And pushing the corrupt guy to the second place will give the far-right guy pretty much a free pass to the presidency.

In a country as racist as Germany.. good luck.

The police yesterday were brutal. Germany is on its downward spiral into totalitarianism

Let's say that you hypothetically prove it. Then what? It's not like the average voter votes for this person because Putin has somehow managed to install a microchip in their brains. Moscow's money just gives these people a platform to stand on and launch their campaigns from. The rest is their own doing. And it's not only Russia that has these interests in mind. It's also the American right, hardcore evangelical groups that pour millions upon millions into these people.

What I'm trying to say is that the issue is systemic. Getting rid of Putin or hardcore American evangelicals won't solve the problem. The underlying problem is how capital has commodified and hollowed out the average person, increasing inequality, and creating multiple social crises. Until that problem is not solved, we'll keep seeing these hard-right reactionaries pop up out of nowhere.

Just my two cents, as a Romanian (or half Romanian, half German) living abroad, with family members that voted for this far-right candidate, both in Romania and from abroad:

Romania suffers from the same problem many other European countries suffer from. The status quo parties haven't come to the realization that they need to change their course if they want to stay relevant, either willingly, because changing political course would hurt their financial interests, or unwillingly, because they're too dense to understand what the people want.

The economic situation is dire. Over 3 million Romanians (out of ~20 million) live abroad, most of them due to the dire economic situation at home (as is the case with a big chunk of my own family). These are not doctors, engineers, or other people with a ton of degrees hanging on their walls, but normal laborers that moved abroad in the pursuit of a better life. They often get exploited and discriminated, due to their lack of education, language skills, and other factors. One question I get asked very often about by my relatives in Romania is "but when are you moving back home?" and "but aren't the people there really shitty to you?". Most of these people dream about saving enough money so they can move back "home" (which in turn is also quite hard given the dire economic situation they face and the very insignificant amounts of money they can save in western Europe).

The status quo parties keep failing to deliver on their promises, with one corruption scandal after the other. The improvements are moving very, very slowly, and people are getting fed up. I'll quote Milton Friedman on this one (someone that I, as a communist, very often do not agree with):

“Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”

People are looking for alternatives, and the only alternatives lying around are far-right reactionaries, often because their campaigns are getting funded by Moscow, capitalist think tanks, and other actors that want to change the course of our politics.

The classical parties have failed the average person. Doing a Kamala and just campaigning on keeping the status quo won't win you an election there, because the status quo sucks.

The capital has exploited and hollowed out the individual, and now the individual is striking back by choosing the most reactionary "opposition" candidate they can put their stamp on.

The anti-EU (and anti-NATO since they're very closely associated) rhetoric is only helped by the huge wave of xenophobia these people face from foreigners either while abroad or online. We know that we don't have the best reputation abroad, and this insecurity is well drilled into our heads.

Now to get back to Georgescu, I won't deny it that it is indeed very weird how this guy appeared out of nowhere. I'm fairly sure Moscow had its money in there somewhere, but that only launched him into the public consciousness. The reason people voted for him isn't because he got big on TikTok, but because he presented himself as an outsider and he spoke directly to people's insecurities and anger.

Romania sadly has no leftist parties, nor any leftist candidates. The only "leftists" are somewhat progressive neoliberals that fight to keep the status quo alive (or sometimes make it even worse with their proposed austerity measures). That obviously doesn't speak to the average person's insecurities. That's how this guy got so big, and that's how many more after him will get big if no candidate with actual solutions shows up.

> Asks for source

> Unwilling to read source

My ancestors suffered pogroms and survived the Holocaust. She just took this word in her mouth without any consideration towards that. Just for her political gain, to win some extra brownie points. Shame on her, but at least she took it back now, even if late.

The fuck even is this headline

The headline is shining light on the hypocrisy.

I've lived here, in Germany, for so long, and for a huge chunk of that time I have been disillusioned with the idea that Germany is actually striving to be better, to work out its past, and to open up the way for a better future. I've fallen prey to this veneer of humanity.

Israel's ongoing genocide in Palestine, with full flag-waving German support has completely made that illusion crumble to the ground. Many dead children and other innocent civilians on my timeline later, many history books later, I managed to undo the programming that the German civil society managed to drill into my head. The superiority, virtue signalling, and obedience with which German society follows the state line, with the help of state funded media, and punishes anyone willing to walk out of line has made me feel unsafe. This comes from someone that has lost family members during the Holocaust, enabled by the same kind of obedience and sense of superiority, with full media support, as seen today. Not that I'd need to justify my feelings with the history of my family, but in Germany that is necessary in order to be taken seriously.

The fact that Germany never made those that killed my family pay for their crimes. Their grandchildren sitting in the German parliament, living off of Nazi wealth hoarded by their Nazi grandparents, often from slave labor. The amount of Nazis that were still present all throughout the government, including in high ranking government positions (Theodor Oberländer), and authoritative state institutions after the end of the war. The complicity of the state to hide the ugly truth. The amount of hate thrown around at a new scapegoat: queers, immigrants, and so on. The virtue signalling of our government, the "feminist foreign policy" while traveling to Qatar and Azerbaijan to beg for gas, while also deporting people to Taliban controlled Afghanistan.

Germany has never worked out its past. It just created a sort of smokescreen to continue business as usual while fooling everyone that it is better, that it somehow got rid of the same kind of fundamental way thinking that enabled the Nazis to get to power in the 1930s. Now we're standing before the next elections, and the next Nazis are more than likely to come in first or second place, but this time at least they're not targeting Jews, since all Jews are seen as an extension of Israel, and the new Nazis love Israel.

Meanwhile the rest of the victims of the Holocaust, the antizionist Jews, the Roma and Sintis, the queer community, the disabled, the communists, all get sidelined by the so called "Staatsräson", which is Israel.

Nowadays I'm looking to get the hell out of this hole.

This article is just yet another show of Germany's superiority complex. Germany wants to be the new Israel. Germans want to be the new Jews. In their opinion, they have more authority to speak on the Holocaust and antisemitism than the victims of the Holocaust themselves.

I don't think commondreams counts as mainstream media

It's called the 24/7 news cycle. They need to keep pumping out trash like this otherwise they might not improve their profit margins.

All protests or just pro-Palestine protests? There's a huge difference between the two.

Just donated to Wikipedia.

SInce when do cops read

They shouldn't even be allowed to travel to Europe for their genocide support.

This is simply stupid. Harris didn't lose because of a few memes on her Gaza stance or third party. She lost because she's a relic of the same neoliberal system that has gotten us where we are. Not so say that Trump isn't. He is a neoliberal as well, and a fascist at that too. It's just that trumpists are more willing to go to the polls because of the cult-like party they're in. Democrats need to be pushed out the door with ideas other than ideas stolen from the right. Kamala Harris fumbled her entire campaign and it was obvious from the get go. I honestly do not understand how people thought she'll win. Hell, she even embraced the fucking Cheneys.

The wonderful western democracies at work. The UK is following Germany's steps into madness.

Nothing wrong with being a commie

Understandable. Both candidates are a face of the same US imperialist coin to people living outside the US. Might be different for those living in the US though.

Committing a genocide makes for a good comparison to the nazis.