berg80
Diamond Member
- Oct 28, 2017
- 22,929
- 19,166
- 2,320
While Americans have long clashed over our country’s cruel and bigoted past, Germans have undertaken one of the most thoroughgoing efforts of any nation on the planet to reckon with their history. Germany, perhaps more than any other country, has attempted to pull out by the roots its homegrown variant of the reactionary spirit — the tendency of opponents of social change to choose hierarchy over democracy, trying to constrain or even topple democracy to protect hierarchies of wealth and status.
The Nazis were born out of disgust with post-World War I Weimar democracy, led by men furious about both the new government’s weakness and acceptance of the Jewish minority into German society. After Nazism brought Germany to ruin, preventing a reactionary resurgence became one of the central goals of the country’s subsequent leaders.
So it’s all the more extraordinary that in the past few years, Germany’s far right has been on the rise.
In 2015, at the peak of the global refugee crisis, German chancellor Angela Merkel announced an open-door policy for those fleeing violence in Syria and elsewhere. In response, the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party, a Euroskeptic faction without a single seat in Parliament, morphed into a virulently xenophobic force calling for Germany to slam Merkel’s open door shut.
In 2017’s national elections, AfD won 94 seats in the Bundestag, turning it into Germany’s third-largest political party.
Opposing the country’s approach to the migration policy did not, in and of itself, make AfD a threat to German democracy. But over time the party’s behavior has become more and more troubling.
www.vox.com
Fascinating article on a well covered subject. Namely, the conditions leading to a rise of far right parties espousing authoritarian governance. A nativist reaction to immigration, or a poisoning of the nation's blood, being primary among them.
Germans have undertaken one of the most thoroughgoing efforts of any nation on the planet to reckon with their history.
Will we do the same some day?
www.nbcnews.com
The Nazis were born out of disgust with post-World War I Weimar democracy, led by men furious about both the new government’s weakness and acceptance of the Jewish minority into German society. After Nazism brought Germany to ruin, preventing a reactionary resurgence became one of the central goals of the country’s subsequent leaders.
So it’s all the more extraordinary that in the past few years, Germany’s far right has been on the rise.
In 2015, at the peak of the global refugee crisis, German chancellor Angela Merkel announced an open-door policy for those fleeing violence in Syria and elsewhere. In response, the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party, a Euroskeptic faction without a single seat in Parliament, morphed into a virulently xenophobic force calling for Germany to slam Merkel’s open door shut.
In 2017’s national elections, AfD won 94 seats in the Bundestag, turning it into Germany’s third-largest political party.
Opposing the country’s approach to the migration policy did not, in and of itself, make AfD a threat to German democracy. But over time the party’s behavior has become more and more troubling.

Why the far right is surging all over the world
The “reactionary spirit” and the roots of the US authoritarian moment.

Fascinating article on a well covered subject. Namely, the conditions leading to a rise of far right parties espousing authoritarian governance. A nativist reaction to immigration, or a poisoning of the nation's blood, being primary among them.
Germans have undertaken one of the most thoroughgoing efforts of any nation on the planet to reckon with their history.
Will we do the same some day?
Trump says immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country.’ Biden campaign likens comments to Hitler.

Trump says immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country.’ Biden campaign likens comments to Hitler.
Trump went on to say his criticism is of immigrants from all over the world, including Asia and Africa.
