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Nevertheless I would not count on them surviving. The AfD constantly has to fight the Nazis in there, split itself in one German state (Bawü), wants to get rid of their subdivision in another state (Saarland) and has members from Nazi parties they have to exclude of all over the place. Meanwhile Merkel and the established parties already moved to the right and the refugee crisis is largely over - at least in Germany. Lately Merkel is even gaining in popularity polls again.
These are people who don't value freedom or equality. They are driven by hatred of anyone different from themselves and accept as moral only what confirms that hatred, sometimes bastardizing religion in the process.
They're not special. They are no different than the people so many have fought throughout human history to get the freedom and the approximation of equality we have reached today.
The only noteworthy thing about them is that they've shown that many people are too comfortable in their human rights. Those rights aren't natural and they aren't self-evident only our belief in them is. Human rights do require work not just to acquire but to maintain, wherever and whenever you are.
NPD, Rebulikaner and so on have much less potential, because most people even with far-right views would still avoid to be associated with grunting skinheads and risk to be socially excluded.
My view on them is a bit different than yours. I don't think that we necessarily have to talk to them. They often live in their own world with their own conspiracies and mistrust the press, the state, the West and so on. I doubt that talking to them would give us any great insights. So the "die Sorgen der Menschen ernst nehmen" meme ("to take the worries of the people seriously"), politicians played for a while is bullshit.
I do think so that especially since they do not have a very nuanced view on the world at all, we should analyze them very carefully. They are not just evil nazis. There are so many reasons for them (and other populists, see Trump, Brexit etc.) existing:
- one crisis after another (financial, Euro, refugees)
- rising complexity of the world
- their conspiracies regarding NSA/CIA have an actual basis
- stagnation of the West
- lived behind a wall for decades with no immigrants at all
- feeling to be left behind Western Germany
- and many more possible explanations
I also think that not every right idea is bad. The most liberal regulations do not give you anything if the whole system collapses under you. Britain is already gone, we should be really careful now. I think the people badly want control over what's going on, so they are turning to easy answers and to smaller circles. Out of globalization, the EU, the US, back to Russia (in case of Eastern Germany), the country, the family and so on.
We need the planned immigration law. We should help refugees (even though we should have complied with the Dublin regulations), but I don't think there is anything wrong with copying the places Germans immigrate to and specifying clear rules about what kind of people from outside the EU we want to let in.
Unfortunately the EU has no actual leadership, so Merkel has to step in as the defacto leader, take Hollande by the hand and make some bold moves to show the people that the EU can act and is in fact a successful model. Maybe even pissing of the US a bit and rejecting TTIP to show strength.
