Why Germany's Far-Right AfD Keeps Winning
Why the AfD Wins
Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now the country's most popular party, despite decades of institutional efforts to marginalize it. This analysis traces the party's rise from its 2013 founding as a euro-skeptic group to its current strength, driven by immigration, economic crises, and a political establishment that struggles to address them. It argues that Germany's 'fortified democracy' may have outlived its logic, as the AfD's success reflects a broader failure of the old parties to confront the country's problems honestly.
Suspicion has arisen across society that the established parties are ill-equipped to deal with the country’s largest problems, and, worse, refuse to be frank and honest about them.
- Luker88
I don't know why this happens, but I would caution against assigning rationality to the voters.
In Italy voters have been electing one party after the other without consistency for the last several elections, which I would use as a point to general desperation and not feeling represented.
I would like to know how many other countries have a similar attitude, like "let's try these ones, we have not voted them yet so maybe this time it's better"
- jleyank
Let them have their minority government and see what they table for consideration. From their actions, people will judge them.
The won because people think complex problems have simple, untried solutions that are common sense. They hate "them", they're stoked on (social) media. They feel put upon and denied their rewards. Same old, same old with more effective communication paths.
- davoneus
Grievance politics sells quite well. When AfD backers argue it's Western Germany's fault, it's easy for a lot of people to climb on board.
Heck, AfDs own platform argues there should be more Russian language in the schools and Russian cooperation across the board. That on its face says an awful lot.
- RGS1811
Caldwell is a Claremont guy, which is key to understanding where he's coming from. First Things is an christian nationalist / natcon outlet funded by (among others) Peter Thiel. That doesn't prevent him from being correct about things in this article, but it's worth noting the outlet and source.
Caldwell systematically elides the völkisch-nationalist character of the AfD and their adjacency to neo-Nazism. He underplays Höcke's extremism, ignores the Potsdam meeting, and leads us to believe (falsely) that the identification of the AfD as rechtsextrem was somehow a biased political stunt. It wasn't, there is plenty of backing for the classification, and it would not have been undemocratic to apply the Verfassungschutz and ban them permanently.
edit: typo
- sajithdilshan
The main reason AfD won the election is the incompetence and arrogance of all other political parties.
Since Covid times every other political parties in Germany seems to be under the impression that they are somehow holier and knows what is best for the people and what people wants doesn’t matter and the politicians decide what people deserves. The pinnacle of this is the current Chancellor of Germany which is arrogant, completely broke his election promises and keep on pushing the voters that are in the centre right or centre left towards the respective extremism.
Another important factor is the current German economy. When the economy was somewhat in good shape after Merkle’s government people mainly voted for the Greens whose main agenda is climate change back in 2021 because people had good living standards and they could afford to focus on solving world problems. But the current economy is imploding and a lot of people are losing their well paid jobs and no other party seems to be even talking about it except for AfD and somehow the current government is under the delusion that economy is doing far better than they have thought. This again is a reason for a lot of people to vote for AfD.
Last but not least is the Islamic extreme/terrorist attacks that happened past years. There have been multiple incidents of cars been driven into crowd including in Christmas markets and latest attack in the Gay pride in Berlin this year. That has been used by AfD to emphasise the incom […]
- markus_zhang
I remember watching a movie about Hitler coming back and became a media and political star. That movie was probably more than ten years old but I still find it very relevant.
- archagon
Why on earth did the mods decide to remove flags on this?
- karol
Congratulations to democratically elected leaders!