It appears that every 5th or 2nd German likes them a lot, depending on the state. Why is that?

Is Russia going the have Soviets 2.0 where this time the Orthodox Church is part of the administration and Germany will be Nazi Germany 2.0 but this time Jews and Homosexuals are welcome?

> I feel so angry with and ashamed of my own country in a way I cannot even find words for.

I feel so angry and ashamed for what the EU bureaucrats and politicians have done to the EU.

Many people do feel like me. I'm not german but I know that half of that region didn't suddenly wake up "neo-nazis": they're people who are fed up with what the politicians have done to their countries.

You cannot change abruptly systems / countries / cultures by flooding them massively with migrants from different cultures by the tens of millions and expect the entirety of the population to, like you, beg for more.

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More critical will be, whether BSW will make their 5% because they would help the AfD to get power (they said so clearly).

Wrong? It's not politicians misleading people. People want this. Normal people are not "good" or "pure", they like many bad tings and Germany is a democracy.

"What exactly went wrong for this catastrophe to happen?"

Many things.

"most popular party nationally"

But not as bad as it sounds, because we have many different parties, and the majority is not AfD.

> What exactly went wrong for this catastrophe to happen?

The AfD's only selling point is that they'll end immigration.

Here's what happened: 2.6 migrants coming to Germany in 2022 alone. Net migration into Germany in 2022: +1.4 million.

There are many germans (and many people in the EU) who don't like to see mass-migration from Africa and the middle east.

It's those who let that happen (and pushed for it) who are responsible for people voting for extremist political parties.

The same is happening in France and even Gabriel Attal (ex french prime minister) said France failed to control both its legal and illegal migration and that now he wants to only allow in migrants who are coming to actually work (Gabriel Attal is probably going to be a candidate to be the next french president).

You cannot look at the AfD and say "bad AfD" / "evil neo-nazis germans who voted for them" and not take a cold hard look at what happened with migration in the EU these last years.

Burden of the unification, where the eastern states are still lagging in many areas, got the ball rolling. Pent up dissatisfaction. Eventually it rolled over to the rest of the country with COVID, stagnant economy, social media FUD etc. A lot of the same forces that drove Trump's election. People are afraid and dissatisfied, but they cannot really say why. I know, I try to listen to them. "Our educational system is falling apart". I have two kids in school, the opportunities they get are awesome compared to what I had.

It's difficult to convince people in an idea if your goals are noble. If they are not, it's a lot simpler. The basic fear is that they will lose what they have right now and are easily manipulated into magnifying those fears.