Voters were asked by pollsters on Sunday if they considered the AfD a danger to democracy, as Germany’s mainstream parties do. About half saw the AfD as a threat, according to exit polling released by a public television network. They voted almost exclusively for its rivals, from the far left to the center right.The other half of voters said there was no threat.Nearly all backed the AfD.It was a vivid illustration of the growing divide between Germany’s mainstream parties, which govern from the center-right and the center-left, and populist voters who have grown convinced that politics as usual can no longer solve their urgent problems....To the AfD’s supporters, particularly in the country’s economically struggling eastern states, the AfD has become a last, best shot for making their voices heard — a feeling only reinforced by governing parties’ refusal to work with it.
The AfD is weird: a predominantly east German party that has both pro-Russian and anti-Russian factions, depending I assume on how well one's ancestors got along with the East German republic; allegedly Nazis but led by a lesbian engaged in an interracial relationship with a foreigner. Germany's ruling coalition isn't sure how to respond.
If they continue to have a Frankenstein coalition of communists-to-socialists-to-Christian-nationalists just to keep the plurality winner out of power, that's quite unstable and likely to be ineffective at governance. The fact that the ruling coalitions can't govern is an argument in favor of an alternative, which is what the "A" in "AfD" means.
If they break the cordon sanitaire and allow a populist 'far right' party to wield actual power -- is a vote total of 44% really compatible with the idea that this is 'far' right? -- it's a new game in Europe.
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