Germany's Far-Right Future
Alternative für Deutschland’s Electoral Program
By John Foster
Thuringia has left Germany stumped.
Alternative für Deutschland won the state election last week, the first such victory for a far-right party in the country since WWII.
In the immediate aftermath, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a “firewall” against the extremists.
Social Democrats have since warned against any party forming a coalition with the AfD.
Their desperation was apparent, as the centre-left Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) only received 6% of the vote.
Fascists had clobbered them.
Matters are only slightly better in Saxony, where Germany’s governing party got 7%.
In both ex-communist states, the electoral math is essentially the same.
The centre-right Christlich Demokratische Union (CDU) could 1) form a minority government, 2) partner with all of the parties of the far left, or 3) enter a coalition with the AfD and hope to moderate them.
The first and second options seem markedly unlikely. Forming a minority government is legal, but there’s a reason it hasn’t happened in more than a decade.
The CDU got only 23% of the vote, far below the threshold for governing. Their only option was crafting an “anyone but the AfD” government.
That would require teaming up with Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) and Die Linke.
Even assuming they could get the estranged parties to sit at the same table – Wagenknecht left Die Linke to launch her party – policy differences would be wholly insurmountable.
So then there’s the third option: An AfD-led government.
After all, the party received nearly 100,000 more votes than the CDU. Although their majority in the Landtag would be thin, no one else can mount a serious challenge.
Alternative für Deutschland’s electoral program for Thuringia gives some interesting (if mostly unsurprising) clues about their priorities.
Of the ten points in their short statement, the first three express the AfD’s persecution complex.
Being the most prominent far-right party in a country with National Socialism as a part of its heritage, one would expect the AfD to face institutional hurdles.
Yet, the National Socialist Underground operated unimpeded well for twenty years (and ten murders) without attracting much scrutiny. So maybe the bar isn’t that high after all.
Point 1 of the AfD program complains of being “persecuted by the secret service” while arguing that the cartel parties are abusing the power of the state to forestall democratic outcomes.
This, of course, is what cartel parties do.
The AfD claims to be the “peaceful opposition,” but this claim hardly holds much water, given the thuggish behaviour of the party’s skinhead-adjacent supporters at protests and marches.
Never mind the party’s participation in the 2020 storming of the Bundestag and the 2022 coup attempt. Remigration, anybody?
Point 2 builds on the first, stressing that AfD’s efforts to stay (mostly) just to the legal side of prohibitions on openly fascist utterances should buy them some credit with the authorities.
This is followed up in the next point by an attack on the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, along with other “taxpayer-funded” NGOs engaged in trying to prevent the recurrence of a politics that proved disastrous for all concerned the last time around.
These all might seem somewhat reasonable if one ignored the public utterances of AfD figures like Thuringian party boss Björn Höcke, who described the Berlin Holocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame”.
Alternative für Deutschland likes to characterise statements such as this (and they have been legion) as “breaking taboos”.
The idea that they should get some benefit of the doubt is too rich for consumption. Particularly in the hands of Höcke, who has a habit of collecting convictions for using Nazi slogans.
Point 4 calls for stricter immigration controls, while Point 5 asserts the validity of the traditional family structure.
It’s unclear how much a state government could do about either of these things, but AfD would certainly be in a position to make life more difficult for already vulnerable people.
Point 6 combines the typical petit-bourgeois concerns for entrepreneurs and small businesses with the war in Ukraine.
The AfD doesn’t come out and express support for Vladimir Putin, although he is very much their sort of politician. Instead, opposition to the war is grounded in its unfortunate economic consequences rather than sympathy for Russian imperialism.
Point 7 is a blast from the past, arguing that drug and left-wing terror pose considerable threats to Thuringia.
This might have been true as late as the 1980s, although even then, it was overblown. Now, it is simply the far right’s common tactic of accusing the other side of things of which they are guilty.
This doesn’t apply to the drugs part of the equation so much, but terrorism is much more the province of the right these days.
Point 8 addresses the question of education, arguing that the Red-Green governments of the past decade have failed.
In response, they call for “less ideology” and more focus on the “transfer of knowledge” (framed with an odd reference to the DDR), more teachers, and “the consistent enforcement of school peace”.
The last point is so patently racist as not to require further clarification.
The “transfer of knowledge” (and the reference to East Germany) is not entirely clear, and the party’s full electoral program doesn’t offer much in terms of elucidation.
However, it seems that the AfD wants to focus on high-level technical education instead of humanistic time-wasting that breeds critical thinking and dissatisfaction.
The final two points are perhaps the most illuminating. They call for protecting the welfare state, especially from foreigners (unless they help to pay for it).
One interesting point about far-right parties is that they generally involve a mix of neoliberalism and welfare provision.
The latter is to be channelled to those who fit in ethnically as payback for supporting policies likely to hurt society’s poorest.
In this context, it is worth noting the recent study released by the German Institute for Economic Research which pointed out that AfD’s policies were likely to do just that.
“The policy of exclusion against minorities, such as refugees and recipients of social benefits would come back as a boomerang for many AfD voters. No worker would earn even one euro more in income, have greater opportunities, or receive improved services of general interest from cuts to social benefits.”
The study also notes that weakening connections to the rest of Europe would likely result in reduced prospects for younger workers, who make up a significant portion of AfD’s support in the lower income ranges.
The final point is an argument against renewable energy and fighting climate change.
In other places, the party has endorsed a return to nuclear power and fossil fuel energy production.
This seems rather odd, as Thuringia is one of the leading states in Germany in terms of solar and wind power production. However, it does align AfD squarely (again) with Russia, which would be too happy to provide its extensive energy resources to a compliant Germany.
What Alternative für Deutschland will do in government is still a matter of speculation. But it raises interesting questions about whether the party can deliver a payoff to voters regarding improvements in quality of life and prospects.
Hating LGBTQ+ people and foreigners is all well and good when there’s no cost associated with doing it. And, fair enough, one of the powers of right-wing ideology these days seems to be finding ways to get people to look past what they’re losing.
Still, AfD’s rise to a leading position in state elections has created a new situation in which it will have to find ways to govern that keep its supporters onside.
Hate in the abstract is much simpler to work out than hate in government, although history shows it can also work.
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Photograph courtesy of conceptphoto.info. Published under a Creative Commons license.