2024 US Presidential Election

[RolStoppable]

Mnementh said:

For the german elections it is an interesting statistical information, that the age group 70+ is the only one with lower than average voting share for the AfD (our far-right). Meaning they are pushing the average down. That in Brandenburg already 16+ could vote (instead the more usual 18+) was probably helpful to the AfD.

Maybe it is too long since people experienced the results of war (ven 70+ are mostly post-war kids, but even post-war times was still strongly influenced by the results of war).

The other thing is, that the "normal" parties are getting more and more corrupt over time, sucking up to big companies. People are fed up with it for good reason, but voting far-right will not help in that regard (well, a big war would reset politics, as it would reset mostly everything, but this is not a good thing). In my opinion only a strong left - which means anti-capitalist - politics will help. Only that is supported by less than 5% of people, the liberal propaganda of how the markets will save us all has worked.

I also would add: a result of about 30% maybe a bit more is in line with historical voting share of the NSDAP (the party which was shortened to Nazi). As far as I know also other european countries had such voting shares for fascist parties. Here in germany many tell that propaganda turned peoples heads and made them vote NSDAP, in reality most germans were innocent, it was all Hitler and his honeyed tongue. The more I look into it, the more it seems Hitler and the NSDAP were pretty clear about what they wanted, about a third of people just is fine with it. And if non-Nazi politics has corrupted the system enough to piss everyone off, then these far-right will find their ground. The longer I live and see stuff, the more I think that about a third of people are just naturally far-right. They just need an excuse and an opportunity to show their colors.

I'd put the share of natural far-right people at 10-15%, varying by country. What gets added on top of it is just your common idiot in the face of crises or perceived crises, suckered in by being convinced of an easy solution.

I don't see anti-capitalism as the solution (I assume you are refering to Die Linke), but it certainly requires policies that put some much needed stops to the inherently bad traits of capitalism; so not something I'd call anti-capitalism, but rather socialism to keep capitalism in check because the two ideas aren't mutually exclusive, so there's no zero-sum game here. The most damaging trait is of course corruption, because money can buy power, leading to more money to buy even more power. Which is in a nutshell what made the SPD hollow over the years, not to mention that Scholz is more interested in being the chancellor than actually performing the job of a chancellor.

Another bad trait is exploitation of workers, because capitalism works on the basic premise of spending the least amount of money to gain the most amount of money. That's why we need minimum wage, a limit to work hours per week and so on. The third bad trait is that from a certain point onwards, money makes money. That's why there need to be laws for redistribution of wealth, because otherwise the gap between the rich and the vast majority of people will keep getting bigger.

We probably agree on the basic reasoning that the more people there are who can live happy lives, the lower the amount of people who are inclined to vote far-right will be. That has to be the goal and that's what will work in any country, so the sidestep to Austria and Germany we've had here remains relevant for the USA as well. The big problem, though, is that getting an entirely left government elected is a real challenge. Germany hasn't had one in two decades, Austria never had one. Which is probably why our far-right has been such a mainstay all this time.