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Mike Bird
@Birdyword
This is not a slight on AT, who is at least coming to the right conclusion, but it is amazing that many people on the progressive left find it very difficult to concede that the motivation for the surge in votes for the massively anti-immigration party may just be immigration.
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Joe Weisenthal
@TheStalwart
Good, clear read from @adam_tooze on the German regional election, and what’s driving support for AfD adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-47
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Mike Bird
@Birdyword
There's a bit of false consciousness reasoning underpinning it, but I also think there's something common to people who are very engaged in politics - a discomfort with just disagreeing with the electorate. There must be misdirection, or a deeper and more comforting motivation.
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Joe Weisenthal
@TheStalwart
So much crazy discourse post-2016. Trump's signature promise was to build the wall. And there were a lot of voters vocally enthusiastic about building the wall. And then you had all of these people (liberal and left) that insisted his success must've been about something else.
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Andrew Sabisky
@AndrewSabisky
also surely the CDU and FDP have totally trashed their "pro business" credentials at this point, so even if you do really care about that, there's no reason not to take a punt on the AfD
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Mike Bird
@Birdyword
Yeah, I think any time people are willing to punt for something outside the existing political mainstream it's a combination of liking the sound of the alternative and no longer considering the risk of rocking the boat to be important
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Matthias Menzel
@jstarks_knicks
definitely part of it. but why is it that the afd vote in sa is the highest anywhere, while the share of population with immigrant background is well below the average in germany?
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sightspinner
@sightspinner
The weird thing about Germany though is that afd did better in districts with less actual immigration. It seems to be perceived immigration that’s the driver rather than actual bumping elbows with immigrants
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ghostatlas
@ghostatlas3
Stems from a need to portray the “common folk” a having some wisdom when in fact, a good slug will always be malignant, xenophobic eat-work-sleep machines rattling on about losing a culture they did little to build.
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Tom Nuttall
@tom_nuttall
Would be great if it were that simple. But the AfD has surged at just the moment that irregular immigration has plummeted. And there's very little of it in Saxony Anhalt anyway.
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Oscar Clarke
@OscarClarke17
The quote is pretty offensive. It suggests he thinks the most economically disadvantaged ppl ought to vote for welfarism if they are rational (even if offered to them by Communist Die Linke). Maybe they have other concerns, or they realise that welfarism impoverishes a country.
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Hardcore Chicago Fire Fan
@LeDivinRichard
Yes very likely that immigration plays a role and AT acknowledges this in the piece I believe. However, if you juxtapose a map of AfD voting intentions and a map of foreigners /capita in Germany, you get a real negative correlation.
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Max Jerneck
@MaxJerneck
Surely that goes without saying. The question is why do they hate immigrants, and when it’s not about crime it’s usually some right wing trope about them using all the tax money or some nonsense
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costaV02
@CostaV02
I mean it’s that + objection to anything the far right could approve of as well, even if it’s utterly mundane. It’s infuriating
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alexmassie
@alexmassie
You have to remember that while it is perfectly rational for wealthy people to vote against their immediate economic self-interest it is profoundly irrational and mysterious for poorer people to do the same!
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Jan S
@wuyavae
Numbers 4, 5, and 6 are driven by economics. How’s personal safety driven by immigration when crime statistics show positive developments?
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James Conran
@JamesConran1
Motivation, sure, but explanation is a bit different. Why has the AfD done so well under Merz, under whom net migration has collapsed (actually zero or even negative on the latest numbers)?
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lyx_par
@LyxPar
Who on the left - NOT LIBERALS - has had difficult expressing that notion?
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Götz von Berlichingen #FBPE
@georgebernhard
Whatever the cause of the support for the Nazis in Sachsen-Anhalt is, it clearly can not be actual immigration, because they have very little in that state. 🤷‍♂️ The states with the highest immigrant population have the lowest far right vote share in Germany.
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Starlink
@Starlink
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