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Comment by locallost | Hacker News Reader

Burden of the unification, where the eastern states are still lagging in many areas, got the ball rolling. Pent up dissatisfaction. Eventually it rolled over to the rest of the country with COVID, stagnant economy, social media FUD etc. A lot of the same forces that drove Trump's election. People are afraid and dissatisfied, but they cannot really say why. I know, I try to listen to them. "Our educational system is falling apart". I have two kids in school, the opportunities they get are awesome compared to what I had.

It's difficult to convince people in an idea if your goals are noble. If they are not, it's a lot simpler. The basic fear is that they will lose what they have right now and are easily manipulated into magnifying those fears.

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> I know, I try to listen to them. "Our educational system is falling apart"

Are they aware that the AfD wants to introduce homeschooling?

https://www.news4teachers.de/2026/05/afd-will-schulpflicht-f...

Probably not, right? I mean, unless they're criticism is that they totally would love to teach their kid all these things much better than they do in school, but the kid won't accept homeschooling in the afternoon when it already went to school in the morning, but I kinda doubt that's their issue.

Anyways, thanks and kudos for talking to and listening to them. I think our society really fucked up in that regard. I have to think of things as old as "Deine Gewalt ist nur ein stummer Schrei nach Liebe.... ARSCHLOCH!", if you know what I mean... then we rested on being better than the poor conspiracy theorists and "Covidioten" and whatever. Rarely do we try to work with people we find "too disagreeable". And now we have the salad :(

I mean when I say I talk to them, I don't mean I go to AfD gatherings, you cannot discuss with these people. But I do go to e.g. play sports with some older guys in their 50s and hear what they have to say. And the way I know a lot of them vote AfD is because they never talk about AfD, which is the polar opposite of everyone else around me. Plus the complaining about the Green Party. And btw I am not German and we have zero issues with each other. So I think the reason for a large part of the people voting like this is more nuanced than a simple Nazis and Xenophobes label. Sure a lot of them yes, but I think the regular people that got duped have their reasons. Everyone has certain tendencies and why you get pulled in one direction is an interesting thing to figure out. The problem of why needs to be understood before it can be solved. My opinion I can repeat: it's fear magnified and manipulated by social media, as well as especially in the east a lack of identity and pride. A lot of good people left for somewhere else because the money was better. There are less populated areas where I've been to hike and you ask the locals on the street about a place to eat and they say just "there hasn't been anything here in a long time". And there's some genuine resent in those words. Those places are like 50+ percent AfD.

>There are less populated areas where I've been to hike and you ask the locals on the street about a place to eat and they say just "there hasn't been anything here in a long time". And there's some genuine resent in those words.

I don't get how they make the jump that this is the fault of immigrants, LGBT or the Green.

My conclusion after seeing trumpism is not that they are suffering because of external factors (left behind, abandonned by the state, et .) and thus turn to grifters selling them the Moon: their poverty has the same origin as them getting suckered by grifters: an internal inability to assume failure, learn from mistakes and improve, instead blaming everyone else but themselves, and thus being stuck at the bottom of society as it should be. Grievance from losers who will never, ever admit any wrongdoing.

Kladderadatsch!

I fully agree, but I think you forgot social media as a catalyst. People being trapped in echo chambers. AfD (and all the associated conspiracy theorists) are classical con men.

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