Berlin.
Ten years after it was founded, the AfD has drifted far to the right. It is becoming more successful – but has little to offer in terms of content.
It’s been ten years since 18 men gathered in the parish hall of the Christ Church in the tranquil Hessian Oberursel met to form a new party. Among them were long-standing CDU members, an economics professor with a penchant for colorful knitted sweaters, conservative journalists and former top managers who had a lot of money and even more time. The result was the so-called “Alternative for Germany”. “Alternative” because, unlike Angela Merkel, one did not want to accept the rescue of the euro as “there was no alternative”.
The unloved euro is still there and the founding fathers have long since turned their backs on their successors in disgust, but their creature has survived and changed radically. Today’s party is clearly right to extreme right. Leading minds are called Höcke and Weidel and they are no longer fighting against the euro, but against “foreign infiltration” and the obligation to wear masks.
Dealing with the AfD: The Union’s wobbly course did not help
Your arguments are pretty bad, but they hit a lot of people’s guts pretty well. The party is successful. Her parliamentary group in the Bundestag is almost twice as large as the left, in Saxony she won over 27 percent of the votes in 2019. Anyone who wants to declare all these voters to be right-wing extremists or even Nazis is not only making it too easy for themselves, but is completely wrong. Leaving aside a small core of genuine far-right voters, there are enough that can be won back with democratic means and a good political deal.
Those who choose AfD will not find this offer in other parties. This is the great challenge that the competition has failed to meet so far. Also the The Union wobbles – first curry favor, then totally exclude – has done little to win back voters. Maybe it was a mistake, at least that’s how the founding fathers see it, not to take the AfD seriously in its early phase. Or not giving it the chance to prove in regional coalitions that it can shape politics. Today this train has long since left.
Read here: Alliance partner AfD? Why the CDU is tempted in the east
The AfD binds the disappointed, dissatisfied, angry – but acts without ideas
Although its reputation has steadily deteriorated, the AfD has managed to attract more and more people who are disappointed, dissatisfied or angry. But the party does not reward this kindness. The so-called “Alternative for Germany” has no alternatives to offer. It is striking how unimaginative the AfD acts politically and how little it has to contribute to the problems that it loudly claims should be solved. No party promises its voters so much and delivers so little.
Anyone who votes for the AfD should know by now that they are supporting a party that has been consistently drifting to the right for years. Even the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had to become active. If party founder Lucke was still deep in the democratic spectrum, the same cannot be said of some AfD top politicians. only the desire to protest against “those up there” should therefore no longer be a reason for anyone to vote for today’s AfD.
And one would like to advise the established parties: Don’t just lament about the strength of the AfD. Nothing gets better from that and the party doesn’t disappear from it either. All politicians who are upset about the existence of the AfD should better ask themselves what they are talking about in the have done wrong in recent years and whether they really had all the issues on their radar that are so urgently important to the citizens.
More articles from this category can be found here: Politics
