Germany's rising tide of populism

The Scotsman

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Though this may be of interest?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38776251

"They just look after the big cities," she says. "But these small communities up here - no. Nothing is being done for us. Nothing gets through to us."

"The other parties avoid the real problems," he explains. "Merkel just sticks to her views, even though she sees what she's got us into - like the terror attacks. If she hadn't brought those people into the country," he insists, "the victims of the Berlin Christmas markets would still be alive."

Emboldened by Brexit and Donald Trump's victory, the leaders are keen to focus on the threefold message which unites them; a visceral dislike of Islam, a loathing of Mrs Merkel's refugee policy and that contempt for the EU.


These sentiments are being expressed in many European countries at the moment but thankfully by only a minority. Anyway not pleasant reading.
 
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I guess we will see soon enough the level of popular support.
Wonder if there are more folks living outside metro areas than in. No EC there (unless I'm mistaken) so it's just simple numbers.
 
Thinking about the UK it was the non-metro areas that voted for and were successful in the Brexit referendum. According to all the polling data Brexit was not supposed to happen.
Polling data in the US suggested that Trump would not be successful in his bid for the Whitehouse. He was.
Polling data suggests that the rise of rightwing European sentiments will not oust the centerist political establishment.......
 
Ignoring the citizens has consequenches eventually.

Very true.

In my own country Austria, the two major parties are in administration since 1945. They are exhausted, corrupt, struggling with themselves, unable to cope with the problems after 2008.

Election after election, they loose voters and a populistic party is growing year after year. Even after a major scandal where the populistic party nearly drove a whole state into bankruptcy (they won the election in this state), more and more people see them as the lesser evil.
 
Very true.

In my own country Austria, the two major parties are in administration since 1945. They are exhausted, corrupt, struggling with themselves, unable to cope with the problems after 2008.

Election after election, they loose voters and a populistic party is growing year after year. Even after a major scandal where the populistic party nearly drove a whole state into bankruptcy (they won the election in this state), more and more people see them as the lesser evil.
What were the problems of 2008?
 
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So a few months on from the BBC article suggesting a rise in German (and to some degree European nationalism) the support for the German AfD is now falling away down from 15% to 10% and dropping. SInce the US election, the same situation is happening in France with the support of Le Pen declining as well as in Holland with Geert Wilder propsects now looking bleak, Austria's Norbert Hofer finally lost by over 350,000 votes and in the UK Nigel Farages' UKIP is now totally unelectable, Finland and other countries nationalists likewise are losing popular support.
Was the catalyst for this the election of Trump? Has the trend in popularist nationalism been pulled up short as a result of the seemingly incompetent management and disfunctional state of US politics?
 
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