It’s very much an easy/west split in Germany, and the fact is the east is still feeling the effects of soviet control. What works for the richer west is not working in the same way in the east because the problems are different.
When you’re hurting, more of the same isn’t a rational option.
However, the AfD pursues a largely neoliberal economic policy and will therefore not do anything for the socially disadvantaged or for East Germany. But this fact is effectively disguised by the constant slogans “Foreigners are taking jobs away from Germans” and similar nonsense.
In this respect too, the AfD is quite similar to the MAGA people and, strangely enough, both are especially popular with the socially disadvantaged who vote against their own interests.
Do you know where they’re coming from? I’m very interested in how this recent wave of populism came to be, and from what I understand eastern (formerly Eastern) Germany has always been more rural and conservative, and it only got worse with the Iron Curtain.
It’s not stupidity. It’s desperation.
It’s very much an easy/west split in Germany, and the fact is the east is still feeling the effects of soviet control. What works for the richer west is not working in the same way in the east because the problems are different.
When you’re hurting, more of the same isn’t a rational option.
However, the AfD pursues a largely neoliberal economic policy and will therefore not do anything for the socially disadvantaged or for East Germany. But this fact is effectively disguised by the constant slogans “Foreigners are taking jobs away from Germans” and similar nonsense.
In this respect too, the AfD is quite similar to the MAGA people and, strangely enough, both are especially popular with the socially disadvantaged who vote against their own interests.
A lot of the AfD members in the east are also not originally from the east.
Yes, the leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Alice Weidel, doesn’t even live in Germany, but in Switzerland.
Do you know where they’re coming from? I’m very interested in how this recent wave of populism came to be, and from what I understand eastern (formerly Eastern) Germany has always been more rural and conservative, and it only got worse with the Iron Curtain.
Agreed, but the depth of most people’s political analysis is “they scare the people currently in power”, and that’s enough.
Aka killing the golden goose to get more eggs.