AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence | Hacker News Reader

AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

bbc.com

70 pointsxdfg1334592 comments

> They argued their party was being "discredited and criminalised" shortly before the change of government.

The AfD is known for their narratives of perpetual victimhood. They conveniently ignore any and all proof, and hope that their followers only get their information from them. It has worked great so far so it'll probably continue to work.

this is relevant on HN because AfD is the political party that got massive campaigning support by Musk, directly through endorsements and indirectly on X/twitter.

I'd bet that's also why it's flagged :/

The more austerity for the people the more popular extremist parties will become. Banning them will just stoke the fire.

The ruling clases are blinded by their greed. Throw the starving people more than a few crumbs and the appeal of extremist parties will drain away. Its politics 101.

Except the extremist parties intend to impoverish the people even further. (And don't even bother hiding it, for the most part.)

Guess this will be unpopular.

>The AfD came second in federal elections in February, winning a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote.

What does this give german intelligence the power to do?

The german government is now monitoring the telephone, internet, and intercepting emails of their political opponents?

They MAY also be using informants and undercover agents?

The federal ministry of the interior MAY confiscate all the party's assets and shutdown everything including their websites?

1. Its in the law for decades, it is derived from the constitution 2+3: yes. After they have been declared as extremists this is permitted under the law. 4. Only after the Bundesverfassungsgericht (supreme court) officially rules that the AFD is working against the constitution and forbids them. This must be initiated from the Bundestag, Bundesrat or from the Federal Government.

And these exist specifically to prevent a repeat of how Hitler did what he did.

https://archive.is/g6ElI

> Following his failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, Hitler had renounced trying to overthrow the Weimar Republic by violent means but not his commitment to destroying the country’s democratic system, a determination he reiterated in a Legalitätseid—“legality oath”—before the Constitutional Court in September 1930. Invoking Article 1 of the Weimar constitution, which stated that the government was an expression of the will of the people, Hitler informed the court that once he had achieved power through legal means, he intended to mold the government as he saw fit. It was an astonishingly brazen statement.

> “So, through constitutional means?” the presiding judge asked.

> “Jawohl!” Hitler replied.

In theory, this could be used as the basis for the banning of the party. That said , I don't think the incoming government would allow it as Germany isn't super stable at the moment.

At a minimum, this will be used as the basis for removing any talk of coalitions/joint votes etc within the CDU, so Merz or anyone after him can't attempt to go around the Brandmauer(mind you, this will be enforced by the parties themselves, not via law or anything). You can expect the same thing as with FN/RN in France before the developments within the last 2 years, i.e any right wing party not voting resolutions that are submitted by AfD even if they are 95% identical to what is in their own programme.

I think the likely action is that they will attempt to "purge" the Flügel part of the party, with or without the help of Weidel.For example, Marine Le Pen purged the problematic elements of the old guard of FN by herself and "normalised" the party within 10 years.

> You can expect the same thing as with FN/RN in France before the developments within the last 2 years, i.e any right wing party not voting resolutions that are submitted by AfD even if they are 95% identical to what is in their own programme.

But I think this contributes to the general distrust of the population towards incumbent politicians.

I don't know about Germany, but in France the situation becomes ridiculous to the point of resembling a bunch of kindergarten kids: "I won't vote for your law 'cause I don't like you".

And now, whenever you don't like somebody, they're helpfully some "extremist", so they obviously can't propose anything good.

If everyone's an extremist, that word soon loses its meaning. See: the boy who cried wolf. People are getting tired of this crap and can see trying to outlaw a growing party for "extremism" as a shameless political tactic. Which means actual extremists may go unnoticed.

> If everyone's an extremist, that word soon loses its meaning. See: the boy who cried wolf. People are getting tired of this crap and can see trying to outlaw a growing party for "extremism" as a shameless political tactic. Which means actual extremists may go unnoticed.

What makes you think that the AfD isn't a right-wing extremist party?

Nothing. They could be literally Hitler or literally Gandi for all I know. I'm not in Germany and I don't follow them. The only contact I have is reading French newspapers about how some "far right" party is gaining traction over there. I did note that now that they're gaining more votes, they've become more extremist (according to the same French media). Bonus points for them being considered somewhat "close" to the French RN (which the latter have denied – don't know what that's worth).

My point was rather to note that similar things happen in France, with incumbent politicians trying to convince voters that the French RN is the more extreme the more they gain traction. But pretty much everybody who says anything else than "we should abolish borders and allow any and all immigrants who wish to come" or even "maybe we should do something about crime" is labeled "fascist", "extreme right", etc.

This has been confirmed to me when a French party (LR) which is absolutely not "far right" or anything like that and is actually one of the old "governing" parties, was labeled as such by the left when one of their ministers tried to broach the subject of immigration.

So, I'm skeptical when I see some random mainstream politician, who's party is sinking, call this or that party "extreme right", "fascist", or other loaded terms.

To me this just looks like posturing and name-calling. Nobody tries to prove that this or that party's programme sucks big time on concrete metrics (and they'd actually have a point about the RN). They just appeal to voters' sentiment. Which, after a while, gets old.

This is a lot to say that you have no idea what the AfD situation actually is and haven't looked into any of the intelligence reports or even rhetoric/behavior of the party (leaders).

Also:

> But pretty much everybody who says anything else than "we should abolish borders and allow any and all immigrants who wish to come" or even "maybe we should do something about crime" is labeled "fascist", "extreme right", etc.

Really lays your hand out.

> This is a lot to say that you have no idea what the AfD situation actually is and haven't looked into any of the intelligence reports or even rhetoric/behavior of the party (leaders).

Sure, but that doesn't mean they're not allowed to be skeptical; their skepticism comes from a lack of information, which is wise and healthy. Their comments don't seem to suggest that they are trying to promote "fascist" or "extreme right" ideas, just that they recognize those terms as dog whistles and choose not to respond like a rabid dog. That is especially healthy in outrage politics.

> Bonus points for them being considered somewhat "close" to the French RN (which the latter have denied – don't know what that's worth).

Rassemblement National denied being close to the AfD because of how right-extremist the AfD is. The AfD was thrown out of the far-right group in the EU parliament because other EU far-right parties didn't want to get associated with this right-extremist party.

Not sure what your point is. The AfD is not the first extreme right party to gain a sizeable number of seats. And yes, if they continue to win elections with an ever growing percentage of votes, at one point they will rule, and could eventually change the constitution if they gain a supermajority.

This happened before (it's a been a while though).

Until that happens, they are beholden to the law like any other political party. They do not appear to be singled out because they happen to be the opposition.

>Not sure what your point is. The AfD is not the first extreme right party to gain a sizeable number of seats.

Firstly I get the nazi thing and the laws are set to prevent another instance.

AFD obviously still exists so a court has not banned them. Innocent until proven guilty.

The flipside problem is that these anti-nazi measures can be abused, false positive type situation. The measures would of course need to be biased toward false-postives to prevent future false negatives.

>Until that happens, they are beholden to the law like any other political party. They do not appear to be singled out because they happen to be the opposition.

I guess that's where i disagree. It looks like to me that the politicians are abusing powers. That the afd growth of doubling their power since last election and AFD is now polling in first place.

So to win the next election they need to essentially remove AFD from being an option; or lose.

> AFD obviously still exists so a court has not banned them. Innocent until proven guilty.

A court can only ban them after the parliament has voted to ban them. One of the hurdles on getting the parliament to vote on this topic has been the outstanding decision by this body, if it's really "gesichert rechtsextrem". At least in many previous cases surrounding this question (mostly libel cases), courts have argued that the specific people these cases were about could be seen as "outside of the democratic spectrum".

> The measures would of course need to be biased toward false-postives to prevent future false negatives.

Certainly, that's why both the parliament and the highest court have to decide, with previous instances sometimes not coming through (for example, the NPD for not being relevant even though they were certainly Nazis).

> That the afd growth of doubling their power since last election and AFD is now polling in first place. So to win the next election they need to essentially remove AFD from being an option; or los

There would be no reason to ban a party if they could be ignored (see the NPD), you only need to ban extreme parties if they're popular. If the AfD were at 3% this would be a much smaller topic, since there would be no foreseeable risk. But even with the AfD at much lower than <15%, this was very much an area of concern, with steady (legal, as with this classification and previous ones concerning subgroups) progress towards establishing their extremist status.

> There would be no reason to ban a party if they could be ignored (see the NPD)

But this is the problem. It means that a party being illegal isn't such a big deal in and of itself. It's only a problem if it challenges the mainstream parties. You can see why people would think it's just a political maneuver if they're trying to ban X party only when many people vote for them. Bonus points for this party portending to "represent the voiceless" or whatever.

If some party is illegal for whatever reason, it should be banned right away. Just because you can ignore it doesn't mean it should be ignored. It would also be much easier to prevent having a sizeable chunk of the population vote for an "illegal" party and the headaches coming from that once it becomes big enough.

Only two parties have been banned in Germany's post-war history. Banning a party is a rightfully a huge hurdle, because it goes both ways: While it can be a part of a self-defence mechanism of democracy it is also a way in which Hitler & Co consolidated their power. Hence it can be only used after a ruling of the Constitutional Court – it is in a way a constitutional question.

> ... right away

Apart from the constitutional hurdles there is also the question of "right away": The AfD of the early 2010s is not the same party as today. Back then they were ... well cranky but not extreme. Banning it in 2013 would have been unjust. Over the decade it moved further and further to the right. Pretty much all the founders and bigwigs of the early generation left the party and distanced themselves from it. But radicalisation is a process not a binary switch from one day to the next.

> But this is the problem. It means that a party being illegal isn't such a big deal in and of itself.

Yes, this is what the constitutional court decided.

> If some party is illegal for whatever reason, it should be banned right away.

It should be hard (and is very hard) to ban a party. Thus if every party illegal should be banned right away, a large amount of effort would need to go into banning by the highest legislative and judicial bodies in the nation. It's furthermore quite hard to definitively establish a party as such, which further makes such things much slower (calls to ban the AfD have been happening for more than a decade now).

The establishment is working itself up to banning the party, since they're losing the ability to shut it out of the process democratically, and haven't had the sense to co-opt its reasonable positions to reduce its support. One of the other main parties tried to do that before the last election, showing a slight willingness to put some limits on migration, and the further-left parties went ballistic on them, so they quickly yanked that back. Their last resort will be to ban the party, which will inevitably make it more popular while preventing it from participating in the normal process. Then they'll act surprised by what happens next.

I’m not a German so take this with a massive amount of salt, but what makes them extreme-right? Is it the anti-immigrant stance or is there more that I’m missing? They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

Some of their ex-members have been literal Nazis. Something that doesn't go over very well in Germany. The party banned these people but their standpoints are still very controversial, the main issue is that in some aspects they do no support the juridical system.

So yeah, regular right wing compared to American standards but I think we can all agree that respecting the trias politica is a good thing in any country.

I’ll be honest, as an American looking in from the outside, this looks like the leftist parties in Germany trying to silence the opposition. If the party is expelling the true extremists like the Neo-Nazi former party members that you mentioned, I don’t see why they should be held responsible for them.

This would be like declaring the entire American Republican Party extreme-far right because of a few whack jobs like the Proud Boys.

Opposition parties are extremely important to a properly functioning democracy.

What is so extreme and dangerous about the actual current AfD party members other than their anti-immigration stance?

I'm not German but it's my understanding that nothing is being banned. This classification allows the German intelligence agencies to be more aggressive in gathering intelligence of any potential misconduct within the AfD.

I'll abstain from making any moral judgements about this, I don't feel qualified to do so but I understand that the historical context places a very large role in Germany.

Any association with Nazi's is condemned in the harshest way. The AfD has crossed that line several times in the past.

The anti immigration stance is not the problem in itself, it's a symptom of their xenophobic views.

"The party's prevailing ethnic and descent-based understanding of the people is not compatible with the free democratic basic order. It aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to unequal treatment that does not conform to the constitution and thus to assign them a legally devalued status. Specifically, the AfD does not consider German citizens with a history of migration from Muslim countries, for example, to be equal members of the German people as defined by the party in ethnic terms."

Translated with deepl from https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilung...

See for yourself: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_H%C3%B6cke

(even if parts of the AfD may not be openly fascists, they still tolerate them in leading positions)

They are not expelling extremists based on extremism. They are expelling extremists based on public fallout. The remaining ones are effectively their spokespeople.

Germany has a wide range of political parties that cover the entire political spectrum. A party of extremists is not needed for a strong opposition. What German politics needs is momentum, and the will to actually get stuff done, even if it'll be unpopular. The fact that the AfD managed to use and abuse that mindset to gain popularity does not make them the right ones to make a positive impact. In fact, even putting their extremism aside, their contrarian and anti-progressive "everything new is woke" mentality is the exact opposite of what the country needs, for all I care.

I've answered your last question in a sibling comment to yours.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43869432

Their anti rule of law stance, their criticism of parliament, their idolatry of ancestry, genealogy and genetics.

Also their retoric: their default stance is the fundamental attribution error (my ingroup failed because we were betrayed/cheated, your outgroup failed because you are lazy/bad/inferior). When your bonapartist (which is cesarism+nationalism basically) ideology is tinted (or tainted I would say, but I'm biased) with that reasoning mistake, you're close to fascism. Some people could call them post-fascists, but to me post-fascism died in Italy in the 80s (not true, I have a post-fascist friend, but they're extremely rare). Because they're too dumb to have real 'thinkers' (and they don't read anyway), they rehash old ideas and dunk everything at the wall to see what stick (which can work l), to me they're closer to proto-fascists (see Balkan nationalists the the late 19th century).

The actual leftist parties are part of the opposition. These opposition parties are much more supportive of banning AFD than the incoming centre-right government. So obviously this is not about silencing opposition, but about fighting an extremist right wing movement which is opposing liberal democracy.

> They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

Correct, both have an agenda of subverting the rule of law to violate human rights of immigrants, under a flag of white nationalism. There is a single word for this.

Strongly disagree. Most right wing populist parties' policies are very pro worker. Right wing parties in USA see these policies as "socialist", anathema.

This should tell you more about how far right America has gotten. What's your definition of extreme-right and why don't they fit it?

Both the GOP and the AFD are acting extra-constitutionally. Trump's administration has shown to Europeans that needed a reminder how dangerous these politics can be.

Is the AfD acting extra-constitutionally? Or are they just proposing to do so? They aren't actually in power, are they? If not, how are they "acting" at all?

(Not German, so I don't know. Honest questions from an incomplete understanding.)

It's the second option. Should a party that promises to act extra-legally once they get into power be allowed to campaign? I think not, but it is not an easy question to answer.

Europeans have been reminded of the dangers of right-wing populism with what's currently happening in America.

Oof. Not an easy question indeed.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy

And yet... in the US at least, we have an avenue for that. Change the laws. The Constitution forbids what you want to do? You can change that, too. That's the route that you're supposed to take.

If you won't, and you say so publicly, and the people are willing to vote for you anyway... then the powers that be are in a tough spot. They have (at least somewhat legitimate) grounds for excluding you. And yet, they risk your popular support deciding that the system will not accept them.

What they should be doing is figuring out the reason so many people support those who want to tear down the system, and find a way to give them most of what they want within the system, and campaign on that, to cut the ground out from the outside-the-system party. But that may require more competence and savvy than the powers that be have shown...

Note that in Germany, there are literally parts of of the constitution that are unchangeable, by design:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause#Germany

I'm sorry, your definition of being extremists requires them to be the dominant party and actively committing a genocide?

They promised they'll do it. They have ideology consistent with doing it. They got caught talking about how they'll do it.

They need to be stopped not only before they are in total control and do it, they need to be stopped before they shift the Overton window.

> your definition of being extremists requires them to be the dominant party and actively committing a genocide?

No, come on, they never wrote this. Someone else wrote:

> Both the GOP and the AFD are acting extra-constitutionally.

And they asked if that was true, as well as for more details about the AFD's real political actions. That's it. It does not even remotely suggest they think the party is not extremist; in fact, they go as far as to say they have no first-hand knowledge of the situation as an explanation for the questions.

> Is the AfD acting extra-constitutionally?

Late answer, but: they did actually abuse their power in an unconstitutional way after last year's elections to the state parliament of Thuringia. The eldest member of the parliament was from the AfD and as such he was given the traditionally ceremonial role of moderating the parliamentary proceedings until such time as an actual president was elected. With absolutely no legal basis to do so he tried to block the parliament from voting on certain matters. The other parties had to get the state constitutional court involved who very firmly ordered the AfD to let the parliament work as intended.

While the AfD complied with the ruling (I don't really see how they couldn't have) and the crisis was ultimately averted, one should make no mistake: this was a test to see if the democratic forces were still strong enough to oppose them. For now, they were.

I would argue that the American right wing has actually shifted a bit leftward in the past few decades. Gay marriage is now accepted by most Republicans for example. Trump is in many ways a 90s Democrat. His stance on illegal immigration, America first foreign policy, and protectionist tariffs are actually not that extreme historically for our country. The mass deportations are a reaction to the unprecedented scale of illegal immigration that was practically encouraged by the Biden administration.

The reality is that he feels far right because most of the western world has become extreme-far left. I can think of tons of former Democrats who have been alienated by how far left the Democrats have become on social issues. Besides Donald Trump, there is also Elon Musk (he was a huge supporter of Barack Obama), Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and even Bill Maher (who is no fan of Donald Trump by any stretch of the imagination) frequently criticizes how far left the party has become.

EDIT: I’m talking about social left versus right, not economic. For the record, I think the left versus right distinction doesn’t really work given the complex modern political landscape. For Europeans that may be unaware, gay marriage and LGBT rights were actually a controversial political issue in the 90s and even early 2000s with even many Democrats refusing to back it. Barack Obama famously “evolved” his stance on this issue.

https://time.com/3816952/obama-gay-lesbian-transgender-lgbt-...

No.

https://theconversation.com/same-sex-marriage-is-under-attac...

Trump's administration's opposes feminism, unions, socialized healthcare, welfare programs, university funding, legal abortions, climate change recognition, student debt forgiveness, gay marriage, trans identify...

They also: deport citizens without due process, enforce the "unitary executive theory", defund government institutions, remove health regulations, reduce taxes...

None of these things are left-wing, by any conceivable definition of "left-wing". What the fuck are you even saying about how the rest of the world has been shifting "extreme-far left"? It clearly hasn't.

Tell me again how the weak neoliberal party has gotten far-left? Do you think gay marriage is communism or something? Because I don't see the democrats advocating for socialized ownership of the means of production or other crazy shit. Mostly they hold mild and boring technocratic views on everything, and are sometimes slightly progressive when it's convenient.

A lot of words here but not much knowledge of politics. Calling western people "marxists" while showing absolutely no clue what Marx proposed (hint: common ownership, stateless society...). If reliable healthcare for citizens is "far left" where exactly on the map would we put communism? Or what is then center, and what is right? And what is then "far right", hunting homeless for sport? I don't really care what the one or the other party trumpet claims, but I don't have to like such loud ignorance.

A pretty big clue is in the article: >>> "The ethnicity- and ancestry-based understanding of the people prevailing within the party is incompatible with the free democratic order," the domestic intelligence agency said in a statement.

In simple terms, Trump's current administration is the AfD's wet dream. Talk big about free speech and free market, state's rights, cracking down on immigration, all the populist talking points. Then play the victim whenever things don't work out, dismantle regulatory bodies and oversight committees, and selectively apply the law depending on loyalty and conformity.

They're nazis, chief

The party's prevailing ethnic and descent-based understanding of the people is not compatible with the free democratic basic order. It aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to unequal treatment that does not conform to the constitution and thus to assign them a legally devalued status. Specifically, the AfD does not consider German citizens with a history of migration from Muslim countries, for example, to be equal members of the German people as defined by the party in ethnic terms.

This exclusionary understanding of the people is the starting point and ideological basis for continuous agitation against certain people or groups of people, with which they are defamed and disparaged across the board and irrational fears and rejection of them are stirred up. This can be seen in the large number of ongoing anti-foreigner, anti-minority, anti-Islam and anti-Muslim statements made by leading party functionaries.

Translated via deepl from https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilung...

The interesting question is why having a different definition of the German people than "anyone who happened to come here and has lived here for a while" should be considered an extreme position. Throwing out all history and ancestry as a core component of the identity of a group of people seems rather like the extreme view.

It seems like the difference is between a cultural understanding and a legal one. The legal bar to be considered German is citizenship, which is what is being discussed in the context of a political party's official policy.

It would be an extreme view to say a person who immigrated to Germany and recently attained citizenship has more German ancestry than someone who was born in Germany to parents who were born in Germany but I don't think anyone is saying that. The point is just that "unequal German" doesn't make sense because German is referring to citizenship; it's either "German" or "not German", never "German, but lesser".

The 'core feature' to get the extremist label (no matter if left- or right-extremist) is the goal to overthrow the 'Liberal democratic basic order':

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democratic_basic_order

Regarding the AfD, ‘Senior members have been disgraced for playing down Nazi war crimes and accepting suspicious payments from Russia and China.

There were calls to ban the party when it was reported party members were at a meeting of neo-Nazis where a “master plan” to expel millions of people from Germany was discussed, including asylum seekers, foreigners with residency rights and “unassimilated citizens”.

The AfD were shut out of coalition government by the “firewall”, an agreement by mainstream parties not to work with those deemed too extreme.

JD Vance, the US vice-president, criticised the firewall as anti-democratic.’ [0]

There is plenty more on the subject [1, 2, 3, 4].

> They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

This might be a comment on the state of American politics as much as it is on Germany’s.

[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/02/afd-classi...

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-jd-vance-is-wrong-about-afd...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx88nwy934go

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/25/afd-readmits-t...

[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-02/german-spy-agency-lab...

>accepting suspicious payments from Russia

Do you really think the Russians would ever support a Neo Nazi party after what happened in WW2?

That's propaganda.

"extreme right" is a super set of "nazi". Putin is extreme right and not a nazi. Netanjahu is considered right extreme, certainly he is not a nazi. the list goes on.

The current Russian government supports every movement that may help to destabilize Europe, extreme left or extreme right ideologies only matter to them as a tool for targeting specific demographics by their propaganda industry.

Are you kidding? The Russian ruling class *adores* the global far-right. They don't see them as Nazis, but as kin.

And the West's support of Israel's IDF, how would you characterize that?

I'm Russian, and yes, absolutely, Russia would do that so long as said party is friendly towards Russia.

It's not like it would even be the first time. USSR was very friendly to Nazi Germany in 1939-40.

And in modern Russian parlance, the words "Nazi" and "fascist" don't have any semantic load other than "our enemies". For example, EU is "Nazi", while https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusich_Group is not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Utkin and the whole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group. Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusich_Group

> They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

Sorry for the throwaway, but has Europe moved too much to the left that AfD seems like a far-right party or has America moved too much to the right that something like AfD and Trump seem like "regular right"?

The fact you have neo-nazis supporting this "regular right" should tell you that at least some of the talking points fit their views.

Something else that we should keep in mind is that there are politicians in Europe that have views similar to Bush, Nixon, etc, and I don't see anyone calling them "far-right". Conservative? Yes. Not far-right.

Do you consider Trump as regular right wing? Or more extreme? Do you think the deportations of "illegals" happening at the moment are justified? What about deportations on legals non-white people?

The main reason for the classification seems to be their worldview based on "Blood" and what they consider as a "True German", and how they want to deport (or worse) anyone who does not match this view. Their plans are similar to what is happening under Trump now, but some steps further.

And lets not talk about all the other s** around culture and science. But these are not illegal.

Trump is complicated. He doesn't neatly fit into the boxes that our politicians usually fit in. He's neither fully right nor fully left. As I have said elsewhere, I think the left versus right wing distinction is no longer suitable for talking about the current political climate. The traditional politicians from both parties despise him. The Republican rank and file have only accepted him because of his massive popularity. For example, his stimulus checks are definitely a left-wing idea. If I had to label him I would say that he is a right-wing populist.

I'm not sure why you scare quoted illegals. I refuse to use the Orwellian Newspeak that is "undocumented." They have "documents." Just not ones that give them any right to legally be in our country, hence why illegal is the correct term.

The Biden administration encouraged mass illegal immigration into our country on unprecedented scale and it has resulted in a lot of very serious problems, so yes extreme deportation measures are absolutely justified. There are several cases of people who have been violently assaulted or even murdered by violent gang members and criminals who came here illegally. There are people who have suffered horrifically for this and people who would still be alive today if our immigration laws had been properly enforced. Even many of the illegal immigrants themselves are suffering as victims of sex trafficking, poverty wages, indentured servitude, or dying of heat exhaustion in false panels of vehicles that are smuggling them into the country packed like sardines.

Adding to that, they are a costly strain upon our infrastructure and social support systems. Car insurance premiums rose due to the massive rise in uninsured motorists. They have exacerbated already sky high housing costs because they need to live somewhere. When they get sick they go to the emergency room because they lack health insurance. Some of you will say, well that's why you should just have socialized medicine, but it ignores the point that we do not have socialized medicine, which means that someone has to foot the bill for their ER visits for non-emergency medical care. Many of them turn to crime because their opportunities for legal employment are non-existent. They are also a burden on our already struggling public education system, particularly since so many of them do not speak fluent English. They also depress wages. There is a myth that they perform jobs that Americans don't want to do. The truth is that they perform jobs for cheaper than Americans are willing to do them.

I'll bite, on chance this is a product of the media streams you've been watching instead of innate racism.

> There are several cases of people who have been violently assaulted or even murdered by violent gang members and criminals who came here illegally.

There are also many times the number of cases of illegal immigrants living normal, productive lives and contributing to their communities, if we're going to tie the things we mention to statistical reality.

> they are a costly strain upon our infrastructure and social support systems.

They power the bulk of American construction, agricultural, service, and landscaping industries.

> They have exacerbated already sky high housing costs because they need to live somewhere.

Illegal immigration is a drop in the bucket compared to private equity snapping up homes and rent price-fixing via RealPage et al.

> When they get sick they go to the emergency room because they lack health insurance.

As do many US citizen, thankfully all protected by EMTALA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_...

> Many of them turn to crime because their opportunities for legal employment are non-existent.

I'm guessing you haven't worked too many blue collar jobs in your life...? I.e. kitchen, construction, or landscaping?

> They are also a burden on our already struggling public education system, particularly since so many of them do not speak fluent English.

Or, having to go through hell to get here, they're more motivated than their citizen by birth peers.

> They also depress wages.

You just said above they can't find jobs. Which is it? They're getting too few jobs or too many?

> There is a myth that they perform jobs that Americans don't want to do. The truth is that they perform jobs for cheaper than Americans are willing to do them.

You really don't seem like you've ever talked to a farmer. Ask one about hiring hardworking labor sometime?

> neither fully right nor fully left.

There's a reason why fascists and Nazis broadly refer to themselves as the "third position".

What is the reason?

Because their ideology translates to a mix of traditionally left and traditionally right policies. Broadly speaking, it tends to be extreme right culturally and center-left economically.

Nazi Germany, for example, had quite a few explicitly socialist programs such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_Through_Joy.

Can you be more specific about the quote you used before?

Why do they call themselves "the third position"?

Just doing follow-ups to try to understand you.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to give a TL;DR lecture on history when there are good sources for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Position

What you said sounded like a bold claim. I just wanted to understand if you understand the implications of applying that label. I wanted to know if you understand the reason.

I'm not gonna blindly fight based on a vague idea that history is repeating itself. Or should I? (rethorical).

You seem like a very educated person with broad historical knowledge. Why use cheap accusations to put your ideas forward? (rethorical).

What is the bold claim? That fascists refer to themselves as "third position"? That's literally textbook history. Or that modern-day GOP, now fully taken over by the Christian nationalist wing, is also a "third position" party, and that is why their de facto platform (as evidenced by what they're literally doing right now) is the way it is? That's a simple observation.

Nothing. Forget about it.

Thank you for that link. This was news to me and now I have a whole host of books to catch up on.

Huh, I guess they did Not See this coming.

I wish there was tighter rules around what stays on the front page of HN. I come here for tech news or interesting nerdy blog posts not this stuff.

[flagged]

I just want to guard my attention and spend it on soul fulfilling things instead of this, life is too short.

Not much worse than every other post being about AI bullshit tbh.

I have the same complaint. If AI can automate a whoopie cushion it gets a post.

Those posts generally don't stay there more than a few minutes. Feel free to hide them. But I agree with you on a point, I wish it was better specified which kinds of politics are allowed or not and when.

Edit: aaand it's flagged.

I finally got fed up yesterday and wrote a userscript so I can just silently block the offenders, their links, and their comments in perpetuity. It's a load off my mind.

God forbid we add a tagging system that lets you blacklist tags.

Then again, I have the same complaint about reddit (which has flairs, but doesn't let you blacklist them because then you'd be able to filter out all the ragebait)

Talking about the situation of potential workplaces/countries is legit here IMHO. There are many tech workers living or planing to live in other countries on this site. And several complaints in the last years about Germany were about the growing hostility from the extreme right. This is a step in a good direction. But it won't solve the problems in general.

Now the election is over and everyone has decided that they really don't want to form a government with them, the agencies are suddenly allowed to state the obvious without potentially embarrassing their future bosses.

Announcing this is considered an interference with the elections, so they delayed the announcement.

This has been cooking for a very long time (pretty much since the AfD was founded in 2013, and some federal chapters of the AfD (like the Thuringian AfD under Hoecke [1], the Saxon AfD [2]) and five 'AfD Youth' federal chapters already earned the 'extreme-right' classification before [3]. The news is only that now the entire AfD is classified as extreme-right (to nobody's surprise).

The AfD also isn't the first party which got the label, the AfD is just the latest reincarnation of the NPD (since the 1960s) and the so-called Republicans ('Die Republikaner') since the 1980s. There's also various smaller splinter-organizations which are more openly right-extremist than the AfD but at best play a minor role in municipal elections).

[1] https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/thueringen/afd-rechtsextremis...

[2] https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/afd-sachs...

[3] https://www.rnd.de/politik/wo-gelten-afd-und-junge-alternati...

This is ridiculous, it's subjective, and it's really punitive in a political way. The AFD has made huge gains in Germany, the people voted for that, how dare the intelligence service say oh, this is far right. It's the same as if they had said, it was far left. The government has no business in deciding which party can field candidates. That's the voters to choose.

that's not how that works. they were under active investigation for years already, and it took until now to gather and evaluate the evidence.

they want to overthrow the foundations of the constitutions. turn human rights back into birthright citizen rights and then likes.

that's why they are considered right extreme.

the election outcome is much more a success if their campaigning on slander platforms and bubble platforms like X and tiktok.

Musks very actively supported their campaign not just through personal public endorsement but also through active support on X.

This is ridiculous, it's subjective, and it's really punitive in a political way. The NSDAP has made huge gains in Germany, the people voted for that, how dare the intelligence service say oh, this is far right. It's the same as if they had said, it was far left. The government has no business in deciding which party can field candidates. That's the voters to choose.

Given that AfD represents ~20.8% of the vote, 25% of the Bundestag and have upwards trending poll numbers; we can probably start talking about the collapse of democracy in Germany if they aren't allowed to engage politically as any other party. These numbers are too large to ignore.

I wish the Germans the best of luck and reiterate that declaring war on their own energy supply was probably a mistake.

So, tell me again how you'll be preventing the "collapse of democracy" by not condemning the anti-democratic party?

I'm not sure I follow the double negative there, but once intelligence agencies get involved condemnation doesn't mean much.

This classification was made by the BfV[0], created in the 50s. They're tasked with finding extreme groups (right and left) that might present a threat to Germany's democracy.

Now, if this should happen and all that, I don't know, but it doesn't seem to be a new thing in Germany (or in other countries like the US where the FBI classifies groups too). In any case and independently of my political views, I can see why a country with Germany's past flags anything that leaves the centre of the political spectrum. I also can see why they're paying attention to this party... their positions about Russia, funding, etc, should raise some red flags.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Office_for_the_Protect...

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