Yes, it’s not real productivity of course.

https://taz.de/Tuerken-fuer-die-AfD/!5449750/

This is about Germans with Turkish background. It’s the same as in other countries: We came here legally and are law abiding taxpayers. These illegal newcomers are criminals and ruin the image of all immigrants. It’s about law and order and strong leadership. If you vote Erdogan in Turkey, AfD is closest in Germany. The Grey Wolves are the biggest right wing extremist organizations in Germany as well, so keep that in mind.

German-Turks are also specifically targeted like in this video by Krah appealing to nationalist sentiments and referring back to German-Turkish alliance going back to WW1.

scandals relating to Wehrmacht idolisation

Yes, this happens from time to time as does other crap. The severity of these cases varies.

In 2023 the Bundeswehr let go of 62 soldiers, among them 10 officers, for extremism. It’s not just nazis, but also for example anti-vax conspiracy nutters. I don’t have any comparisons of these numbers to other armed forces.

The Bundeswehr emphasizes democratic values and educates people along their principles of Innere Führung and Staatsbürger in Uniform. For example that soldiers are ultimately serving their conscience is stressed. Structurally the Bundeswehr also has differences to other militaries. There are no separate military courts for example. Crimes involving soldiers get dealt with by regular courts.

In 2019 about 15% of soldiers have immigrant parents or immigrated themselves. Of course they can be extremists just as well.

These eyes look like someone who has been awake for two nights on stimulants. This is something Musk is the type to do this in some mania chasing productivity. His incoherent ramblings at the time support this as well.

This is the context.

Being a public figure is the one thing Trump excels at.

Trump will not like being seen as incompetent and weak publicly.

like the only seats they’re winning

Germany has proportional distribution of seats. This map doesn’t show that.

Die Linke is a continuation of the ruling party of the socialist dictatorship DDR in East Germany. It’s a collection of some literal old school o.g. tankies from the Socialist government, actual communists, democratic socialists, left social democrats who left the SPD, and people from social movements. In short it’s a mix of people left of social democrats. In East Germany it’s also a conservative party in a way for people who want the old DDR back. However it also has a strong support nowadays among the educated urban “woke” left. They reject rearmament for Germany and reject sending arms to Ukraine. Although they blame Russia for the war, they have an anti-western ideology and want to disband NATO in favor of an alliance with Russia. Kuba’s foreign policy is mentioned favorably in their election agenda.

Last year prominent tankie-ish leader Sarah Wagenknecht split off the Linke to form their own party BSW. BSW is the anti-woke left, who care about social policies first, but don’t put a focus on LGBT, want more strict immigration. They gained 4.9% in the election and thus narrowly missed getting seats in parliament. They blame NATO for the war in Ukraine. Exiting NATO in favor of an alliance with Russia is also on their agenda.

So the answer if they’re tankies is not simple. Linke is more the useful idiot of Putin, while BSW are actual Putin bootlickers.

Is it just a matter of the poorer more overlooked areas becoming polarised?

Economic issues play a role as well of course.

Very unlikely. A coalition with the AfD is rejected by 85% of CDU voters. Merz has many times unequivocally rejected a coalition with the AfD.

there are evident irregularities

The only irregularity is voters abroad having received their mail in ballots too late. That was caused by the short timeframe to prepare the early elections. If that qualifies as a problem will be decided by the courts.

Gelsenkirchen is a traditional working class area, which used to be secure SPD heartland. SPD has lost voters massively to AfD among workers over the years, including among the immigrant working class.

Soldiers in Germany tend to vote CDU. The last couple of years the head of the Bundestag’s defense commission Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann from the FDP was super popular. In the past SPD was also really strong. These two polls on the Bundeswehr subreddit have FDP and CDU together with a supermajority. Now that’s of course not representative, but gives you an idea that the military doesn’t vote far right.

acts in the interests of its material conditions

It’s a foundational mistake of Marxists to reduce everything to material conditions. You will never understand the world, if that’s your only frame of reference.

Putin is the Czar. What’s on his matters most. Everything else is secondary or incidental.

China is ready to take over as the lead capitalist empire.

It’s late stage capitalism, bro, revolution is just around the corner, bro.

Repeat for 150 years.

No, it started a lot longer ago than that

You can listen to Putin himself and he goes back pretty far in history.