Why more young men in Germany are turning to the far-right
Why more young men in Germany are turning to the far-right
The far-right here and elsewhere in Europe attracts an increasing number of young people, particularly men.
Summary
Support for Germany’s far-right AfD is surging among young men, driven by concerns over immigration, conservative values, and distrust of mainstream politics.
A Pew study found 26% of German men view AfD positively, compared to 11% of women.
Social media, particularly TikTok, has helped spread its message. Some young supporters reject accusations of extremism, while others openly embrace far-right views.
Analysts warn that if mainstream parties ease their opposition to the AfD, it could become Germany’s dominant right-wing party.
Because capitalism, as a system, is a machine that in the "best" of cases enables fascism, and in the worst it just outrights converts into fascism.
For decades, although nowadays is even more pronounced, young people have been deprived of a decent future in all senses; educational, social, economic, environmentally... At the same time that they were being bombarded, figuratively and literally, with fake news, guilt riddled articles, and a myriad of macho values that they are still supposed to uphold.
These young men worldwide are a byproduct of capitalism and patriarchy, and unless we collectively can do something, they will also become the first disposable pawns in the wars to come.
P.S: Sorry for the dark post, sometimes is difficult to see the brighter side of things.
P.S2: Yes, I also whistled Monty Python's The Life of Brian in my head after typing the first P.S.
Well that's... dedication! Damnit I'm gonna have to watch that now...
The poor are getting poorer, the rich are getting richer. Somehow, the rich have convinced some of the poor, that the reason they're getting poorer is because of the other poors (who are also getting poorer).
A desperate belief that they are impoverished because they need to compete with an ethnic out group and a belief that the out group is taking their shit, murdering them, and stealing/raping their women.
Even though its largely due to capitalism and technologically induced paranoia & loneliness.
Déjà-vu.
Because they are stupid and easily influenced by propaganda.
Stupid ? All youngsters all around the world are stupid then.
Probably not. But individuals on TikTok are definitely denying themselves an opportunity to get smarter.
To be honest, a large percentage of people are intellectually very lazy (use emotion to decide, dont' seek understanding but entertainment) and prone to being manipulated.
A large percentage of people hunger for a sense of belonging and community (which extreme nationalism and a tribal attitude can offer to some degree).
In the wasteland of corporate-controlled algorithmically steered social media (prime examples: TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube)... people who don't have an analytical mindset will get themselves shut in a bubble, and subsequently tricked and conned in various ways.
Brick and mortar social problems like a reduced chance of earning a good living by selling one's labour - those pile on top of that. :(
They kind of are though. There's a reason the word Sophomore exists and is used to describe students multiple times in their education career.
(Historically it means wise fool or; conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature)
Yeah, you got it!
Can we please talk about how there is no active real left wing in any country?
Like sure the right wins when there is no real opposition.
I keep feeling like I've failed miserably as a person for not doing more. And I have no idea what should I be doing.
Because capitalism is actually threatened by leftism, so the system actively suppresses it.
And I have no idea what should I be doing.
Imo:
- Finding other people who feel the same way
- Organizing/structuring your common discussion and research. I feel like I've seen 100 comment sections like this one where people see the problem, the commenters then speculate about the causes/solutions, and then the convo fizzles out without a deeper conclusion being reached. Every day under a new post, again and again. There is clearly manpower and a will to do something, it is just IMHO suffering from structurelesness. The conversation needs to be had once and thoroughly, in some central location that everyone can then be referred to. This way, people can specialize their research efforts, instead of everybody doing superficial research for themselves in isolation.
One centralized discussion I have seen is about the democratic side of the problem and it's over at https://plurality.net/ (it is a crowd sourced work co-written using github). I think the political/economic side of the debate would benefit from piggybacking off of an existing centralized platform devoted to the cause, like https://generalstrikeus.com/ or some trade union.
There is nothing you can/could do. The endless war against intelligence and focus on just believing what some screaming asshole says on talk radio, combined with the dawn of the internet being weaponized to spread that brain rot, and here you go. Maybe if you can go back in time and murder Ronald Reagan before capitalism gets so out of hand that they can buy the government ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What about doing my own content? Podcasts, screaming asshole youtubes and whatnot? I can't speak very well, much less write, but I can... do something
It seems that every 80 years or so humanity has to learn a hard lesson over and over again.
I'm gonna go with
- Angry without a culprit
- Reduced critical thought
Both of those.
I want to add a third thing to this list:
- Feeling left behind by mainstream political parties.
The parties in power surely pay lip service to the issues that concern the young but very rarely do they actually do anything about it.
I think there are obviously a lot of reasons this is happening, we all know it’s not so simple a thing to explain.
But I think it can mostly just be boiled down to general discontent—there is a feeling all over the world that is vague and seemingly in everyone. It’s disenfranchisement. It’s a system that doesn’t prioritize us or even consider us. We serve the system, and the exploitation for the benefit of the global system has become so acute that it’s hitting everyone.
But people just cannot conceive of big problems like this. It always has to be something specific, so their more personal fears and biases are being exploited by the most advanced conditioning and manipulation system ever created.
We are mico-conditioned. We are exploited in new and exciting and previously unthinkable ways. We are so minutely controlled that we aren’t even in control of our own feelings most of the time. We have our moods changed for companies to profit or to weaken us to whatever it is their product “fixes.”
We can dig down into so much minutiae about the different things, but that’s like dividing Infinity over and over and over ad Infinitum. But we need to stop subdividing and sub-subdividing because that only serves to divide us—which is exactly the tactic used to exploit our vague anger. We need to instead zoom way out and see that this system is taking us down with the world it’s destroying. We all feel it, we all feel the system breaking down. But that uneasiness is given a face and a name in immigrants, or whatever is helpful.
There was a time that I thought the world hated nazis. I realize now it was only hitler the world didn’t like. It turns out they actually love Nazis.
I was thinking about this the other day, and came to some conclusions. This is a copy-paste of a comment I made in another thread:
I don’t know much about the history of anti-Semitism in Europe (so anyone feel free to correct me or add more info), but what I’ve been thinking is that the cause/origin of anti-Semitism is no different from the anti-immigrant panic from today. They both come down to people from a “foreign” or at least different culture coming into a society and getting jobs or opening business. It just so happens that now those foreign people are more diverse, whereas before (centuries ago in Europe) they were mostly Jewish.
This tells me we have learned nothing from our past except for the most surface level details. We learned that anti-Semitism is bad and beat people over the head with it, but we never properly addressed the roots of it, and so now the same thing is repeating but for different groups of people. It’s the same sort of thing as when it is said that “people nowadays are more open minded”, when the reality is simply that they were taught to be okay (or not) with certain things; but the bigoted though process has not really gone away.
The Jew hate originally stemmed from the fact that they could loan money and charge interest, which Christians found to be a sin (usury). Well, somebody has to handle banking or the economy crashes. Made them perfect scapegoats.
"I must be suffering because the Jews stole my money!"
Then it gets worse. Jews had strict rules about cleanliness, you can find many of them in the Bible. Guess who did and didn't get hit with plague rats. Guess who got the blame.
Funny that this somehow was obvious for me since childhood. One of the perks of being autistic is that reading the same mainstream narrative texts you understand them differently.
The world loves those enforcing rules, because they have to be strong for that, and the world loves those breaking rules, because if today they are making a challenge, tomorrow they might become even stronger. Humans follow strength. So a new challenger of existing order is loved, a yesterday's challenger who is still not a triumphant is hated.
Also the world wants to use those with integrity, but hang out with those without integrity. The former are reliable, and with the latter you can make any deal.
No conclusion other than a dagger is good for the one holding it and evil for the one lacking it when needed.
The world loves those enforcing rules, because they have to be strong for that, and the world loves those breaking rules, because if today they are making a challenge, tomorrow they might become even stronger. Humans follow strength. So a new challenger of existing order is loved, a yesterday’s challenger who is still not a triumphant is hated.
In my experience, a good microcosm example of that is sports; specifically MMA. Just have to pay attention to how quickly the narrative and majority opinion changes based on who has most recently won their fights. You also often see subconscious racism (or at least I like to think it's subconscious) affect people's opinions of fighters.
Like always, the 1% keep parasitising the wealth of a country till the inhabitants stop living in comfort. When populists capitalise on this, the answer is... Tik tok makes young men racist, not poverty and uneducation... Anything to avoid wealth re-distribution. *slow clap
Hopefully some enlightenment will come and the eyes will turn to the real responsibility for this situation, and then the guillotines.
Well, this being the BBC their take is NEVER (ever, ever) going to be that the empoverishment due to a social, political and economic structure than massively benefits the Owner class whilst empoverishing the rest and uses propaganda to distract the masses and to make sure any redistributive ideologies are un- or at least under-reported, is the one to blame for those most hit amongst the "plebes" are going to rebel and latch one to the only "non"-mainstream ideologies that do get reported about - the Far Right.
This is because in their own country and, to some level internationally, the BBC's function is to be a cog in exactly that propaganda machine.
The last thing you'll ever going to see is the news media who portrays "two sides coverage" (I.e. all subjects getting reduced to a dispute between the two main parties) as "fair" "journalism" covering any subject as a problem of how mainstream politics benefits the well-entrenced Owner class, especially the news media from a country were the Owner class is mainly made up of the same families as a century ago. At best, they'll cover the near-mainstream "blame outsiders" movements (such as the Far Right), never those pointing out how much of the blame rest on well off local elites
I think the point is not "this is all TikTok's fault", the point is things like TikTok makes it a lot easier to spread misinformation. People have shorter attention spans nowadays, and they prefer to spend their time consuming short form content such as the kind found on TikTok. The problem with this is that it takes a lot more effort to correct wrong information and educate people than it takes to spread misinformation. For example, it's much easier to clip something a politician says out of context and to make a 5 or 10 second clip for people to watch, than to convince people to watch a 5 minute interview or read an article for context.
And even though I don't use TikTok, I still kind of insert my self in here; I don't have the mental fortitude or patience to read every single article I come across, so I often read diagonally, check the summary, or (more rarely) just stick with the title.
till
I don't know what a cash-drawer or ploughing has to do with this discussion. Honestly, that's when I resumed scrolling, and I'm sorry.
I hope you're from Quebec
Germany isn't doing that bad though. This is happening all over, regardless of how comfortable the country's white boys are. Of course, not capitalists will stop it, because they hope to profit from the divide.
Many families in Germany face a precarious future, and your dismissal of the concerns of young people will definitely not make them more reasonable when it comes to the election. There are enormous financial challenges for a lot of Germans, and unlike in the U.S., White people are just as much affected as all the others.
I'm not aware of a country that's swinging right where living standards are rising. They're all either stalled out or falling in spite of narrative and expectation. Sure, Germany isn't bad compared to some others, but plenty of Germans recognize that the standard of living they're used to is starting to diminish. Unfortunately, instead of recognizing the real causes here, that angst is being channeled into "yes, but what if we tried out fascism again?"
The thing that's wild to me as a USian is that we've had the fruits of reactionary conservatism (starting on the path with Reaganism) on full display since the oughts, and other countries seem to see our shambling fucking mess and go "well, yes, but the rich people told us it'll be different for us." No, it fucking won't.
Yup. Seeing it first hand with a shorts addict relative right now. It‘s just doomscrolling all the way to the 4th Reich for many of them. It‘s sadly not surprising but all the more horrifying to see how utterly unequipped we are to deal the pace of „social“ media and how easy it is to spread far right ideology with lies and memes. I think a ban of TikTok and Xitter is inevitable at this point. They‘re too far gone.
This mirrors what’s happening with men of the same age in the US.
Not surprising, given the same people are pushing the same rhetoric all over the world.
Welcome to web 4.0, where the vocal minority monopolizes all of our feeds
Not all over though. China isn't electing Sieg Heil, and neither is the Sahel
Social media, particularly TikTok, has helped spread its message.
Lies are easier to spread than the truth, and often more easily accepted too. Social media is fucked because of the near total lack of moderation - or desire to enact such.
After all, the ultra-wealthy often have little objection to being the useful pets of fascists, so long as they get to keep slightly more of their money*.
*until the fascists decide they want it even more than the scawwy LIBERALS did
near total lack of moderation
Disagree. Social media is built to favor creating and then selling huge name influencers to your users, and because you cannot become a large influencer/streamer/w/e without essentially being uncritical about the world, or being critical in a way that swings completely to 1 side of the aisle. This is in itself a form of moderation that only ever allows some critical voices to succeed, but only if their critique furthers the divide among the working class.
I gotta say, watching them destroy the world is not making me a fan of young men.
FUD: increase fear, uncertainty, and doubt by spreading misinformation propaganda and undermining independent, fact based journalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
It's the same tactic far right conservatives used against popular public progressive movements like the enlightenment, the hippies, corporate monopolies like IBM and Microsoft against open source, etc to divide the working class against themselves.
Fucking Hans, you gullible bitch, showing your face around here again... You think you're gonna be a superman?
Because they’re Nazis.
Because they’re Nazis.
But why do people become Nazis?
People are not born Nazis.
Understanding why people become Nazis helps prevent people from becoming Nazis, even if you think there's no hope for the fucks who've already dived into the ideology.
I think it’s largely about a lack of opportunity for, especially but not exclusively, blue collar workers1 and a perceived loss of status. There seems to be a lot of young men across the West and elsewhere who are struggling to build a career in the modern economy and being rejected by women (in part due to their anger) when, to them, it feels like just a generation or two ago, they would have been handed a middle class life and been the breadwinner for a family already.
Nevermind that a generation or two ago, that status came at the expense of others. To them, it feels like lost status. So, they’re easily manipulated by the far right saying, “It’s not you. It’s [insert scapegoat: women, immigrants, whatever]. We’ll give you a sense of purpose.”
1 I only say blue collar because of the shift in rich countries from manufacturing to services, whether high paid or low paid. But whole white collar professions have disappeared just due to computers.
People become Nazis when they feel lost, powerless, and their lives meaningless. They reach for it in a desperate attempt to be part of something important, powerful, and meaningful.
But it’s empty and nihilistic, so it doesn’t work out.
We as a society haven’t figured out how to deal with modernity. All our problems are of our own making. We’ve destroyed religion (the original provider of meaning and belonging) and left a void in its place. That’s all the desire for Nazism is: a desire to fill that void (and a scapegoat for why it exists in the first place).
Of course you and I can see that the scapegoat is wrong and totally absurd. But that’s not important to them. There’s no easier way to feel powerful than to topple a hated enemy.
I mean, fair, but a lot of the "why" with these guys boils down to "The world acts like all men are terrible, sex-crazed jerks who are violent, angry, and unable to control their emotions while claiming they're actually stoic and that makes me feel bad about myself."
Then, their solution is to double down on all those things because they're upset about being unfairly accused.
Look, if your response to people assuming you're a shitty person is to just... become an even shittier person to prove it, I think it says there was something deeply wrong with you before you doubled down.
I've heard the same shit about men my whole life and not fucking once did it make me go "God damn, I should just be a pile of shit then!" No, every time it inspired me to self-reflect and try to change my behaviors for the better.
So I reiterate, if your response is to double down, something was wrong with you before the turn to Nazism.
Like I don't know why else talking about "rape culture" resulted in young men chanting "Your body, my choice!" at women other than being born and raised as a piece of shit.
This is true. Last time TikTok got popular in Germany was in 1930 and we all know how that ended.
Because they are fascists on the left there against free speech it increases fascism everywhere. When you make speech illegal it causes those groups to grow.