not that the AfD is all good right now (they pretty much have some terrible politics too)

Since Merkel thought it was a good idea to open the boarders plenty of conservatives had enough with her politics..

Yes, your post is correct, there has been a clean up. Additionally - its also because the left and center have become such bottom of the barrel parties that people are just holding their nose and voting. You can see that clearly with those parties when, instead of challenging the ideas and issues from the right, they instead gang up (parties with normally completely different ideologies) to try to take voting power from the newcomers. Thats going to bite them as people get more polarized.

The left (in the form of the post-communists) lost votes in Germany.

Greens and FDP gained (Greens slightly).

We'll have to see what the AfD makes out of this.

If you read their program, there's something in it for everybody.

Most of it is just nonsense. Some things are surreal. Some seem sort-of sane (maybe remnants from the time the AfD was something different).
;-)

SPD has said they will not go into a coalition with Merkel again and will choose to go into the opposition, most likely now will be FPD, Union and die Grünen, which according to latest result should get 52.8% If the further results will take this under 50% Germany might have a huge problem by not being able to form a coalition, a Problem the Netherlands is currently facing due to the amount of votes Wilders got, coalition talks are going on for almost half a year now, and if the latest plan will collapse re-elections are the only solution and since Wilders might even gain more votes by such i am very curious how this will end. They probably shit their pants by the Idea of losing even more and will commit "election-fraud" by telling their voters that they had to let go of principles of which they said are non-negotiable before the elections.

Funny you should say that, the AfD won votes from just about, well, everybody.