Alternative for Germany has joined France’s National Rally and Reform U.K. in becoming the most popular party in its country, according to polls.
A poll Tuesday showed Alternative for Germany — which is under surveillance by the country’s intelligence services over suspected extremism — is now the most favored by voters. The survey by broadcaster RTL put the AfD at 26%, ahead of the ruling Christian Democrats at 24%.
This is a high watermark for the European far right, a once fringe movement whose virulently anti-immigration, anti-Islam and culture-war politics were shunned by the mainstream just a decade ago.
Today, these parties have developed deep ties with President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, who openly cite nationalists such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as inspirations on policy and tactics.
This is exactly what has been happening in Germany (most notably with the CDU and SPD) and it’s not working. All that happens when these parties take on AfD talking point is that their voters no longer want to vote for them while the AfD’s positions get normalised in the mainstream.
What they actually should do is stop picking uninspiring and corrupt candidates and push for things that would actually benefit the working class (wealth tax, tackling the housing crisis, etc.) instead of funneling more wealth upwards. At the end of the day the AfD is strong because people are struggling to make ends meet and the AfD is using the racism that’s always been present in Germany to offer them an easy scapegoat.
It’s the wrong approach to take the talking points of AfD to begin with. They’re neo fascists, why would they try to copy them? Not only is that lazy, but it’s also shows that these establishment parties are out of touch with the populace. These far right parties are gaining ground because there’s no viable alternative to them on immigration. Establishment parties trying to compete with far right parties at their own game is a losing strategy, and it shows. If they want to win people over on immigration then they need to actually understand what people are concerned about and then actually take the time to provide a viable and pragmatic alternative for people to vote on.
I don’t think the issue is really immigration at all. It’s that working class people are being squeezed harder and harder and no party, including the AfD, seems to take it seriously. The AfD is just good at populism and pretending they have a solution by blaming it on immigration and selling themselves as less corrupt and incompetent than the others, while actually being just as bad or worse. If the CDU and SPD in particular hadn’t allowed things to get this bad while spending decades in power, the AfD’s populism wouldn’t have fallen on fertile ground.
And there is also an argument to be made that the media has dropped the ball by allowing the AfD on talkshows and debates without sufficiently pushing back and calling out their bullshit and thus allowing them to paint themselves as a legitimate alternative despite being fascists that are found to be at odds with the constitution (Grundgesetz) time and time again.
Also the AfD is probably the best out of all the parties at social media.