Germany: An Historic Win for the Alternative fur Deutschland Party

Some try to appease and point to the error tolerance of surveys, which is a few percentage points. It is therefore possibly just a statistical deviation – no need to worry, carry on as usual! But the AfD’s strengthening trend is a long-term one. In the last federal elections, the party was just over 10.3 percent, now it is scratching the 20 percent mark. This is by no means just a deviation within the framework of statistical error tolerance, but reflects real social trends.

The others blame the Union parties and / or the FDP and claim that they have “normalized right-wing populist narratives”. Similar accusations are leveled at the media, which has secured support for the party by reporting on the refugee issue and by giving the AfD a platform.

However, these theories go completely in the wrong direction. Because the overwhelming majority of people are not so stupid that it would be enough to feed them any propaganda or “narrative” to make them accept the former. The media can definitely influence the mood; however, if they alone were decisive, any government with enough media support could remain in power virtually indefinitely. However, there have always been overthrows (ER: overreaching?) and the failure of such governments in history, so that one can confidently drop this idea. The immediate reality of people’s lives has a much greater influence on their thoughts.

It would also be a gross distortion to claim that the AfD was deliberately promoted by the establishment. The opposite is the case: for years, the Union under Merkel vehemently distanced itself from the AfD – and yet the right-wing conservatives were able to continue to expand their support base.

With regard to the media, too, it is obvious that they constantly criticize and demonstrated the AfD. If the AfD was mentioned at all, it was generally with a critical undertone. The German media representatives are predominantly supporters of the Greens. A large majority of journalists flirt with red-green. The claim that the AfD’s high ratings in the polls can be explained primarily by the fact that it is being artificially promoted by other parties or the media is absurd.

Anyone who has followed the news regularly and attentively in recent months will easily be able to identify the real reason for the continued rise of the AfD. Again and again, local politicians complained about major problems regarding immigration policy and called for support. They also explicitly warned that the mood of the population could change.

Even green local politicians saw this danger. For example, Jens Marco Scherf, district administrator of the district of Miltenberg in Bavaria, warned in an interview with the FAZ at the beginning of February that the refugees who were admitted in 2022 could no longer be cared for. There is a lack of housing and staff. Due to the lack of resources, integration becomes “a product of chance”. In contrast to the dictum of Angela Merkel in 2015, he asserted: “We will not succeed.”

In a letter to Chancellor Olaf Scholz ( SPD ), Scherf called for asylum migration to be limited. Also at the beginning of February, several local politicians from various parties sent a fire letter to Scholz demanding that migration be limited and controlled. At the end of the letter they demanded:

“You should also actively lead people who are illegally staying in the Federal Republic back so that we can use our resources for those who really need our help!”

People see the local problems in their communities and expect a solution from the state. This, however, hid for far too long and instead tried to appease. “We can do it!” is still the slogan. Instead of addressing citizens’ concerns and taking them seriously, politicians and the media demonize them.

While the municipalities complained more and more loudly about the problems with migration, the federal government, under the decisive influence of the Greens, was mainly busy pushing through the unpopular and anti-social heating law. For millions of owners, but also tenants of older properties, the introduction of this law would cause high costs – of all things at a time when not only the lower class, but also increasingly the middle class is financially under pressure. The war in Ukraine, the economic decoupling from Russia, rising energy prices and record-breaking inflation, which above all makes everyday goods more expensive, are fueling the masses’ fears of social decline even further.

So it really surprising that, after being repeatedly disappointed and disregarded by mainstream media and politicians, some citizens are turning to a party that promises to tackle these very problems?

The fact that the majority of these citizens primarily want a solution to these problems and are by no means completely in line with the AfD ideologically, and cannot therefore be simply labeled as “right-wing extremists”, can be seen from the fact that the reason repeatedly given for the turn to the AfD in surveys is the disappointment about and the protest against established politics. It is therefore up to federal politicians to do something really effective against the rise of the AfD. By taking away the burning issues and alleviating the migration problem, stopping the anti-social and anti-liberty measures in the name of “climate protection” and striving for a compromise with Russia.

However, this is hardly to be expected from the current government. Thus, the most likely scenario is that the AfD will continue to gain approval.