German court upholds AfD 'suspected' extremist status

rentar42, 10 days ago

That's a huge part of the reason why it took so long to put out that official classification: They made sure that their classification would hold up in court. No one is served by getting it in a bit earlier, just for it to be thrown out at the first level of court, because someone got a bit lazy on collecting all the evidence and writing up a thorough report.

anlumo, 10 days ago

So, why are they still allowed to run in elections?

agressivelyPassive, 10 days ago

Because the hurdles for being banned are intentionally very very high.

Oh, and the authority in question (Verfassungsschutz) had a head who’s a bona fide Nazi. So the agency to protect the constitution from (right wing) extremists was led by a right wing extremist.

RamblingPanda, 10 days ago

I’m not sure if there’s an English equivalent to “den Bock zum Gärtner machen”, but holy shit, did we do this.

catloaf, 10 days ago

Google translate gives it literally as “make the goat a gardener” which doesn’t have an equivalent, but it translates the phrase as “to make a scapegoat”, meaning you pin the blame on one person, they get all the consequences, and everyone else gets away with it. I’m not sure that’s what you meant.

rentar42, 10 days ago

I think the equivalent would be to let the fox guard the hen house.

And no, it's not about having a scapegoat, it's about putting exactly the wrong person with ... let's say "misaligned incentives" into some position (usually one of power).

RamblingPanda, 10 days ago

That’s what I meant. Thanks 💖

Emma_Gold_Man, 10 days ago

A less euphemistic term in English is “regulatory capture”