I’m not a fan (or even German, for that matter), but banning political parties seems like a very slippery slope to me. Not to mention decidedly, well–undemocratic.
Good.
GOOD.
If we do ban them, what’s to stop then from just forming a new party immediately with a new name and slightly different people in key positions?
Popular and against the constitution are two things.
Because it is more popular than ever its more likely they get banned.
Another far right party wasn’t banned about 20 years ago because they weren’t popular enough. The judges confirmed all points of them being against the constitution, but they also admitted they are so unimportant they can’t do shit. So the NPD wasn’t banned.
Starting to look like Russia and China, Start doing better job to gain and keep voters, no. Just ban other parties and stay in power for ever, tbf thats a good strategy.
The fact that the party is more popular than ever is all the more reason to ban it. When a ban of the neo-Nazi NPD was considered a few years ago, it was rejected on the grounds that the party was too irrelevant and unable to achieve its goals anyway.
I don’t get why the people who want to ban it don’t understand a ban will not change those people’s minds or ideas. It will achieve nothing from my point of view. Same people will still be there with the same thinking. New party will be founded. Old voters will continue voting AFD program in a new form.
Why the AfD should be banned:
* It’s clearly bent on undermining the democratic principle, and we can’t let a party like that anywhere near power.
Why banning the AfD isn’t easy:
* Actually banning a party is inherently anti-democratic. It’s how the original Nazis consolidated their power and transformed Germany into a single-party totalitarian state. Therefore the bar is set as high as possible: the mechanism exists, but made extremely difficult so that it can’t be misused.
Why it won’t make a lot of difference in the long run:
* Banning the party won’t change the attitudes that led people to support it in the first place. Nobody is going to start voting Green or even CDU instead: they will first riot and step up their campaigns of violent intimidation, then put their support behind some other far-right party that we haven’t heard of yet. Ten million votes aren’t going to just disappear.
Why a ban could backfire:
* One of the biggest planks of the far right’s propaganda is that they are being “persecuted”: this is claimed to be evidence that all the mainstream parties are just the same, faceless, “fascist” establishment. Banning the AfD will feed that narrative.
* In the event of a successful ban, the AfD can (and probably will) appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. If the ECHR upholds the ban, the far right will claim that this is evidence of the inherently dictatorial nature of the EU (even though the ECHR has nothing to do with the EU, but political extremists never let the facts get in the way of propaganda) and start agitating for a rebellion. If the ECHR overturns it — which is considered likely — that would be a massive propaganda coup for the AfD, which will rebrand itself as “the party they tried to ban” and claim that it’s proof they’re not extremist.
I don’t think we can *not* ban the AfD, but we shouldn’t be under any illusions that it will solve any problems. It’s vitally important that we first have all our ducks in a row and have enough evidence to convince even the ECHR before we move forward with a ban, and then we have to deal with the ensuing backlash. And we need to find long-term solutions to the issues that are driving people into the arms of the far right in the first place — not, incidentally, by booting out all the immigrants, but by tackling poverty, housing, the economy, and the east/west divide, as well as finding more effective ways of countering Kremlin-backed misinformation and other forms of propaganda.
They could just address the issues that lead people to vote for AfD, many of them legit reasons, instead of doing in the courts what they can’t do in the free market of ideas.
Oh yeah, instead of doing better ban your political opposition. Such a pathetic attempt. And I am not fan of AfD either.
CDU makes a constitutional change with a ceasing parliament increasing the country’s debt to sponsor wars in foreign countries. But sure, the issue is AfD.
Being popular is all the more reason to stop it, like they should have earlier, before it tips into the critical mass that allows it to do real harm.
Orban’s LGBTQ bans are partially popular, but unconstitutional.
Trump’s ICE Gestapo are partially popular, but in various ways acting unconstitutionally.
Etc.
Yes it’s popular out people, especially Americans, think about this wrong: They might have the second-highest number of voters, but 78% of people voted *against* the AfD. We shouldn’t be help hostage by 22% of people in this country.
popular due to lies and manipulation; calling for ban bcs of it’s true extremist nature
Nothing says “Democracy” more than banning an opposition party
This is mainly to protect the stupid people that have no idea what they are voting for from themselves. They have been eating up that Russian Propaganda in the east like a 5 course dinner.
Such a childish thing to do. This is like trying to stop a leaky old pipe with tape. What is going to happen is it will explode and leak somewhere else, which will more most likely much worse.
If you want AFD to go away, all you need to do is stop lying about the issues that they talk about. 95% of AFD voters did not vote for AFD when they were new. They vote for them now, because every other party just lied to their face. They were facing problems, sometimes daily, yet parties said no, such problems do not exist.
But of course, so many people’s whole reputation and even careers stem from lying about such issues and not talking about reality. So they rather ban AfD and act like nothing is happening. Then people will cheer and parade on the street while solving nothing, and next election even worse version will win even more votes.
There is a beautiful saying, something like this “the reason that most politicians are liers, are nothing but reflection of voters. Voters do not want to accept the facts, they want the impossible. And impossible will only be promised by liers. That is why most politicians are liers.”
That so called „ban“ cost a lot of money and time and effort as well as raising the popularity….stop doing so and blame other parties not having a great and good political party…. It shows the unpopular dysfunctional bad setup of all other parties
I’m an immigrant, so please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not deeply involved in German politics, but I do feel like the CDU has some potential. I hope they can find effective ways to counter the rise of the far right, because simply banning or silencing those voices might make them more aggressive or push them underground. In my view, giving people space and time to address concerns through democratic means might be a better approach. I also feel that the SPD hasn’t really delivered much in recent years as a result people went more right. Feel free to correct me.
19 comments
I’m not a fan (or even German, for that matter), but banning political parties seems like a very slippery slope to me. Not to mention decidedly, well–undemocratic.
Good.
GOOD.
If we do ban them, what’s to stop then from just forming a new party immediately with a new name and slightly different people in key positions?
Popular and against the constitution are two things.
Because it is more popular than ever its more likely they get banned.
Another far right party wasn’t banned about 20 years ago because they weren’t popular enough. The judges confirmed all points of them being against the constitution, but they also admitted they are so unimportant they can’t do shit. So the NPD wasn’t banned.
Starting to look like Russia and China, Start doing better job to gain and keep voters, no. Just ban other parties and stay in power for ever, tbf thats a good strategy.
The fact that the party is more popular than ever is all the more reason to ban it. When a ban of the neo-Nazi NPD was considered a few years ago, it was rejected on the grounds that the party was too irrelevant and unable to achieve its goals anyway.
I don’t get why the people who want to ban it don’t understand a ban will not change those people’s minds or ideas. It will achieve nothing from my point of view. Same people will still be there with the same thinking. New party will be founded. Old voters will continue voting AFD program in a new form.
Why the AfD should be banned:
* It’s clearly bent on undermining the democratic principle, and we can’t let a party like that anywhere near power.
Why banning the AfD isn’t easy:
* Actually banning a party is inherently anti-democratic. It’s how the original Nazis consolidated their power and transformed Germany into a single-party totalitarian state. Therefore the bar is set as high as possible: the mechanism exists, but made extremely difficult so that it can’t be misused.
Why it won’t make a lot of difference in the long run:
* Banning the party won’t change the attitudes that led people to support it in the first place. Nobody is going to start voting Green or even CDU instead: they will first riot and step up their campaigns of violent intimidation, then put their support behind some other far-right party that we haven’t heard of yet. Ten million votes aren’t going to just disappear.
Why a ban could backfire:
* One of the biggest planks of the far right’s propaganda is that they are being “persecuted”: this is claimed to be evidence that all the mainstream parties are just the same, faceless, “fascist” establishment. Banning the AfD will feed that narrative.
* In the event of a successful ban, the AfD can (and probably will) appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. If the ECHR upholds the ban, the far right will claim that this is evidence of the inherently dictatorial nature of the EU (even though the ECHR has nothing to do with the EU, but political extremists never let the facts get in the way of propaganda) and start agitating for a rebellion. If the ECHR overturns it — which is considered likely — that would be a massive propaganda coup for the AfD, which will rebrand itself as “the party they tried to ban” and claim that it’s proof they’re not extremist.
I don’t think we can *not* ban the AfD, but we shouldn’t be under any illusions that it will solve any problems. It’s vitally important that we first have all our ducks in a row and have enough evidence to convince even the ECHR before we move forward with a ban, and then we have to deal with the ensuing backlash. And we need to find long-term solutions to the issues that are driving people into the arms of the far right in the first place — not, incidentally, by booting out all the immigrants, but by tackling poverty, housing, the economy, and the east/west divide, as well as finding more effective ways of countering Kremlin-backed misinformation and other forms of propaganda.
They could just address the issues that lead people to vote for AfD, many of them legit reasons, instead of doing in the courts what they can’t do in the free market of ideas.
Oh yeah, instead of doing better ban your political opposition. Such a pathetic attempt. And I am not fan of AfD either.
CDU makes a constitutional change with a ceasing parliament increasing the country’s debt to sponsor wars in foreign countries. But sure, the issue is AfD.
Being popular is all the more reason to stop it, like they should have earlier, before it tips into the critical mass that allows it to do real harm.
Orban’s LGBTQ bans are partially popular, but unconstitutional.
Trump’s ICE Gestapo are partially popular, but in various ways acting unconstitutionally.
Etc.
Yes it’s popular out people, especially Americans, think about this wrong: They might have the second-highest number of voters, but 78% of people voted *against* the AfD. We shouldn’t be help hostage by 22% of people in this country.
popular due to lies and manipulation; calling for ban bcs of it’s true extremist nature
Nothing says “Democracy” more than banning an opposition party
This is mainly to protect the stupid people that have no idea what they are voting for from themselves. They have been eating up that Russian Propaganda in the east like a 5 course dinner.
Such a childish thing to do. This is like trying to stop a leaky old pipe with tape. What is going to happen is it will explode and leak somewhere else, which will more most likely much worse.
If you want AFD to go away, all you need to do is stop lying about the issues that they talk about. 95% of AFD voters did not vote for AFD when they were new. They vote for them now, because every other party just lied to their face. They were facing problems, sometimes daily, yet parties said no, such problems do not exist.
But of course, so many people’s whole reputation and even careers stem from lying about such issues and not talking about reality. So they rather ban AfD and act like nothing is happening. Then people will cheer and parade on the street while solving nothing, and next election even worse version will win even more votes.
There is a beautiful saying, something like this “the reason that most politicians are liers, are nothing but reflection of voters. Voters do not want to accept the facts, they want the impossible. And impossible will only be promised by liers. That is why most politicians are liers.”
That so called „ban“ cost a lot of money and time and effort as well as raising the popularity….stop doing so and blame other parties not having a great and good political party…. It shows the unpopular dysfunctional bad setup of all other parties
I’m an immigrant, so please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not deeply involved in German politics, but I do feel like the CDU has some potential. I hope they can find effective ways to counter the rise of the far right, because simply banning or silencing those voices might make them more aggressive or push them underground. In my view, giving people space and time to address concerns through democratic means might be a better approach. I also feel that the SPD hasn’t really delivered much in recent years as a result people went more right. Feel free to correct me.
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