This will 100% be used to suppress left politicians.
Just ban the fucking AfD already.
Why would it suppress left politicians? It's not like any of them have multiple extremism convictions, that's usually rightwing politicians.
Because they might get convicted of something a judge would call left wing extremism. I have zero trust in this system.
Ok, I see now how that could happen - I forget people would abuse a law like that.
Thanks.
You are much smarter than the users I encountered below, who downvoted the following examples I provided:
It's no different to a "means test" for voting. It sounds great initially, but falls apart if you dig deeper. The virtue of the means test is determined by who governs the means test. Once you create it, you have created the attack vector, and all the fascists have to do if they weasel their way into power is simply change the terms of the means test — you've already completed and normalized the hard part for them. As an example, Trump is currently using a 200 year old law to deport any immigrant an ICE agent chooses, without trial. He's using this law because it gave the president blanket unilateral powers to apply it as they see fit.
Another example from the US that has assisted fascism in denying blacks their right to vote; an old law declared anyone convicted of a felony ineligible to vote, then conservatives created the war on drugs to target and persecute blacks and the left. All they had to do was make non-violent drug offences a felony. As a result, millions of blacks have been denied the right to vote. All because the gov could decide who could and couldn't vote because of X, and any future gov could control the terms of X.
Extremists need to be defeated, but you can't defeat fascism with the tools of fascism. If the 2nd example I gave above were never created, America may have never devolved into MAGA/fascism.
For instance partaking in seating blockades on the routes of Nazi demonstrations is considered left wing "extremism" and could be charged as crime ranging from "coercion" to "breach of public peace / rioting". Now whether it is convicted as such is a different topic, but for instance many climate activists have been convicted with prison times for glueing themselves to the streets. Many courts consider this to be violent coercion. So making yourself vulnerable and unable to act, but in the way of some car, this is violent extremism in Germany.
Yes, and that's how it should be if a politician of any party is convicted for serious offense, eg violence or hatred. Laws should apply equally to all.
Which means such law should be carefully crafted to prevent its abuse for partisan purpose, supressing the opposition, etc.
For instance making it a judicial process, not an arbitrary administrative/executive decision. Restricting this to specific well-defined offenses. Making it a time-limited ban, not a lifetime ban.
Maybe also consider bribery convictions and we might get rid of a few CDU/CSU politicians as well 🙃
By far not the same level as extremism.
Fck little sister of whataboutism, the self-elevating sarcasm.
So you're OK with a plutocracy?
I’m not okay with saying extremism is the same as taking money for influence.
I love how the commenters on that page hating all on the "far-left", despite the left has exactly nothing to do with that idea. dumb fucks as far one can see.
It's classic whataboutism and trying to draw false equivalencies to muddy the waters. They want to put everyone else on defense about the decision to ban Nazis by making you waste time explaining why someone else isn't a Nazi.
To sum up: fuck them. Nazis are bad. Please continue punching them, both metaphorically, legally, and physically as needed to keep them in their hidey holes.
Greece did something similar a few years ago.
The Golden Dawn far right wing party was declared a criminal organization (after some violence that lead to a few stabbings and at least one death) and their leaders were thrown in jail.
From the ashes of Golden Dawn and a few other populist/Christian conservative/nationalist parties rose a few new ones, with more careful rhetoric and open support from the now jailed golden dawn leaders and high ranking church ministers.
They are collectively holding 26 of the 300 seats in the parliament and are expected to get better results on the next election cycle.
You can ban them all you want, they can still reform into a "we are not far right, wink wink" party after the ban itself verifies their far right status and rise to power all the same.
A party ban in germany results also in a pohibition to form follow up parties. That's why we should aim for the party and not single members
Yes - but if leading AfD figures were stripped of their right to vote, then such ruling would hit that person _regardless_ of which party he or she¹ is in. And it would also prevent those people from running as independent candidates. So I think going after individuals vs. going after parties is not an either-or. It would make sense to do both.
---
¹ I don't think AfD has enby members.
You can ban them all you want, they can still reform
Then make them do that work.
And investigate any ties between the banned party and the new one. Ban the new one as well, if they're just the same people with a new name.
Every time they are forced to rename and reform, that's effort they can't use to further their other goals.
Every time they need to "wink wink" a little harder, they risk losing part of their extremist base.
Make them do the work!
Exactly. People act like it's useless because it doesn't permanently solve the problem.
Well guess what. Fascism cannot be solved permanently. It needs to be opposed in every generation, consistently. Giving in is not an option.
Banning a fascist party costs them a lot of internal cohesion and about a decade of organizing. It's absolutely necessary and worth it.
Think of it like washing your laundry. Yes, you can and should be careful to not get it dirty in the first place. Yes, if you wrestle in the mud, your clothes will be muddy. Either way you will need to wash them from time to time. Now whether that time is often or only rarely is something you can influence, but the washing itself remains necessary.
Do it. Honestly I'm a little surprised you didn't do it 80 years ago
In a way we did. Anticonstitutional parties are generally not allowed. The problem is that courts and judges must be absolutely convinced that a party is anticonstitutional to actually ban them.
Less inequality and better education are really the only solution.
People reach for extremism when they feel let down by the existing system.
That's astonishing bullshit. There is already a process for ban political parties with political alignments incompatible with the constitution, which has to be initialized by o e of the two chambers of parliament and decided by the constitutional court. Having a political instrument in addition to that will automatically reduce the hurdle of dismantling political movements, for blurry definitions of "sufficient amount of extremists in a party".
This absolutely needs to be a thing in every country. Ban far right parties, ban far right media
Considering the CDU could be considered a far right party themselves, they just wanna eliminate their competition, so i wouldn't get my hopes up.
They literaly had an election poster with the slogan "You don't have to vote for the AfD to get what you want. There is a democratic alternative: the CDU!".
As long as privately owned press and corporate social media algorithms try to shift the overton window as far right as it can go that's not gonna happen.
Yes we could, but the inner security is stalling the investigation and the conservatives and liberals think they could get the nazi votes and lean heavily into the rethorik. Yeaaah doesnt work out. Never did
As much as I'm a fan of keeping Nazis out of government, holy fuck is this a bad idea!
A judge shouldn't be able to ban anyone from running for office.
This is what Russia does. Ban you from running if you're convicted of "extremism", then define that to include opposing the government.
Then they'll ban far left politicians from running.
Then they'll ban anyone they don't like.
And eventually, they'll ban everyone who isn't them.
Right wing lunatics are repulsive in almost every sense, but this isn't the way you beat them. When you put the machinery in place to do something like this, it will inevitably be abused in the opposite direction in future.
It's much harder to be abused when you ban the only party abusing it.
On the topic of cordon sanitaire (the practice of never forming a coalition with far-right parties, no matter how well they perform in elections):
Me pre-2016: "Isn't that kinda counter to democracy?"
Me in 2025: "Outlaw and deport the fuckers, please!"
Calling the SPD anything but a luke warm pudding is a lie.
They are literally neither right noir left. They just bend to whatever coqlition they get into.
They are staunch defenders of rightwing policy when they are in coalitions with parties that are more leftwing than they are. See: Gerhard Schröder's Agenda 2010.
While the idea sounds good I don’t think anyone should be setting a precedent to say it’s okay for elected governments to ban opposition parties from running based on their political views. Ultimately the people should hold the power.
Because that hasn't caused us any problems up to now has it? Maybe we should be setting a minimum standard for a political office, and maybe that minimum standard should include not being committed of certain crimes as is being proposed here 🤷♀️
Nah, that's the paradox of tolerance. A democracy cannot allow fascists to run without dismantling itself. Also fascism and other "political views" that dehumanize are not a political view, they are chargeable criminal offenses in many countries.
That is a dangerously reckless and ignorant take of the paradox. The paradox is a rejection of protecting the intolerant, and their use of an argument they do not adhere to themselves. It does not mean we should build the tools and laws of fascist oppression to combat fascism.
It's no different to a "means test" for voting. It sounds great initially, but falls apart if you dig deeper. The virtue of the means test is determined by who governs the means test. Once you create it, you have created the attack vector, and all the fascists have to do if they weasel their way into power is simply change the terms of the means test — you've already completed and normalized the hard part for them. As an example, Trump is currently using a 200 year old law to deport any immigrant an ICE agent chooses, without trial. He's using this law because it gave the president blanket unilateral powers to apply it as they see fit.
Another example from the US that has assisted fascism in denying blacks their right to vote. An old law declared anyone convicted of a felony ineligible to vote, then conservatives created the war on drugs to target and persecute blacks and the left. All they had to do was make non-violent drug offences a felony. As a result, millions of blacks have been denied the right to vote. All because the gov could decide who could and couldn't vote because of X, and any future gov could control the terms of X.
Wehrhafte Demokratie macht BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
There allready is precedent for banning parties. History and current events both show that people are fully ready to vote fascists into power. And also, you know what's one of the big reasons so many people vote for fascists? Fascist propaganda. Banning fascist parties will help have fewer fascist citizens around (at least after a while).
People are easily manipulated. There needs to be some guardrails.
The CDU thinks they will get their votes but they won't.
Does this have more backing than the motion to ban the AfD entirely did?
They know too well what happens when you let these fuckers get power.
Would basically get rid of 50-60% of voted parties. At least 25%.
Diverse views here, even within our lemmy 'bubble', suggest it's not obvious what to do about this (and similar situation in France and other european countries). Banning either individuals or parties can set a risky precedent and does not necessarily diminish a movement. I'd rather go for gradually (but rapidly) changing norms about acceptable campaigning, propaganda, use of social media, 'fake' news (lies). That includes faster-acting legal restrictions on funding, ownership, facts/fakes, algorithms, etc.. , as well as positively strengthening alternatives like our fediverse.
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