The right-wing is gaining support in Germany

[Scorpius]

According to the exit polls today. Merkel looks certain to lose her previously-safe seat too.

Is there more to this than immigration? Or is it a straight-forward rebellion against her open-door policy?

I would vote for them. I want to stop free movement of people here.

Articles in the Daily Mail as I said, because actual statistics are not good enough.

And in any case even if it were true and young men were more likely to be tempted into violence I doubt that treating them all as a group as potentially violent and justifying this judgement by a generalisation, would help anyone.

Tryingtosaveup, political parties have whole packages - even if they keep bits quiet at times.

We should be very careful about voting for a single issue: the rest of the package may turn out to be very harmful to us.

And when a party does try to sell a single issue as the cure for all our woes, it's usually a sign they're trying to pull a fast one.

Booboostwo It is exactly your attitude that pisses people off, you dismiss peoples fears as "racism" "xenophopia" and whatever you want to call it. People are getting fed up of being told what is "best" for them.

You have to cite the DM on a lot of the issues about the right, because other media aren't covering it at all.

And that's not right.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/04/ukip-whisper-it-shouldnt-we-be-covering-labour-leadership

booboo you may well be factually correct, but as we are seeing right across Europe, your tone and complete dismissal of concerns people have is not the way to win people back from the right.

Fear is more powerful that hope, and just telling people they're racists for being afraid isnt working as a strategy.

booboo, so you think right wing political parties in Germany, France, Austria, Holland, Denmark and Sweden are gaining in popularity because of the daily mail? You do realise how ridiculous that sounds, right?

When people are being racists I refuse to condone their views on the grounds that they are scared. Everyone is scared because of radicalisation and extremism. Behaving irrationally because one is scared is not an excuse - get a grip of yourself, put things in perspective, stop victimising those who are already victims, don't give a voice to hatred, nothing justifies standing with racists and fascists, there is no excuse for bringing racists and fascists to power.

Do you not think pre-WW II Germans were scared? It was exactly their fear, economic deprivation and insecurity that was exploited by the fascists to focus hatred on minorities and simplify the situation: the Jews are at fault for everything, vote for us and we will save you.

This is history repeating itself, a huge economic downturn, rise of extremism, rise of populism, and then rise of fascism. Farage has been elevated to the role of national statesman and no one is blinking. He has an international voice and the majority are not turning their back in disgust.

Frankly shame on you. Fear does not justify racism and neither will being racist alleviate your fears.

No doubt the right wing parties are getting support from those with only a racist agenda for supporting them but they always have. They are also getting support from people who believe that mass immigration is having a negative impact on their lives or the lives of people in similar situations and that they are bottom of the pile in the concerns of politicians. The left parties often don't want to listen or witter on about statistics and dismiss issues that people have raised. Ignoring people's concerns turns away voters we saw it with Labour they are the party that have lost support to UKIP not the Tories

Good politics is about having to deal with everyone's concerns not just those that suit your agenda.

This is what has lead to the UK voting to leave

I totally agree EnthusiasmDisturbed. By closing their ears to people's concerns the left have ceded ground to the far right. It is wilful stupidity.

They want us to feel under attack, our way of life threatened, our values trampled, our children in danger and they know who to target these fears towards, it's always the outsiders

If the actions of "new comers" negatively impact the every day life of people living in community of course there will be back lash against the new comers.

EG Girls/women, able to walk round normally in a village all their lives are told to walk a different way to work/school. And are told to think about how they dress....due to large numbers of migrants from a different culture living in their village.

Thats not the right wing press, thats no one scare mongering, thats advice given due to sexual assaults by SOME migrants on girls/women.

Bobo, I think you must have had your head in the sand, if you cant see, how much the people across EU have been impacted by some migrants.

Across the board, from tiny villages, to larger cities, there have been numerous sex assaults, and the people have had to change their behaviour. How do you think that makes them feel?

By closing their ears to people's concerns the left have ceded ground to the far right. It is wilful stupidity

or are we seeing Lefts true colours? Throw people under the bus for the sake of the higher goal? We have after all seen this in action under communist EE and of course, Stalin, Hitler etc. Its OK to murder people if you have a higher goal.

Humid - I think it's ridiculous & dangerous to throw around that kind of comparison.

My personal views are much closer to those of Booboo, BUT I do think a lot about the weight of anti-immigrant feeling throughout Europe. It's made me think, if this is what the majority of the people want, to shut our doors against refugees and immigrants, maybe that's what should happen, from a democratic perspective.

I think it's morally wrong, but maybe the people should get what they want. Hmm, populism. I'll be arguing that Trump's not that bad in a minute.

"Good politics is about having to deal with everyone's concerns not just those that suit your agenda."

Agree completely.

I think it's ridiculous & dangerous to throw around that kind of comparison

^^

Its simply what we are seeing.

No Humid, we are not seeing the Left murdering people to further their own agenda.

That would be Islamist terrorists and the far right you're thinking of.

I don't beleive the majority of people want to shut the door to refugees and immigrants (of course some do) they want it better managed and numbers not to be so high especially when it has big changes to communities and let's face facts it's not nice middle class areas that have these changes it ones that are often struggling with cut backs, families on low wages, higher unemployment

Do any of you have German friends? Tragic about these refugees, but do you know how lives of everyday Germans have changed? They can't totally relax these days and can't wear what they want for fear of receiving unwanted attention from new male arrivals. I used to regularly travel to beautiful Munich, won't continue with that sadly. Germans I know are scared, we do NOT want this threat in the UK.

booboo you may well be factually correct, but as we are seeing right across Europe, your tone and complete dismissal of concerns people have is not the way to win people back from the right.

Fear is more powerful that hope, and just telling people they're racists for being afraid isnt working as a strategy.

^Everything she just said.

Things are not looking so good for centrist/moderate politics in my bit of Italy.

No Humid, we are not seeing the Left murdering people to further their own agenda

We have seen it across Europe in the very recent past. We continue to see it in other countries that call themselves socialist/communist.

We have seen left ideology promoted at the expense of the people. Throw people under the bus for the higher cause.

YY Enthusiam.

Better managed it has not been managed at all.

Part of dealing with everyone's concerns is being aware where those concerns actually come from.

There's a big difference between being afraid of what one is ACTUALLY experiencing, and "borrowing the fear".

In my area, we are NOT being advised to walk a different way from school or dress differently. Despite having a large population growth, many of whom are "new comers" from varying cultures.

Should I borrow the fear from another area (even another country) and live my life scared every day? Tell my neighbours they should now be scared, because I'm scared?

Because that's what some stuff I read seems to want me to do.

I can support people who are actually experiencing real life problems, without seizing their fear as my own.

And who would benefit if I got anxious at the woman in a headscarf in the queue at the till, or the Polish bloke in the dentist's waiting room, or my regular, Afghan cabbie who carts me about when I'm so unwell I have to lie down on the back seat?

Not me. Not them.

But I'm increasingly coming across people who get quite angry when I don't show the fear they've decided I ought to feel.

Similar issues here in Sweden. Large influx of young men has lead to an increase in crime. My neighbours on both sides are police and they say that now 80% of their work now needs English, as the bulk of offenders in certain categories (burglary, violent crime, sexual crime) are not of Swedish origin.
The atmosphere here has changed - one can no longer go out for a run at night in certain areas due to groups of young men hanging around for example. My tights as a woman have been curtailed and I'm not happy with that. An eightfold increase in sexual crimes in the town my pils live in, as another example.
The left (and I count myself as left wing) has refused to address this. It's the same in the uk. It is not racist to be saying to the kommun - hey, we've had a big influx of newcomers. I've got no kindergarten place so I can't go back to work - why aren't you putting more places on? What's your plan for integration?
The combination of austerity, and immigration is toxic. Austerity is responsible for cuts to services then immigration puts even more pressure on.
If the left refuses to engage and calls people thick racists, they will go and vote elsewhere. That's what happened here in Sweden where SD got a big proportion of the vote. Also in Austria where the far right were defeated by a whisker.
It's very worrying - the right wing parties on the continent are a different kettle of fish to ukip.