Germany: Election Fraud, QAnon, Jan. 6: Far- Right Extremists Read From A Pro-Trump Script
- Washington Post, Sept. 25, 2021. - Ed. - Apocalyptic messages circulating ahead of German elections on Sunday import conspiratorial rhetoric from the U.S. -
HANOVER, Germany- One message advocated “occupying election offices,” another, “coronavirus tyranny.” And a 3rd extolled former president Trump and Q, the shadowy oracle of the extremist QAnon, for inspiring a new social movement prepared to take back power from the state. “America is waking up and ready to fight,” it vowed. The calls came not in anticipation of the US Jan. 6 assault. They emerged this month in Germany, within a far-right group on the messaging app Telegram, where neo-Nazis and doomsday preppers foresee what’s known as “Day X"- collapse of the German state and assassination of high-ranking officials. Such apocalyptic messages- posted in the run-up to German elections on Sunday- import conspiratorial, anti- government rhetoric broadcast in the U.S. This dynamic is accelerating in the anarchic online channels of extremist communities, whose members number anywhere from 1,500 in the deleted “Day X” group to 150,000 in German-language QAnon groups.
The development marks a radical reversal from the years after World War II, when the U.S. helped export principles of constitutional democracy to West Germany.
Now, American influence animates far-right activity, including the rise of the militant Reichsbürger movement, whose members — “Citizens of the Reich” — reject the modern German state.
Meanwhile, the global crisis of the coronavirus pandemic has fueled political extremism, security officials warn. Aiming to reap partisan rewards from the discontent is Alternative for Germany (AfD), which on Sunday is expected to solidify its standing as the first far-right party since 1949 to hold seats in the national parliament. Already, some AfD candidates have followed Trump’s lead in preemptively alleging manipulation of mail-in ballots. The German far-right has even targeted Dominion Voting Systems, the software company baselessly accused of rigging the vote against Trump- even though the company’s technology isn’t used in German elections. A Telegram user asserted in a group protesting public health restrictions, Dominion could “fake” the vote, “like in America.”
Conspiracy theorists and anti-democratic extremists operate on the fringes of German politics and are unlikely to sway Sunday’s vote. But their influence is “stronger than the polls tell us,” said Boris Pistorius, the Social-Democratic interior minister for the state of Lower Saxony, whose capital is Hanover. "The line between online chat and action is becoming blurred,” he said, recounting how voters who rail against the “corona lie” are susceptible to radicalization. The AfD’s populism, he said, hastens that radicalization by elevating grievances and vilifying the state, even without the hateful language of its right flank. These developments illustrate how forces unleashed by Trump in his effort to overturn his election defeat are finding resonance around the world.
Globally, discontent with democracy reached an all-time high in 2020, with the trend most stark in the U.S., Germany and other developed countries, according to a University of Cambridge report.
The violence of Jan. 6 forms part of a worldwide phenomenon. In Brazil, embattled President Jair Bolsonaro this month rallied supporters in demonstrations that more than 150 critics, including former heads of state, said in an open letter were “modeled on the insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol. The Jan. 6 parallels are most pronounced in Germany. Last year, a mob of far-right activists breached a police barrier in Berlin, protesting coronavirus restrictions while brandishing the imperial German flag exalted by the Nazis and seeking to forcibly enter the Reichstag, the seat of parliament. - From fringe to mainstream: When Stephen K. Bannon hosted an AfD deputy leader on his “War Room” podcast last month, the former Trump strategist said he was “spending a lot of time focused on this German election.”...
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/25/german-election-far-right-trump/
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Indefensible: Steve Bannon Needs To be Behind Bars,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/25/2054357/-Indefensible-Bulk-Steve-Bannon-needs-to-be-behind-bars
