Maddino

@Spekulatius Agreeing with you here. They should be treated like any other party and integrated into the system. The concerns of their voters and their vote should count just as much as those of the other parties. Of course, criminals in their party should be prosecuted. I also find their connections to Russia highly problematic. It remains to be seen whether the new government will adequately address some of germanys issues. In any case, the CDU is aware that, without noticeable improvements in crime rates among foreigners and a continuously weakening economy, it will continue to lose votes. Unfortunately, it appears that they want to counter the declining interpretive authority of traditional media-which are mostly inclined towards the governing parties and the Greens by introducing further repressive measures and opportunities for censorship on social networks. A passage from the coalition agreement states: “The deliberate dissemination of false factual claims is not covered by freedom of expression. Therefore, the independent media supervisory authority must, while safeguarding freedom of expression and on the basis of clear legal requirements, be able to take action against information manipulation as well as hate and incitement.” Sentences like these explain why the AfD is particularly popular among voters from East Germany or with a migration background from former USSR countries. To them, this sounds all too familiar-“we’ve heard and seen all this before, and we know what it meant.” If freedomrights are important to you, one could certainly argue that, all things considered, the AfD is the lesser evil. In my view, the “firewall” (Brandmauer) has an extremely lose-lose function for Germany. The governing parties can never form a coalition without left-wing partners, which makes it difficult for them to convince citizens on issues of the economy and migration. Ultimately, this undermines citizens’ trust in the democratic system if it is clear from the outset that governments without left-wing participation are “forbidden.” The AfD only needs to stand by and point a finger at the government’s failures, without having to develop any real governing competence.

I disagree with Marco Rubio and JD Vance alot regarding their foreign policy but when it comes to Germany they mainly nailed it. Of course you will hear otherwise from leftleaning people from germany and most parts of the Media/Government here. Whats happening here is like if the Democrats try to ban the complete Republican party (from wich members do express often way more radical views than the average afd member) Obviously even as left-leaning voter you do not need to like the Republicans to opose such things.

As a fan (mostly just reading) of this forum and as a German citizen, I would like to comment on the recent events concerning the AfD over the past few days as i saw it gets discussed here intensely. I do not wish to be impolite, but anyone who takes the assessments of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz) regarding the AfD even remotely seriously either has little understanding of German politics or a rather peculiar view of democracy. The AfD certainly has its serious problems, just like other parties, but what has happened is an absolute disgrace, damages public trust in institutions, and will further deepen the division in society. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is not an independent body but is directly subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. Nancy Faeser, the Minister of the Interior, who declared the "fight against the right" as her main goal in office and has previously published articles for left-wing extremist organizations such as "Antifa," made the report public in an obviously non-neutral, politically motivated process without the usual review procedures, just a few days before leaving office. This was done to present the incoming government with a fait accompli and to prevent fair treatment of the AfD and threaten AFD Voters and Members, because they now may face further discrimination. Even the loss of their Jobs, if they work in the public sector is in discussion now. A well-known and, in my view, extremely competent lawyer who has already won several lawsuits against Nancy Faeser, among others, for abuse of office, explains the incident very well in this video (unfortunately in German, but perhaps you have a way to translate it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUXuv47F1yk The report classifying the AfD as "proven right-wing extremist" has not been published except for a few quotations, and the AfD was not given a chance to defend itself. Only the left-leaning newspaper "Spiegel" received the report in advance (the editor-in-chief has confirmed this herself). The reasons published so far for classifying the AfD as proven right-wing extremist are the following individual statements by AfD politicians: 1. Hannes Gnauck, member of the AfD federal executive board, said on August 11, 2024, in Zossen, Brandenburg: “We must once again be allowed to decide who actually belongs to this people and who does not. There is more to being German than simply holding a citizenship certificate. All of us here in this marketplace are connected by much more than just a common language. We are connected by an invisible bond that does not need to be explained. Each of you is more closely connected to me than any Syrian or Afghan, and I don’t need to explain that-it’s simply a law of nature.” 2. Dennis Hohloch, member of the state parliament, warned on August 25, 2024, in Brandenburg (Havel) about a high proportion of migrants: “Diversity means multiculturalism. And what does multiculturalism mean? Multiculturalism means loss of tradition, loss of identity, loss of homeland, murder, manslaughter, robbery, and gang rape.” 3. Martin Reichardt, staff member of the Bundestag, criticized on X in November a “failed migration policy”: “Failed migration policy and abuse of asylum have led to the importation of hundreds of thousands of people from deeply backward and misogynistic cultures.” Of course, it is absolutely acceptable to consider these statements exaggerated or problematic. But being prosecuted for such statements is, in my view, a much greater problem for Germany than the content of the AfD’s positions. Especially since members of the party "Die Linke" receive applause at their party conventions for much more aggressive and anti-constitutional statements such as "the demand to expropriate the rich" without facing serious consequences. A small anecdote about the neutrality of German authorities and media regarding the AfD: Last year, a magazine (Correctiv), which is co-financed by the government, published an article titled "Secret Plan Against Germany," which was used as the basis for a nationwide coordinated smear campaign against the AfD. The AfD was able to win most of the lawsuits against the content, but the damage was obviously already done. My wife works at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), which is also subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, in the area of combating right-wing extremism and works closely with the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. For obvious reasons, I cannot share many internal details here, but a small example to give you a sense of the atmosphere: In communications between authorities regarding the aforementioned article, the term "Secret Plan Against Germany" was repeatedly used without quotation marks. Some employees noted in private chats that this was unprofessional, as "Secret Plan Against Germany" was merely the title of the article, not an actual fact. None of the colleagues dared to correct this detail in team meetings because they were afraid of being suspected of being on the "wrong side." There are good reasons to criticize the AfD, but the vast majority of its voters and members (I have spoken with some, as well as with members of other parties) choose the AfD because they fear an increasingly intrusive state, further restrictions on freedom of speech, are concerned about migration issues, and have no interest in left-wing cultural and climate policies. For comfort reasons i wrote the Text in german an translated via perplexity. Hope you forgive me

Pretty much this, I think. He orchestrated his comeback very well from a psychological standpoint. There's a lot of room for speculation about how the market would react to each mysterious step that caused fear for the shorts and hope for the rest. In my view, the stream should have just worked as a self-fulfilling prophecy due to the insane amount of attention and FOMO surrounding this. He wanted to turn it on and watch the stock skyrocket because every ape and his dog thought, "If just a picture is enough for +100%, what will a stream do?" The setup was there and worked quite well until he was caught off guard badly by Ryan Cohen. But what should he have done differently at this point that wouldn't cause even more damage to the hype and his credibility in the community? Cancel the stream? Admit that Ryan Cohen screwed him and the short squeeze narrative? Maybe he just should have shown some cryptic memes with a lot of room for speculation instead of this weird nonsense. Definitely have some respect for this dude. Maybe he acted accordingly before the stream and this wasn't his only account.