I don't think being hacked by an anonymous entity grants much political advantage? If anything the downside is shifting the overtone window by dumping all the far right takes on the broad public and making them a bit more familiar.
Just claim that the anonymous entity wasn't anonymous. Claim it was your enemy.
"Look, the Antifa hacked us. We need to ban them just like the US did"
Or blow it up bigger. "Look, the system itself is corrupt and 'the left/the altparteien/whoever' stopped using democratic measures to compete against us. That is because they cannot win on their own merit. Meaning that the system and its safeguards are meaningless."
Something like that. Given more time, one could flesh out this back-of-the-napkin thing into a likely working strategy.
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Fascism fundamentally isn't data-driven but narrative-driven. So data alone is not going to work against it (though it is a valuable pillar).
I think part of the advantage is providing public evidence in favor of a Verbotsverfahren, e.g. the process of banning a political party for being counter to the principles of the German constitution and with that, pressure towards the state organs to stop ignoring the threat and finally do their job.
Yeah that's also what I thought the idea is behind that, but I'm afraid that at this point, a Verbotsverfahren will not work out the way people hope it will.
If you look at the numbers of votes they're getting, you see a group of people that is so large, it will be self-sustaining, instead of fizzling out. Or so is my prediction.
Idk. I just don't see this ending up in the way we want things to end up.
It's not going to affect me personally all that much, because I can be "passing" so to speak, but that's not exactly what one should strive for tbh. Keeping your head down and not caring as long as you're fine, I mean.
I think the ideal moment to ban them was years ago. The next best one is right now.
And I agree, now that we've waited so long (gee, I wonder if the far-right Verfassungsschutz leader had anything to do with that?), banning them will be ugly and lead to civil unrest. I think realistically, we will need some major state repression of these Neonazis and good luck with that given the political leanings of police.
But I don't think there's a way around that at this point, we still have to try.
"Wehret den Anfängen" and "Never Again" and all that.
Maybe, but otoh, action bias alone is a terrible advisor.
"You gotta do something" is correct, but not every something is suited.
But I think at this point we're entering the circular stage, so.
Idk. I don't want to live in this world we see developing, but what I want seems to be not all that relevant to said world.
If "popular ideas" == Neonazis trying to overthrow the German constitutional order, then yes, that is the appropriate response.
There's no awards to be won for coddling fascists. The protections of a free society cannot be extended by those trying to extinguish it.
> When our enemies say: well, we gave you the freedom of opinion back then- yeah, you gave it to us, that's in no way evidence that we should return the favor! Your stupidity shall not be contagious! That you granted it to us is evidence of how dumb you are!
And I understand that this might seem like hyperbole to the less-informed American reading this.
It is for their benefit I have translated a few quotes from leading AfD members so they can paint their own picture what those "ideas I don't like" are: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49536747
You don't need more evidence for a Verbotsverfahren. That's not the reason one wasn't already started. It's the unwillingness of the parliament to initiate one
They're right-wing extremists. We know that for a fact and have known that without commiting cybercrimes. So what is there to learn?
Maybe embezzlement or similar, but.
We have to keep in mind that they have in fact become the victim of a crime, which they (best case) will spin to their advantage.
Worst case they will use it as a justification to commit such and other crimes themselves.