25 minutes ago, MigL said:

Do they actually feel that way, or are they being told by political parties, and social media, that they should be feeling that way ?

Surely both, and Putins troll army leveraging more and more capable AI is a strong catalyst

19 minutes ago, CharonY said:

something weird is happening to society.

The present is rhyming with history, and the lyrics are repeatedly full of slop.

14 hours ago, iNow said:

Surely both, and Putins troll army leveraging more and more capable AI is a strong catalyst

While an amplifier, I am not sure whether an outside agent is really needed for this to happen. I will remind you that even before social media, fear of foreigners was a strong catalyst. However, there were certain social norms that disallowed serious parties to go full nazis. Of course, one could argue that softening these norms was caused by social media, certainly, the sentiments were much older.

In this discussion regarding Saxony-Anhalt one should add that over the last decade it was getting a bit of a recovery with net migration into the state, filling some critical gaps contributing to growth. But a big chunk came from immigrants (e.g., Ukrainians) which then fed into the AFD narrative of folks taking their cookies. Probably obvious, but worth pointing out that compared to other states the proportion of foreigners to Germans is way lower than West German states.

But again, this is not a new narrative and as folks never really cared for the actual numbers, there really was no need to fake info. It just "feels" right and that is all there is to populism.

Edit: but of course money from Russia and support from extremists like, I dunno the US government, Musk and Thiel does help.

7 hours ago, CharonY said:

It just "feels" right and that is all there is to populism

Agreed, and the lies that get repeated get accepted no matter how big

50 minutes ago, iNow said:

Agreed, and the lies that get repeated get accepted no matter how big

Plus it helps to create the notion of perpetual victimhood. It is all the classics, really.

28 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Plus it helps to create the notion of perpetual victimhood. It is all the classics, really.

Thank goodness we always learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of those who preceded us.

Yes and especially our collective memory and attention--- sQUIRRel!

On 9/7/2026 at 1:42 PM, iNow said:

It’s seems more likely the result of amplified tribal propaganda prioritized through algorithms by state actors in competing power centers

Just because something is written on the internet does not mean people have to believe it at face value - God gave Man intellect so that Man uses it... or so they say.

37 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Just because something is written on the internet does not mean people have to believe it at face value

Clearly true from a pure on paper logical perspective, but hardly what we see in practice. Repeat something enough times from enough sources and the narrative takes hold. We have seen this for decades, and it's amplified now. We all tune into our local channels and "trusted" sources and consequently our own beliefs shift in that direction.

See also the way Fox News historically introduces the words "woke" and "leftish" and "liberal" and "socialist" every 4th word of every single program every single hour of every single day for months at a time. That is the same idea, and AI / internet / algorithms turn the dial up to eleven on that same principle.

40 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

God gave Man intellect so that Man uses it... or so they say.

People say lots of silly things, but if she did provide intellect then she didn't do a very good job of ensuring we use it.

On 9/8/2026 at 10:52 AM, CharonY said:

But again, this is not a new narrative and as folks never really cared for the actual numbers, there really was no need to fake info. It just "feels" right and that is all there is to populism.

This seems especially true in current US populism where facts are completely ignored. There's quite a labor shortage, e.g., in construction here which can only be mitigated by migrant hiring. But try to tell anyone in the maga brigade that we either have to double wages for laborers (else native-born won't do such work) or hire immigrants - falls on deaf ears.

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

This seems especially true in current US populism where facts are completely ignored. There's quite a labor shortage, e.g., in construction here which can only be mitigated by migrant hiring. But try to tell anyone in the maga brigade that we either have to double wages for laborers (else native-born won't do such work) or hire immigrants - falls on deaf ears.

I think framing it through an American lens is too limited. These things are happening at a grand international scale and fuels the rise of populist party almost everywhere. As I mentioned earlier, despite the fact that for many voters immigration is one the highest priorities (regardless of how many immigrants they actually encounter), there is still nearly no discussion regarding cost/benefit analyses. In fact, seeing it as a net detriment is almost always a given.

This even continues to happen if lack of immigration actually has a net negative impact or when studies show the opposite. The narrative then is that immigrants elsewhere are magically mooching off.

The reason why these discussions are not happening has some unfortunate rationality to it. a) voters are not moved by facts, and even if it impacts them, it moves them very little. There is also phenomenon when core convictions are attacked, they become more entrenched, regardless of facts b) a rational discussion is easily dismissed as propaganda and just fuels their conviction that media are biased, c) rather unfortunately, there is a strong baseline xenophobia in virtually all societies. Ideas of taking the high road, i.e. sticking to one's ideals is rare, doesn't politically pay off. Merkel of all people refused to buckle on the right of asylum, something that is anchored in the German constitution. But perhaps even more shocking, she took a moral position (during the Syrian war), rather than demonize asylum seekers as "fake" which would have been the politically prudent position. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she had to step down.

And make no mistakes, while some folks publicly draw a distinction between asylum seekers (legitimate or otherwise) and, say highly qualified immigrants, behind closed doors the latter are not really considered part of society and should, in their mind, be put in a more vulnerable position. Again, I think this is not a MAGA or American thing. The far right has managed to tap into a deep human emotion and we cannot rationalize our way out of it.

3 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I think framing it through an American lens is too limited. These things happening at a grand international scale and fuels the rise of populist party almost everywhere. As I mentioned earlier, despite the fact that for many voters immigration is one the highest priorities (regardless of how many immigrants they actually encounter), there is still nearly no discussion regarding cost/benefit analyses. In fact, seeing it as a net detriment is almost always a given.

Agree - I should clarify that America was just one example of erecting mental barricades against facts. Perhaps I see the US as more extreme on this because of proximity (and the notably extreme response of ICE resulting from that mindset). But I'm interested in this threads focus on Germany, and seeing if Germans can get to someplace politically that's more rational than America right now. It doesn't seem like a high bar.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

seeing if Germans can get to someplace politically that's more rational than America right now.

Part of their education involves visiting concentration camps and memorial centers with records or those exterminated. I’m hopeful that youth will see that as something to avoid and not something worth repeating, but tribal tendencies and daily feedback loops across the manosphere remind me that we’ll have to wait and see.

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

Agree - I should clarify that America was just one example of erecting mental barricades against facts. Perhaps I see the US as more extreme on this because of proximity (and the notably extreme response of ICE resulting from that mindset). But I'm interested in this threads focus on Germany, and seeing if Germans can get to someplace politically that's more rational than America right now. It doesn't seem like a high bar.

Right now, I am not seeing that. There have been multiple scandals and reports on some of the more extreme ideas in the party. They have coined the word "remigration", i.e. deport folks that they do not consider German enough out of the country. There is a significant proportion of folks who would more than welcome ICE-style actions in Germany.

46 minutes ago, iNow said:

Part of their education involves visiting concentration camps and memorial centers with records or those exterminated. I’m hopeful that youth will see that as something to avoid and not something worth repeating, but tribal tendencies and daily feedback loops across the manosphere remind me that we’ll have to wait and see.

Unfortunately what we see is that among youth the idea of the holocaust as something relevant is fading. I think they are most hardest hit by our new media landscape and anything beyond a few weeks barely exists for them, much less events that happened way before their birth. Especially young men are attracted to the AfD (60:40 split). While folks 30-59 are still more likely to vote AFD compared to <30, the latter is a big chunk of it. The oldest age group is the one that is least likely to vote AfD.

I.e. I think it is overall worrisome, as I interpret that collective knowledge of history is lost or being revised in real-time and those with memories (direct or indirect) are dying out. In this case, I don't think the young ones will rescue the world, they (or least the men) are putting on the gasoline.

Edit: I also read some article on young women voting for the AFD. Apparently there is a right-wing movement to attract these women, often via Instragram and TikTok. These groups are connected throughout Europe and associated with the respective parties (e.g., Vox, Rassemblement national, AfD) and a common narrative there is about the fear of getting raped by immigrants. But generally speaking, those parties are better at using TikTok (after all, creating outrage is part of their party strategy) and this is where young folks are especially vulnerable.

I feel that to quite a sizable proportion of youngsters the internet is more real than their own IRL experiences and they are actually easier to manipulate than you would historically expect.

3 hours ago, CharonY said:

those parties are better at using TikTok (after all, creating outrage is part of their party strategy) and this is where young folks are especially vulnerable.

I feel that to quite a sizable proportion of youngsters the internet is more real than their own IRL experiences and they are actually easier to manipulate

Completely aligned with your well made point, also the part about info getting memory holed and our brains being hacked so we can barely remember more than a week ago