Maybe you’ve noticed it, maybe you haven’t, but the german side of Tumblr is furious at the moment and it’s all the fault of today’s election. But before I begin to explain what happened, let me explain Germany’s political system first.
Germany is constituted of 16 states, the “Länder”, which all have their own parliament, which also means the states can decide a lot of stuff for themselves (this includes everything school related for example) without needing it to be accepted on a national level. Each Land votes for its parliament at least every 5 years. And today (3rd of March), was the Super-Wahl-Sonntag aka the day three different states elect their respective parliaments: Baden-Würtenberg, Rheinland-Pfalz and Sachsen-Anhalt.
And that’s where the problem lies. The far right party AFD excelled. At the moment, the estimations lie at 24,3% in Sachsen-Anhalt (2nd place with 19 seats out of 102), 15,1% in Baden-Württemberg (3rd place with 23 seats out of 143) and 12,4% in Rheinland-Pfalz (3rd place with 13 seats out of 101). (as of 21h50) Now, what’s so bad about this?
Well, in short: The AFD is bad news. Donald-Trump-if-not-worse bad news. Their political plans include:
against the “educational exaltation of non-heterosexual people” (schools would only teach about heterosexual relationships)
stop the “hypersexualization of children” and by this they basically mean abolishing sex-education in schools
civil partnership (the only possibility in Germany for same-gender couples to get their relationship officially recognized) not to be put on a level with marriage
against renewable energies
cancel or at least, reduce subsidies
suspend the Schengen-Contract (which allows free passage between EU countries) and close the border for the duration of the current wave of migrants
Migrants should get social benefits solely according to their country of origin or not at all (which means no financial support at all)
They’re also anti-Euro and anti-EU.
Now, I understand if the actual program of the party doesn’t seem too scary. Well, let’s take a look at what they also stand for (which I’m simply not sure they’ve included in their official election program):
Enforced labour under minimum wage (8,50€/h at the moment) for long time unemployed people
thinks the effect of CO2 emission on the climate is propaganda and is in general against the reduction of CO2 emissions (and the greenhouse effect is a myth)
against data security which basically means government surveillance for everyone
wants to reintroduce the compulsory military service for men
against the legalisation fo abortion
they’re against “gender mainstreaming” aka they hate trans people and everything that devies from the norm
Refugees should be shot at the border if necessary
In general, they’re a far right winged, homophobic, transphobic, old fashioned party which is against everything any kind of progress stands for. This horrifying largely comes from a) a lot of people who decided not to vote and b) Germany has been shifting to the right more and more in the past years and this is the proof of how it can affect us. We’re pissed that people don’t use the chance they’re given through these elections, we’re pissed at the succes of a far right party and we’re pissed at the general stupidity that seems to dominate our country.
I also read somewhere that they want to abolish the legal requirements for womens’ equality in the workplace (meaning there should be a certain percentage of women in top positions, equally qualified women being preferred over men for certain jobs etc.) because they, and I am paraphrasing, “are supportive of traditional gender and family values”.
Basically, they want to put women back in the kitchen, which is coincidentally exactly where Hitler’s NSDAP wanted women (For womens’ roles, the NSDAP coined the slogan of the “three Ks” – Küche, Kinder, Kirche, meaning kitchen, children, church.)
