> No one is telling anyone that they are a bad person for voting "someone else".

That's exactly how Germany got the current disastrous SPD-FDP-Green coalition, whose approval rating is down to 17% (SPD 14%; Greens 15%; FDP only 4%), the worst since that poll started in 1997. Germany's GDP growth was -0.3% in 2023 (gas pipelines inoperational and nuclear plants mothballed) and 0.1-0.2% in 2024 (stagnation, manufacturing fleeing the country).

> However, there are some political parties (AfD, NPD)... that have mass deportation of foreigners as their main goals.

If you meant "deport German citizens of foreign origin", that's unconstitutional. The AfD knows that, it rowed back from that policy. Even trying mass deportations of non-citizens would be widely opposed and would be challenged in courts (up to the ECJ). Obviously whoever the next govt is (most likely CDU/CSU), will restrict new asylum claims, and possibly enact measures to improve assimilation.

What percent of votes for the AfD are a tactical vote of no-confidence/protest against the mainstream parties? (like how many mainstream French voters tactically voted FN/RN in 2012 and then 2017 Presidential elections to signal no-confidence in Hollande's socialists, Fillon's Républicains and all the others)? (And in 2018-9 nearly until Covid, Macron was still trying to impose carbon taxes disproportionately on working-class households. That's insane. Also shows total contempt for his own electorate.)

So if many of western Europe's voters tactically vote for parties with unimplementable platforms as a message to their preferred mainstream parties to impose more restrictions on immigration, how is that not a democratic exercise in tactical voting? Just like how most parties deliberately campaign on unimplementable policies of taxing/spending/borrowing? (Sunak's current electoral antics in the UK being an example).

The weird pattern of the 2024 MEP elections is that Poland's PiS and Hungary's Fidesz lost voteshare, while many western countries tacked centre-right. The EU consensus will meet in the middle. The next multiyear EU Pact on Migration and Asylum will be more restrictive.

> If you vote for these people, then yes, you are a bad person and undeniably (very) rightwing.

Depends on which election: traditionally in many European countries, voters vote tactically or protest-vote in MEP and/or local elections (~ like the very rough equivalent of voting in midterm elections, for US readers), but then swing back towards the mainstream (or else third-way/independent) in national and/or Presidential elections.

One way to estimate the relative size of the protest vote is to look at the differential between voting in MEP/local elections vs national/Presidential elections. Normally we'd have to wait a year or two to find out, but in the case of France, Macron is rolling the dice on calling a snap national election in three weeks, so we can see those vote differentials then. Should be the most interesting comparative data on France for many decades, by issue, by region, by demographic. Worth noting that France's 2024 MEP election turnout was only 51.5% [0], national election turnouts similar, whereas Presidential election turnout in 2027 will be expected to hit ~80% [1]. So that suggests France currently has tons of disaffected mainstream voters, rather than that everyone swung to the right).

[0]: Evolution of [MEP election] voters turnout per countries and per year, 1979-2024 https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/06/12/european-elect...

[1]: Voter turnout in the presidential elections in France 1965-2022, by round https://www.statista.com/statistics/1068866/participation-ra...