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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Are you sure about that? Landslide surely implies dissatisfaction with the others but it also implies tolerance. Apparently Germany will give it a go. The turnout is extremely high, they didn’t just not go voting, they actively showed up for AfD.

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Since I live in a area with high AfD support, yes I am sure that they don't "like" this party in the usual sense you would use that word. For some it is rather cult like, they are united in hate, in not much else. If they really would succed and take power - they would start bloody infighting very, very quickly (it shows quite often already).

How much would you say that US billionaires can be credited for this? It’s very weird to watch US billionaires, UK right wingers, Putin and other long time rulers seem like having a group chat and being in sync.

Not much probably, the sentiment existed before, but Musk's support for instance did made an impact. You know, richest man supporting a party, and poor people thinking, oh, I also want to be associated with being rich and I also am angry at X. It made more people seriously considering them I suppose.

You’re probably right but how come the solution for their(any anti establishment across EU and US) problems always somehow involves being on good terms with Russia? How those groups of people have become natural allies? Is it some psyche? For example I noticed that pro-Russian people often don’t accept agency beyond “the west”, the russian, the jews, the British and the Americans and their solutions revolve around accepting the superiority of Russia and not being persuaded by the sneaky Brits, West, Jews. That’s why their solution to the war in Europe is just West not attacking Russia and let Russia have what is rightfully theirs. Just really weird school of thought that denies agency.

Oversimplificated, they are just oversimplificated. The world is good and bad. The current establishment of government they know is clearly bad to them, so the enemy of their enemy must be a friend and part of good then.

But speaking of it, Putin was stationed as a KGB officer in saxony in the cold war(allegedly being responsible for radical west german left terrorists) and speaks german. I surely noticed lot's of russian propaganda channels. They became a big thing during Corona and became obvious russian (at least to some), when the channels that propagated antivaxx before suddenly reported anti Ukrainian propaganda and also openly support for the russian aggression.

I heard some really weird stuff about Ukrainians from some people, some of them otherwise very much not right-wing, and I can only attribute it to the internet. They certainly wouldn't give me a real source for where they got that from, but kinda just dropped it and moved to something else.

Calling it a cult fits quite well. Like Trump supporters, AfD can do anything. They do a different style of politics? Sure, they aren’t like the “old parties”, their budget is projected to have a 2 billion deficit? But the “old parties” are increasing the debt as well. Arguments are bent beyond recognition. Facts don’t matter. The term “pigeon chess” was coined for taking with AfD: while you comply to the strict rules of the game, the pigeon just randomly moves pieces, throwing some off, and shits on the board.

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