It’s one thing for Finland or Belgium (the Flemish separatist Vlaams Belang party heads the polls) to veer onto a far-right rail. When it begins to happen in Germany, however, it’s time to start plotting an escape route.
Over the past year, support for the anti-immigrant, pro-Russian Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has nearly doubled to more than 20 percent in POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, a record.
The party is now in second place, just five percentage points behind the center-right Christian Democrats. Over the summer, the AfD has also succeeded in widening its lead over the Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.
Let’s get some facts straight here.
First of all it’s only polls and there’s a lot of panic and alarmism right now. I don’t want to say the polls are not concerning, but we went from a global pandemic right into a European war and a looming economic crisis. Of course people are blaming the government for just about anything right now, they are extremely on the edge.
Before these events the AfD was in decline and it’s being estimated that about half their self proclaimed voters are voting (or polling) for them rather out of protest than actual favor. So I’d really not treat these polls as election results. Not only because they are not, but because they are still two years away and the situation will likely be a lot different then. The situation seems to improve already, even thought we just took one huge economic hit after another.
A, imo, way more concerning development is happening within the CDU. They are not center-right anymore. Maybe in their policies, but not in their rhetoric. They have joind thr AfD in their populist demeanor in an attempt to claw back voters, with limited success so far. They are making baseless claims and they will use them to attack anything the government does. With this, they are normalizing the AfD’s behavior and stirr up fear and panic alongside them.
They also start to position themselves in a way that will make it very hard for them to form coalitions in the future, because the behavior of their leading figures is very repulsive towards the left leaning parties. Meanwhile they also claim that they don’t want to work with the AfD, or at least most of the CDU does, but this is called into question more and more. On the one hand because of the lack of alternatives (well, except one…), on the other because they mimic them to some degree.
I think what they do is very dangerous and destructive. (And I also think they could be more successful if they tried to be a more constructive opposition that points out actual flaws and maybe even helps to push through stuff they believe is good, but part of the coalition doesn’t.)
It really seems like they are going for all or nothing. I really hope our current government doesn’t fuck up, because I don’t want to see the “nothing” end of the story. Currently my money is on them, but only because they actually do stuff and things seem to brighten a little.
On a side note, fuck the media for helping with the fearmongering. Stop capitalizing on panic you spineless cowards.
