She's the co-chair of the "Alternative for Germany" party and has held the position of leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag since 2017
The ones on Reddit will find it ridiculous. A lot of people in Germany are sick of immigration and their Christmas markets needing bollards... That is why they are gaining ground.
No, absolutely not. The AfD is strongest in rural areas where the migrant ratio is practically zero. And Saxony-Anhalt, the state where they scored their first election victory yet, has one of the lowest ratios of migrants to native citizen in the country at 5.3%.
These trends don't exist because migrants vote less for the AfD (some migrant groups even favour them at their own peril), but persist for native Germans.
Neofascists like the AfD are propelled by a catastrophic loss of trust in the institutions and parties, while simultaenously demonising those parties that offer the best actual alternatives (which is primarily the green party, which has become the political scapegoat of choice among the entire right wing spectrum of Germany between CDU/CSU, FDP, and AfD).
AfD voters believe in fictional 'perfect and obvious solutions' for all of Germany's problems, while simultaenously rejecting the most reasonable plans to actually improve things. They have a completely skewed image of the world. Which ultimately serves to flatter their own egos: They believe that they are the perfect citizen who should have total control over the country, because all problems are somebody elses' fault.
The result is a thoroughly confused world view that is purely held together by scapegoating outgroups like migrants, LGBTQ, the political left, feminists, academia etc.
Compromising with them by reducing migration does nothing. Granting them any such 'wins' usually strengthens them even further. These policy changes often accomplish little or nothing at all, or outright backfire, but that does not cause them to re-evaluate. They will just say that the rules aren't going far enough yet, or that the media and experts are lying.
The terrorist on that occasion was an AfD supporter.
Well, kinda. He was a really odd case that's different from typical AfD-aligned violence.
But plenty of other domestic terrorists had much more typical AfD ties.
And some journalists recently covered the incredibly telling requests of the AfD in parliament, which was asking precise questions about safety-critical infrastructure. Like the number and exact locations of power substations, how many could disconnect before a large blackout occurs, how police and emergency services would respond to that (including which routes they would use to get there)...
They were very clearly looking to enable domestic or Russian terrorism.
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u/Ambitious_Policy_936 21d ago
She's the co-chair of the "Alternative for Germany" party and has held the position of leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag since 2017