Summary

Elon Musk expressed support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on X, stating “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

Party leader Alice Weidel welcomed his endorsement, urging followers to review her criticisms of German politics.

The AfD, polling at 19% ahead of February’s federal election, is officially under scrutiny as an extremist group by German authorities.

Musk has previously questioned the party’s “far-right” label. Controversy surrounds the AfD, including links to a meeting discussing deportation of migrants.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    2 days ago

    Moderator warning: calling for Elon Musk or anyone else to be assassinated is a violation of Lemmy.world ToS.

      • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 days ago

        Just hop to another instance that doesn’t have the same difficulties as .world. Reddit 2.0 on Lemmy requires us to be compliant.

        • Cliff@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Or that user could just set up his own instance and face all the possible liability issues himself.

          • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 days ago

            Exactly. A large portion of the .world user base is from North America and doesn’t realize .world isn’t based on the United States.

    • mPony@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      calling for Elon Musk or anyone else to be assassinated

      Yeah but we can discuss it without saying it should happen, right? (not trying to be a dick about this, honestly)

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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        2 days ago

        Yes. That is fine. There’s a difference between saying “this sort of thing could lead to Elon being killed” and “Elon deserves a bullet in the head.” The issue is with the latter, which has been a big problem in this thread. It is not legal to do that in the Netherlands, where the server is based.

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      There was a time where the US were shooting Nazis instead of putting them in charge. Is it really bad to wish those times came back?

  • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Damn, so he’s just going to buy every government? I guess the first one was so cheap, he figures he can afford at least four or five more.

    • benni@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Fortunately, AfD is not in the government and possibly never will be

      • RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.com
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        3 days ago

        They had 93 seats in the German parliament as of 2017 and are now the second most popular party as of a 2023 poll.

        I just got those numbers from a DDG search two minutes ago. Where did you get your information?

        • benni@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          They would require a coalition with another big party, but all other established parties are strongly opposed to working with them, while being at least somewhat open to working with each other. From that perspective, the current voting predictions can be seen as 19% AfD vs 60% established parties (no longer counting FDP, lol). Still bad, but I think it’s reasonably likely that the other parties would keep coalising with each other and excluding the AfD.

            • benni@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              It’s the same take. They’re not in the government, and possibly never will be.

                • benni@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  Ah, I see the issue now. Parties get voted into the parliament. The government consists of a coalition of parties that together form a majority. The other parties form the opposition. Therefore, a single party can have many seats in the parliament, but still not be part of the government, if enough other parties coalise without them.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        3 days ago

        They have been getting traction consistently and German politics moved significantly to the right over the past years. Now supposedly progressive parties like the social democrats and greens spout stuff that five years ago was exclusive to the AfD and maybe the fringes of the Bavarian CSU.

        Even if they don’t govern they get their way more and more, which helps normalising their positions more and more, which gives them more and more votes.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      People have a real problem grasping the wealth of 500 Billion dollars. At the Median US household income it would take 12 years to make a million dollars; 1,200 years to make a hundred million dollars; 12,000 years to make a billion dollars; and 1.2 million years to make a 100 billion dollars.

      His wealth is essentially limitless. It is that of a moderate sized country like Norway or Israel. When he can have an effect with 100 million dollars he could influence 5,000 elections with 500 billion dollars. And that’s not even talking about his investments in social media, PR cult of personality, and straight up vote buying in broad daylight.

      I sincerely hope he and X end up banned from Europe, with a warrant out for his arrest in relation for doing this. Because America has proven unable to stop him. Another country might though if they come down hard on anyone accepting his money and as hard as they can on him without using their military.

    • frunch@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Didn’t his estimated wealth nearly double in the past couple years? He’s got enough money to buy all the governments at this point

    • Breve@pawb.social
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      2 days ago

      Cheap? More like insanely profitable. It’s like any good business venture: you use your successes to expand.

  • xenomor@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Are we allowed to discuss the many many benefits that society might receive if Elon Musk were in fact assassinated?

    • don@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      I’d be, with extremely little resistance, willing to listen to your argument. Tread heavily if you dare.

    • LittleBorat3@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I hear there are 3 or for 4 candidates for chancellor now one is a lesbian Nazi bitch living in Switzerland so no, no wehrhafte Demokratie.

      All candidates are not well liked in terms of approval ratings so hooray 2025.

    • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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      3 days ago

      AfD is cheering while the SPD’s thugs attack and arrest Jews calling for an end to Israeli terrorism.

      Not lookin’ good

    • leisesprecher@feddit.org
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      3 days ago

      Realistically, it’s not gonna happen. There’s too much cowardice in our political system for that.

      • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I feel like I remember hearing when AfD was getting less than the 5% (or whatever it is) minimum to be granted proportional seats. I knew they had grown in popularity, but they’re at 19% now. 19???!

        They should have already banned them.

        Meine Oma war 11 am Kriegsende, und hat mir natürlich viel von dir Geschichte persönlich erzählt.

        For fucking shame. Honestly.

        Makes me quite sad :( as an German Australian. And and as any human who’s been to school in the last 40 years.

        When will humanity learn that capitalism is the problem, not the foreigners…?

        • leisesprecher@feddit.org
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          1 day ago

          The problem is, that the AfD slowly drifted from very conservative to far right, and for a pretty long time, they managed to seem sufficiently “bürgerlich” not to be legally extremist. It was perfectly clear that they were nazis, even years ago, but not provable.

          Add to that the two unsuccessful attempts to ban the even more right and NPD. They were afraid to fail again.

          Regarding the current 19%, Germany’s political, economic, and media system somehow paint itself into a corner. The politicians are largely out of ideas, they’re all fighting about petty conflicts, there’s hardly anything being done. Not that bad laws are enacted, nothing happens. The country runs on autopilot into a very obvious wall, and the politicians fight who can sit in the pilot’s seat. It’s a simulacrum.

          The economic system is eroding away. The old German model doesn’t work anymore, and the old conglomerates just switched to subsidies and rent seeking, no investment, no changes. Volkswagen wants to scale back EVs in favor of ICEs.

          The media are dominated by public access outlets, who are largely afraid to be critical, because someone could call them biased, and private media spreading hate for clicks.

          So, Germany is currently in a pretty bad situation and many many people see that, but don’t see anyone actually doing anything about it. But because they are bombarded with hate, they choose AfD. Absolutely stupid decision, but these people just lost every bit of trust in the system. And honestly, I blame the system.

          • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Thanks for the lengthy reply. Pity about the public broadcasters, it’s the same here in Australia. The ABC’s funding has been cut so much that they’re rarely properly critical of the government.

            I, maybe naively, hold on to hope that we’ll be able to pull out of this global slide to the right without the horrors of last century.

            Frohe Weihnachten :)

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
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          1 day ago

          When will humanity learn that capitalism is the problem, not the foreigners…?

          Nooo nnnnnoooo you seee it’s the people who (look different/speak different language/family came to the country later than your ancestors did) who are causing all your problems. Don’t look at Mr. Musk who has enough money to buy countries, or Mr. Kühne whose family company gladly helped do the logistics for the holocaust, while he doesn’t even pay taxes in Germany because he doesn’t believe in taxation.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      For the month maybe, but its possible imports are gonna be higher in December for various shipping reasons. Monthly numbers aren’t always good indicators and have always been used to attack Tesla even when they were growing, not to say it might not be a preview of whats to come either. It’s around 15% YTD.

          • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Oh you meant it was down YTD. I was confusing you with one of the Tesla defenders who are claiming record growth.

            • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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              I mean maybe they have record growth for a month or two in a very specific region, like this one really bad month in the EU but ya not happening this year. It’s gonna take a huge Q4 push to not be down globally YTD but maybe they’ll squeak a tiny tiny growth out.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Over/under on months before spacex is manufacturing missles to arm these groups?

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
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    3 days ago

    So, has Musk straight up admitted to being a white supremacist or has he only dropped anvil-sized hints so far?

    • TingoTenga@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Foreigners don’t have political rights by definition. This is something that should be enforced to the last consequences.

  • Jack@slrpnk.net
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    2 days ago

    Did people also saw Hitler like that before he got in power?

    “Oh look that bozo doing shit again” and then bam, the bozo is the head of state?

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I mean, have you ever really looked at him without the hindsight knowledge of what nazi germany would be like? he’s so fucking lame.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      24 hours ago

      Unfortunately I’m fairly sure that particular monster actually had some sense of charisma and strength-projection. I’m sure people still saw through it, but couldn’t say much because he was considered a “world leader” with the rest of em.

      This, of course, was before the grand spectacle that was reality television, so now our megalomaniacal monsters simply have to generate interesting headlines and do bozo nonsense to attempt world takeover.

      I’m legit surprised MrBeast or a Kardashian hasn’t attempted to buy rulership over a smaller country at this point. You know, just for the views.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      People didn’t think of him in that light till WW2 started.

      Before that he was actually beloved by most, so much so that when he annexed Poland, the rest of Europe and America basically went “Aww shucks”

    • killingspark@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      Maybe? He did try to take power once, failed, went to prison for like a year and then got right back to it.