I am interested definitely in your insights into German politics. I'd be very interested in discussing this more.
To do so, though, you're going to have to do me a favour. I'm perfectly willing to entertain suggestions that what I wrote isn't clear. I'm also happy for you to disagree. That's how we all learn.
But, if you want me to interact with you in a way where we find some common interpretation of reality and move forward together, you're going to have to ditch the straw men and start engaging with what I wrote.
'Saying "they are bad people" will win the day' was not the argument I was making. You do see that, right? That's a bad-faith shutdown. Let's throw "I'm sorry Star Trek didn't teach you that" and "writing opinion pieces on Medium" into that barrel, too. I get it, honey, you're cross - but ad hominem attacks are neither evidence nor reasoning. I think you are a reasoning, rational person - afford me the same courtesy, because we're on the same side.
I'll illustrate this: "When it comes to America, they are in a fundamentally different [snipped for brevity] to Federation." Interesting, Nick. That sounds like we are in agreement, to an extent. Where we seem to be losing one another is that the language we are using with the public-at-large does not seem to be resonating. Over in the USA, MAGA have been called authoritarian and fascist - both definitions I would say they probably satisfy. Bernie Sanders calls them oligarchs non-stop. None of that stopped their rise to power. There's now a very real probability that I, now, can't travel to the USA because my passport will not match my "biological gender" and I'll be turned away at the airport. They did that.
Let's return to AfD, because I'd like to learn more from you about German political attitudes and how they interact with this: https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/germany-s-immigration-policies-set-for-overhaul-as-conservatives-take-power/ar-AA1zDQ4y (MSN summary of paywall article). Of all the horrible actors I mentioned, AfD are the closest to actual Nazis - and indeed I referenced that there is a very good argument for them just being Nazis/Neo-Nazis, to which I would subscribe. Yet, they got a staggering result in East Germany and now, because of their influence, the Overton Window has shifted right and the more mainstream parties are handing them red meat.
Calling them Nazis as a debating strategy - even though that is what they are - did not yield the desired outcome. Why are they being so entertained by the existing political system, and why do some Germans (many in the East) find them so appealing?
What else should we do?
My suggestion is that we make great effort to tie their awful words and actions to the names they use for themselves, so their crimes follow them. That way they will have a harder time evading their own toxic ideology.
That, to me, sounds like an interesting conversation about getting the results we want; wherein voters shun these awful people. What do you think?
