158
submitted 5 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Germans under 25 gave the AfD 16% of their vote in the European elections, with particular support in the east

Paul Friedrich, 16, could not wait to cast his first ballot and had no doubt which German party had earned his support in the watershed European elections.

“Correct, I voted AfD,” he said proudly in the bustle of the commuter railway station in Brandenburg an der Havel, an hour from central Berlin.

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland made particularly stunning gains on Sunday among young voters. For the first time in a national poll, 16- and 17-year-olds could cast their ballots – a reform that had been strongly backed by left-leaning parties.

After overwhelmingly supporting the Greens five years ago, Germans under 25 gave the AfD 16% of their vote – an 11-point rise – helping place the party second behind the opposition CDU-CSU conservatives and well ahead of the Social Democrats of the chancellor, Olaf Scholz.

The AfD tapped deep wells of support in the former communist east, winning in every state including Brandenburg, where it claimed 27.5% of the vote.

And his concerns echo those of many teenagers and twentysomethings in town: fears of war spreading in Europe, inflation, economic decline, “unchecked” immigration and, above all, violent crime, which they say is rampant when they use public transport or hang out in public spaces at night.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] rekabis@lemmy.ca 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The Right wants forced intervention

Forced intervention has a near-100% failure rate. All it does is waste taxpayer’s money while making the wealthy (the owners of these “rehabilitation sites”) even wealthier.

It is quite literally another implementation of “trickle-up economics”, explicitly designed to make the rich richer by punishing the poor for their poverty and parasitizing off the incomes of hard-working working-class Americans.

And since forced intervention is no different than forced incarceration without any sort of a trial, I would argue that it is materially worse than doing nothing at all.

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

Hmm. What is the difference between forced intervention and whatever Portugal did when it decriminalized hard drugs?

[-] rekabis@lemmy.ca 13 points 5 months ago

What is the difference between forced intervention and whatever Portugal did when it decriminalized hard drugs?

Portugal treats it as a mental illness health issue, and provides counselling. Only large non-personal amounts are treated as distribution, and therefore, criminal.

Only mental heath professionals can assign intervention, and typically only in cases where the user is a viable threat to themselves or others (imminent danger of harm through violence). This means that the vast majority of users are not coerced at all - they enter into counselling willingly, and with an intent to come clean.

The reason why things have backslid in the last little while has been due to funding cuts, and nothing else. Which is the same as any public service -- funding determines effectiveness.

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

I see. Thank you!

this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
158 points (95.9% liked)

World News

39144 readers
1380 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS