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 could help give some explanation of the election of Trump/MAGA, but 8 months into that election everyone outside can see that they just made all the problems worse. And when this rise was noted last year, I wouldn’t have asked that question because the people don’t have something to give an an honest response of what would really happen if such groups were elected to power (which these exact same problems happened the last time Trump was elected, but it’s happened now twice in a row with a safety bumper between these elections which would help dismiss any claim of it was a fluke/bad timing). Which comes back to my question, how can you look at Trump/MAGA and say “I want THAT for my country?”
We aren’t dealing with hypotheticals anymore, we are already seeing cause and effects.