Rhyme and Reason
They say that history doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes. That makes this a reasonable time to be worried about Yahtzees. The big state election win by the far-right AfD in Germany over the weekend is a troubling sign that comes at a disturbing moment. As Katrin Bennhold explains in the NYT (Gift Article), the AfD victory in a state election is forcing a rethink of the country’s postwar strategy to safeguard democracy. “When I was growing up in Germany, the conventional wisdom was that the far right would never again gain a meaningful foothold in our politics. Our Nazi past, the argument went, had immunized voters against the appeal of such parties. And our post-Holocaust constitution had powerful tools to help prevent it. The rise of the anti-immigrant, far-right AfD over the past decade has made clear the first argument was wrong. The second? We’ll see.”
+ Of course, safeguarding democracy is not a uniquely German challenge, and the rise of the country’s far-right isn’t taking place in a global vacuum. It’s no coincidence that this is happening at a moment in history when we’re losing the last of those who experienced WWII’s fascism firsthand. And it’s not good that it’s happening when so many other global factors are feeding the fire. First, we’ve got a fascist-curious American administration that has defended the AfD. Second, we’ve got increasingly heated anti-immigrant sentiments across the globe. Third, social media foments the divides and anger that fuel political movements like this. Fourth, the world’s richest (and arguably most dangerous man) is a huge fan of AfD. “Elon Musk congratulated the far-right party on its election victory with a ‘Well done!’ on his social media platform X, prompting Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, to thank the nativist US tech billionaire for his support.” (It’s worth noting that the American corporate community seems fine with Musk’s global politics, just as they seemed fine with his Heil.) Fifth, the economic divide is extreme and AI is likely to make it a lot wider. (Consider that American workers are getting the smallest slice of the pie on record.) Sixth, we have the exact wrong Israeli government in place for this moment; one that seems intent on driving a wedge between itself and its allies. (Example from today: U.K. accuses Israeli settlers of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in West Bank and bans their goods.) Seventh, we’re seeing more countries questioning their alliance with the US and deciding to go it alone militarily and strategically, and fewer solid alliances create more instability. Just today, there are stories about the Gulf nations seeking strategic autonomy (for some reason, they’re questioning whether Trump’s weekend-long AI meme sharing benders will actually end the war), Japan’s strategic turn toward militarization, and Simon Shuster’s piece in The Atlantic (Gift Article) that questions whether Taiwan will just give up. “The Taiwanese don’t trust Trump, and they don’t believe America will come to their defense.”
+ All of our allies have good reasons to be losing trust. Just consider Steve Witkoff’s comments to Putin over the weekend, during a visit to Moscow with Jared Kushner. “When we retire, we’ll have all these incredible stories and incredible memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all.” For some of us, this moment in history brings up incredibly bad memories, and they’re made worse by the fact that the country that once saved the world is being run by folks who don’t seem to remember which side we’re on. Putin thanked Witkoff for his kind words by resuming his bombardment of Kyiv.
