the large majority who want no part of the AfD and their like. True perspective on the situation would go a long way to easing the anxiety that's feeding unrest.
We had the same "if it bleeds it -- and only it -- leads" coverage of their counterparts marching in Charlotte. By far most of those who came out did so to register quiet opposition to the white supremacist types, but to the rest of the nation they were mostly invisible, behind the cameras pushed to the front and unmentioned.
The geography of these problems is fascinating, and I'd like to know more. I've read that hot climates tend to create more conservative cultures (as do other climates that challenge survival), which we also see in the southern U.S.
And that unlike Europe, where kings and church were often opposed, in Russia secular and church rule were united so that people expected to live with the same authoritarian boot on their neck in this life and on into eternity. In retrospect, no surprise that the attempt to change Russia to a democracy after the collapse of its empire in the 1990s lacked adequate support from the people. Conservatives especially longed to return to the authoritarian communism they knew. Guessing some of the same holds true for other eastern European nations?
I do remember reading that between WW1 and takeover by the National Socialists Germany had had only about 15 years' experience as a desperately troubled new republic. So by far most adults would have spent most of their lives under the authoritarian government of the kaisers and, naturally, large numbers longed to return to those better days. What today's people look back to and expect for themselves must be very different now, though, surely?
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