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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

It looks like there's a blatant contradiction between statement B:

> AfD supporters see Germany’s migration policy as a catastrophe

an statement A (made just before B):

> There has not been a general shift to the right

Used to have some respect for Tooze, I actually quoted one of his books in here twice or thrice, but people like him should get their heads out of the proverbial sand and look at facts straight in the face. If it quacks like a duck ("migration policy as a catastrophe") and whacks like a duck it most certainly is a duck.

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If you are generally supportive of a migration policy, but consider the implementation a catastrophe, is that really a shift to the right?

Put yourself in the shoes of those designing, implementing and managing the migration policy. If you were in that position and the results of your incompetence were writ large, calling anyone who criticises you racist is one hell of a defense strategy.

It doesnt just shut down criticism, it also has a chilling effect on people even discussing your incompetence for fear of social ostracisation.

How do you think the implementation could have been different, if the policy was to be the same.

I guess for some people it's easy to become a duck. As someone with a passionate hatred for ducks, I want it to be said there has to be compassion for those who are tempted to become ducks in an effort to protect their environment. If there's no way to voice your concern for western and democratic values without being labeled a duck, should they just not quack at all?

Hey can you elaborate please?

Well I'm not German so I can't really speak about what the AfD is about, and I'm sure there's a lot of actual Nazis voting for them. What is a topic however that is taboo because of association with Nazis is the influx of people with non-western ideals and values from Morocco and Turkey. Things like women rights, democratic ideals such as freedom of speech are under pressure as a significant portion of the population does not hold them. This problem is exacerbated when freedom of religion laws makes it so that subsequent generations are also educated with anti-western values. Mainstream political parties won't burn themselves on these issues, and the alternative political parties are often caught with Nazi's at their dinner tables.

People are voting AfD because they are pro environment?

There is no contradiction there, many Former voters of christian democrats kept their anti-immigration policies, but the party has changed their positions. The AfD cashes in on the political void that this move left.

What contradiction? One statement refers to the entire population and the other refers to the subset of the population who are AfD supporters. There’s no problem with both statements being true.

Tooze would not disagree:

"You might wonder how someone who, on account of their xenophobia was willing too support the AfD, could not be counted as at least far-right in their political views.

This is a reflection of the Allesnbach methodology which scores respondents on their responses to the 10 prompts. Only those giving 5 positive responses count as far-right and 7 as “rechtsradikal”. So if xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia are your thing, but you do not “otherwise” have right-wing preferences, you fall outside the Allensbach classification."

As the article says, other conservative/right-wing opinions have not seen concomitant increases in support, so the superficial contradiction is resolved.

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