Elon Musk livestreamed his chat with a leader of Germany’s far-right party, using the power of his social media platform, X, to amplify the party’s message ahead of an upcoming national election.

Summary

Elon Musk livestreamed a conversation with Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, on his platform X, endorsing her and urging support for the AfD ahead of Germany’s February 23 election.

The livestream, which drew over 200,000 viewers, raised concerns across Europe about Musk’s influence in foreign politics.

AfD, under observation for extremism, has gained popularity amid discontent with Chancellor Scholz’s government.

Musk’s promotion of Weidel and controversial remarks on other European issues are being monitored for violations of the EU’s Digital Services Act.

  • Witziger_Waschbaer@feddit.orgEnglish
    1·
    3 hours ago

    Starting to talk in moderate terms about how immigration might be far slower and more discriminating is the only thing that will rob the far right extreme parties of their saviour narrative.

    That is what the CDU is doing. Have you taken a look at their program for the upcoming election? It is exactly what they want to do. The discourse has shifted for quite a while now. We are long past the point where you get called a Nazi for asking for slower immigration.

    See https://www.politikwechsel.cdu.de/sites/www.politikwechsel.cdu.de/files/docs/politikwechsel-fuer-deutschland-wahlprogramm-von-cdu-csu-kurzfassung.pdf

    Does that change anything about the high number of people voting AfD? No. Because they want even simpler answers. They want to hear that brown people are the sole reason for most of their problems because it is always easier to blame one singular group/person/ethnicity, than to understand and change the systemic problems we all face in the times to come. I mean I get it. It’s scary to think about climate change, about unchecked capitalistic exploitation, about Russia, about China. And it is far easier to just blame someone for every hardship one faces. But it’s also fucking stupid.

    Trying to pin the success of AfD on missing talk about immigration in other parties is just wrong at this point. It’s one of two major topics in the upcoming election. I’d seriously suggest to update your info. Your arguments might have had a point around 2015-2020, but those days are over.

    Oh and also discrimination based on religion should and will never happen as long as democracy in Germany has any life left, as that would go against Article 3 of our constitution. That’s in there for a reason I don’t think I have to repeat here.