Civilization is never more than two missed meals away from collapse. In a more general sense, existential threats (or the perception thereof) erode civility and make people susceptible to tribal thinking.
We (Germany) have a number of such threats:
Several immigration and refugee waves.
A flagging economy due to the impeding loss of several once-reliable markets. (China lost its appetite for German cars and the States have been increasingly volatile in recent years.) The German economy is very export-oriented.
Rising food costs due to the Ukraine war.
COVID-19.
The housing crisis.
Climate change.
The whole woke/anti-woke thing.
An increasing perception of all established political parties as useless or even actively detrimental.
The botched reunification. The Eastern federal countries have been disappointed by the mainstream parties so severely and continually that populists like the AfD can easily find an audience.
A (now defunct) government coalition where one of the parties had no interest in actually cooperating with the others, the second one has a recent-ish reputation for having no idea what they’re doing, and the third one is the target of a sustained attack meme campaign. Oh, and the chancellor had a corruption scandal.
Add to that the massive online presence of the hard right and you get a lot of people who stop caring about civility and start caring about simple solutions to complex problems.
Although the immigration and refugee waves have only become an issue due to the right wing narrative of a great replacement that got fueled by mainstream media and what were formerly centrist politicians. It was never actually as much of an issue as the other things you mentioned are.
Civilization is never more than two missed meals away from collapse. In a more general sense, existential threats (or the perception thereof) erode civility and make people susceptible to tribal thinking.
We (Germany) have a number of such threats:
Add to that the massive online presence of the hard right and you get a lot of people who stop caring about civility and start caring about simple solutions to complex problems.
Although the immigration and refugee waves have only become an issue due to the right wing narrative of a great replacement that got fueled by mainstream media and what were formerly centrist politicians. It was never actually as much of an issue as the other things you mentioned are.