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Comment by 13415 | Hacker News Reader

Extremely high budget for ads and posters, social media campaigns, etc., all paid from foreign countries under dubious circumstances by straw men. It's all copy & paste across EU countries, far-right parties even copy the slogans they put on their posters, they just exchange the country name.

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That's kinda implying that they only got elected because they had money and a good campaign instead of addressing issues that are not addresses in an effective way by the other parties.

This is probably the case of both things being true at the same time.

I mean, they also get elected because hate motivates.

They lie loudly and often and face no punishment for it because a lie is halfway round the world before the truth gets its pants on.

"They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats."

Did the Brexit campaign address the issues of the people who voted for it? Are all those people now better off because of it? Did Trump and his 'no new wars' and '$1.99 gas' and 'Drain the swamp' and 'Balance the budget' address the issues of the people who voted for him?

Or did they just lie out of their ass and leave everyone worse off?

> Or did they just lie out of their ass and leave everyone worse off?

This, but I guess I should've been more clear in my parent comment in saying that by "addressing" should come in heavy quotation marks.

This says more about the electorate than the candidates. You can’t have a segment of your population that refuses to connect ideas and expect a working society to come out the other end.

they connect ideas all day. xenophobia is that, making fast and loose connections.

unfortunately we are deep into the TikTok times, and simple, but catchy ideas dominate. it's flat Earth, QAnon, anti-vax, anti-economics but now in 4K.

It is not just the money but social media is controlled by right wing ideologist. Musk has openly supported right wing parties in Europe.

I don't disagree but I see this more psychologically by now. Certain mechanisms are just tried and tested, what worked for Mussolini works just as well today, and it's always the same kind of people who are attracted to it.

Of course, it's not just the support by various enemies of Europe and Germany, there are many factors like always. In this particular case there are also historical reasons for the rise of Neonazism in parts of the former GDR and many other former East Bloc countries. I don't want to go into the details, everybody knows that story, but it's worth noting the Skinnheads Sächsische Schweiz of the 90s are now the fathers of young voters and particularly few things had been done against this trend in Saxony. When you allow Neonazi movements to become a major youth culture, you're bound to get serious problems. Since the AfD has absorbed the NPD, it's just the political arm of a vast movement there.

yes, but also there's a real obvious unserved/underserved voting bloc

https://www.slowboring.com/p/a-boring-theory-of-the-populist...

without convincing the people (winning their hearts and minds, and so on) it'll continue to be a profitable political strategy, unfortunately

Yep. Like they say, follow the (foreign) money.

Is this what you truly believe?

I know it. "Salvar Portugal" "Deutschland retten" ROTFL

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