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?

"The combination of austerity, and immigration is toxic."

Yes yes to this.

Toxic combo in itself.

Then even more toxic when politicians trying to escape blame for austerity are delighted to divert the whole blame to immigrants.

We can join in that scapegoating.

Or we can hold the politicians to account for their part, and deal realistically with issues arising from immigration.

It is. A country that's booming and willing to build can absorb a fair number of Incomers (if those Incomers are willing to integrate.)
A country where services are being cut to the bone (more the uk than Germany...) well that's a disaster waiting to happen.

I do, in my more cynical moments, wonder if this is a deliberate ploy to reduce or remove the welfare state / publically provided services... Cut them to the bone, flood them with people who will probably never work then sit back and watch the tide turn against 'scroungers.'

We live in interesting times. It wouldn't surprise me if there was civil unrest within Europe in the next few years. The veneer of civilisation is thin.

What's the difference? Between being racist, and having concerns about the amount of people who have entered your country and stretched its facilities, so that it affects your daily life. You complain to your MP? You expect them to address this from many sides: examining the facilities and seeing if they are stretched? And reviewing the influx of people/ immigration.
But the MP isn't listening, has no answers.
So the people considering voting.
And then they get accused of being racist, ant immigration, this that.
But they aren't that right wing. They are just disgruntled.
Even last year my German friend told me the tide was starting to turn on merkel. I'm not surprised. Are you?

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

Disastronaut - where are people being murdered by the far right?

"We live in interesting times. It wouldn't surprise me if there was civil unrest within Europe in the next few years. The veneer of civilisation is thin."

I agree with you, Hubbles.

f the left refuses to engage and calls people thick racists, they will go and vote elsewhere.

^^ Why is the left refusing to engage?

But the MP isn't listening, has no answers.

^^ I used to think they were not listening but I do believe they think this is collaterol damage in the higher order of things ie, the EU.

Then even more toxic when politicians trying to escape blame for austerity are delighted to divert the whole blame to immigrants. We can join in that scapegoating. Or we can hold the politicians to account for their part, and deal realistically with issues arising from immigration.

You mean, "spend more on public services, end austerity and then people will be happy again"?

Two problems.

For one thing, cultural stuff really does matter to a lot of people. It's not just about housing prices and libraries closing.

For another thing, funding for public services does not appear out of thin air. It has to be contributed by tax payers. And the problem is that as societies become more culturally and religiously diverse, people often become less and less willing to pay the kind of taxes that are required to fund generous public goods.

Paying taxes is very much about trust--people are happy to pay lots of money to allow strangers in their society to have nice things when there is a strong sense of community, solidarity and shared values.

In political terms, this is sometimes known as "the progressive's dilemma." A lot of people on the left want (relatively) open borders AND super generously funded public goods. Combining the two is likely to be very, very hard in the long run--perhaps impossible.

I like the Scandinavian model as a way for running a pleasant society, but you can't combine it with massive-scale immigration from poor countries. Scandinavian countries have an appalling record when it comes to managing immigration successfully.

The deliberated cutting to the bone and calling people scroungers has already happened in the UK - not to immigrants but to disabled and low-paid people.

A few years ago it was the fashion to compare "scrounger Brits with generations-long culture of lazy entitlement", unfavourably to those "immigrants work all hours and have bought a house and car so obviously you're just lazy that you haven't done the same".

Now the spotlight of blame has swivelled round. And I'm being told the cutting of services to the bone is because of immigrants - for whatever meaning of "immigrants" the speaker choses (wrong colour, wrong name, wrong religion, etc).

If fear justifies holding irrational views and acting irrationally then what about the fear of the refugees? They have fled devastating wars, they have seen their friends and family die en route, they arrive with nothing in an unwelcoming and alien society - don't you think they are scared? Do we accept that they can sexually assault other because they are scared? Of course not, no more than being scared makes it acceptable to be racist.

As for politicians they certainly do not have an obligation to take all views into account. If we applied this frankly silly view then politicians would have to take into account sexist views which see women as rightful objects of abuse and assault. Some people hold stupid views, the onus is on them to revise their views not on politicians to take them into account. When did we go from the philosopher-King to the panderer-King?

Boo your replies are always too the extreme the rise of support of the right isn't because everyone is a raging racist it's because change has happened very quickly and had been poorly managed

Politicians do have to engage with people who's opinions they do not agree with. If they are inciting hatred that is a criminal offence. If people are saying no we don't want more immigrants/refugees to come and live in our area until things get better for us then it is sensible that politicians who want to hold power listen to them and understand where these feelings are coming from. If leaders don't engage with their public then you running a dictatorship, if you only engage with those that hold similar views then you risk other parties coming along and winning your voters over

The power of listening shouldn't be underestimated people don't want to be lectured they want to be listened to that is a start and many feel they are not even getting that

But many women would be afraid of an influx of men without family, without a daily purpose and out numbering the women where ever they came from. I would not like a reception centre at the end of my road housing hundreds of men aged 18 to 40 whatever their race. Families as neighbour no problems. Large influx of men in Germany, Sweden and other countries has led to some curtail of women's freedom and in some areas not because of irrational fear but the realities they find themselves in.

They have fled devastating wars, they have seen their friends and family die en route, they arrive with nothing in an unwelcoming and alien society - don't you think they are scared?

The problem here is, your lumping in genuine refugees with economic migrants, we need a sensible debate around immigration, by framing the debate as an emotional plea, does narrow this conversation.

. Some people hold stupid views, the onus is on them to revise their views not on politicians to take them into account.

I agree with this to some extent, we would still have hanging if we listened to every whim of the public, however, the rise of the far right across europe is not a sign that the electorate collectively needs to readdress there own personal views, but is pointing more along the lines that a lot of people haven't been listened to.

When single issue parties are on the rise across europe, there is something going wrong somewhere, and its not just the famous bogeyman of "right wing media"

Could I have some links/sources for the 'girls and women in German villages being advised to change their route/how they dress' claims? I'm in Germany and haven't heard this. I'm much more afraid of the young men I regularly see in public openly wearing symbols and clothing associated with the extreme right than of refugees. I've never felt uncomfortable wearing summer clothes on a train with apparent immigrants, but I have felt uncomfortable speaking English to my children when young men with said clothing/symbols are about.

My friends in Germany despise Merkel for in their words "ruining the country". The unregulated immigration has caused waves of violence, crime and subsequently fear. It is Merkel who has caused the rise of the right wing in Germany. The citizens cannot live under the conditions she has imposed on them and they need an alternative.

Oh, and I lived in one of the most immigrant-dense areas of Berlin for years, quite a notorious one in fact, and the worst trouble I had was a man grabbing my arm from behind and asking me where I thought I was going, thereupon apologising profusely when he realised I wasn't his daughter. However, I have been abused and threatened several times by Germans for being a foreigner.

[Warning: despondent and probably unhelpful post. Don't feel you have to read.]

I've been expecting civil unrest or external war since a few years back.

To the point that I said out loud during the 2014 centenary of the start of World War I, that I hoped we'd get to the centenary of the armistice without embarking on another one.

In the UK I've watched things cooking up since the demonising of the disabled began. And then into the bank crashes. And then idealogical austerity. Divide and rule, all with an increasingly vicious tone of beggar thy neighbour.

I wondered how we would move from the UK priding itself on a self-image as a caring, forward-looking country with the glow of having "done the right thing" wrt Jewish refugees, of looking after the sick and disabled, of promoting women's rights and gay rights - what would move us from that culture to one of unashamedly throwing out those values, and jingoistic enthusiasm for external battles. The propaganda which was used to oil the cuts to disability services has certainly contributed to it, and was red-flagged by many of us at the time: "disabled people are scroungers and harm your economic chances and you have permission not to care." Then rinse and repeat for any group of your choice.

I don't think we're there yet with an external enemy: Daesh is too nebulous to engage with satisfyingly; Russia might yet provide the bogeyman, to whom outraged national pride has to give a bloody nose while of course being home by Christmas - not.

But in terms of bringing things up to be ready for kick-off, I saw the war in Syria worsening and UNHRC saying it no longer had the funds to feed the refugees in Jordan and within Syria, and thought, "Yep, mass population movement: that might do it. Direct effects on nearby countries; knock on effects elsewhere."

Once countries are at boiling point, it takes barely anything at all for a country to go pop at another country: a government wants to unite its internal audience; individuals are stressed and fearful and want someone to take it out on. Or they identify an enemy within, like Jewish people, and round on them ferociously to exorcise the national stress.

On a historical level, it's all very, very familiar.

The predictability doesn't make me any happier about any of this.

I don't think there's much we can do to stop it. I see a real appetite for conflict and hatred. People enthusiastically drawing up their In-Groups and Out-Groups, their belonging and their hate. Talking of bombing Syria after the Bataclan attacks, because it will "make them feel better" (not because it will make the UK safer or give relief to the victims of Daesh or the like).

There isn't some magic solution to head this off, because this isn't being caused by one issue. I saw this coming BEFORE Syrian refugees were on Europeans' radar.

Similar to Hetronormative - we live in Germany and have refugees living in container housing in our village but have never been advised to change routes or ways of dressing or anything else.

There is some ill will from people who have chips on their shoulders generally (a lot of it totally illogical -
I've heard the refugees who live in the container housing blamed for the
difficulty somebody's sister had in
finding an affordable small flat to
rent for example... ) and the inevitable NIMBYism.

The rise in anti foreigner feeling when speaking English or imperfect German in public that is the only threatening thing IME of
living in Germany atm.

And look at this statement above:

"And the problem is that as societies become more culturally and religiously diverse, people often become less and less willing to pay the kind of taxes that are required to fund generous public goods."

That's not something I can imagine hearing in the UK a few years ago.

In South Africa, yes: I've heard it there under apartheid. Phrased in terms of "less willing to pay for others who don't make an effort", yes: standard discourse among Just Worlders and those who believe individualism is all.

But in the UK? Taking religion and (some definition of) "culture" as your dividing lines for access to services? This is a new part of discourse here.

On a historical level, it's all very, very familiar.

Making comparisons to 30's germany is the new Godwin's Law, the 21st Century is a very different place to the early 20th.

Related article in NYT

I had in mind Edwardian Britain, Justanotherluker - the narratives of raped Belgium nuns, the sheer enthusiasm for conflict, the wish to give the outrageous Hun a bloody nose, the disbelief that "modern" people with electricity and motor cars could become involved in anything like the savage wars of past.

The past of the Napoleonic Wars, as illustrated by Goya. When the graduates of the Enlightenment were shocked that advanced societies like theirs, with science and measurements and banking and great literature could be involved in anything like the savage wars of the past.

Do you know there were initially plans for big celebrations of the centenary of Waterloo? 18 Jun 1915. Shelved..

Of course it strikes me like this because I'm more familiar with the daily life of Edwardian Britain than with the nuts and bolts of 1930s Germany.

But you've just identified what I was saying as being about 1930s Germany, so maybe it's that too.

If it is, saying "Godwin's Law" (or "Top Trumps", or "Feynights") won't make it untrue.

Flatly:
That's not something I can imagine hearing in the UK a few years ago.

The Progressives Dilemma has been around a while, but I think until recently has been primarily articulated by the right. Here's a Guardian comment piece from over 10 years ago that I find interesting to re-read in light of current events: www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/feb/24/race.eu

Here's a paper that tries to quantify the effect (it's from the US but draws on European data): papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1422121

Skimmed that piece but many of the issues raised in it have been taken to the brink in the way that could never have been imagined when it was written.