Germany’s Social Democratic Party says first legal steps should be taken to ban the far-right AfD party as unconstitutional. Conservative lawmakers are less keen on the idea.
A number of Germany’s conservative lawmakers have called for a cautious approach after the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior coalition partner, on Sunday passed a motion calling for preparations to ban the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
The debate on whether to ban the AfD, which forms the strongest opposition force in parliament, has gained momentum after it was reclassified by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency in May as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” group — an assessment that is now under court review after a legal challenge by the party.
I think most of us are struggling with this issue, but I’m really not sure what to do about it. Is banning them outright bad? Maybe? I just don’t know.
We’re all stuck in a planet scale tolerance paradox, and I don’t think any current solution is particularly convincing or palatable.
In the early 90s something similar happened in Belgium (1).
What lessened the extremism in the following couple of elections was investment (in infrastructure, healthcare, economic opportunities, etc) outside of the cities as well.
It turned out that for every tax frank gathered, 80 cents were spend on prettifying the larger cities and the major port. People were mostly (rightly?) pissed off that government represented a terrible ROI for the same group of people for decades. They would’ve been better of without a federal government. They saw their lives get worse, whilst at the same time that government applauded themselves for the great things they achieved.
I’m not sure how feasible the same solution is today, as there’s very little investment budget anyways. Most of tax revenue goes to pensions and healthcare of a reversed population pyramid.