Yes, the AfD victory signals a danger to democracy, but not the way they tell you

Say what you will about ex-BlackRock bigwig German Chancellor and uber-grinch Friedrich Merz, but he has his moments of unexpected alertness.

Currently, he is shocked, shocked! He has noticed that his party, the mainstream conservatives of the CDU are “in serious danger” after suffering their worst defeat in decades.

Germany’s dark star of unpopularity was, of course, talking about the results of the regional elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. They have produced a landslide victory for the new-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, under its shooting star Ulrich ‘Uli’ Siegmund. 

They delivered a colossal, devastating fiasco to the CDU and, of course, Merz personally: The AfD has scored 43.8 percent of the vote, the CDU 17.2 percent. When compared with the last state election, the AfD gained 23 percent, while the CDU lost 19.9 percent.

Polls show that the AfD has massively siphoned off former CDU voters and also mobilized previous non-voters with unprecedented success. In terms of age cohorts, the AfD is dominating almost the entire spectrum except among the very old.

The CDU, which had been in charge in Saxony-Anhalt’s capital of Magdeburg for over two decades, has suffered no ordinary defeat but a catastrophic wipe-out shaking the party, to quote Merz again, “to its very foundations.” The former default ruling party of first West and then post-1990 Germany is in tatters. It is a sign of even worse things to come. In Saxony-Anhalt it has no future, quite literally: among the youngest voters the CDU achieved a pitiful 5 percent, far below its already horrific overall result.

The man who has pro-actively led the party of Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel into this total debacle may still be in office for now. True to form, he shows no signs of accepting responsibility, that is, resigning. But rumors about a CDU rebellion against Merz were circulating even before the disaster. Calls for ending his ruinous tenure have only become louder now. And if not now, then soon: Having suffered – and produced – one catastrophic defeat, Merz will soon face more regional elections that are likely to go badly for the CDU as well.

It is true that Saxony-Anhalt is small. One of Germany’s 16 federal states, it has a population of 2.1 million, of whom about 1.7 million can vote. That is less than the electorate of, for instance, the city of Hamburg. Yet no one in Germany even tries to pretend that what has happened in Saxony-Anhalt will stay in Saxony-Anhalt. On the contrary, everyone – across the entire mediascape and political spectrum – takes it as self-evident that these elections are bound to have massive national effects. Likewise, it did not even take US President Donald Trump’s unusual social media post to rub in that the Magdeburg quake is reverberating internationally, too.

If Merz falls – and perhaps even if he sticks to his seat for a long time before doing so – the radical-Centrist coalition currently in charge in Berlin will be under enormous pressure. Witness the fact that its frontman from the Social-Democrats (SPD), Finance Minister and austerity-imposer-in-chief Lars Klingbeil is already making terrified noises about rethinking some Berlin’s mean cuts to pensions, healthcare, and social security. How a little pain can concentrate the mind.

One thing seems to finally have sunk in with Germany’s slow, lazy, and complacent establishment: Neither the so-called ‘firewall’ – that is, deliberate discrimination against not merely the AfD but its millions of voters – has failed and offers no hope for the future. Clinging to that moronic, deeply undemocratic and simply indecently unfair strategy will only make the AfD stronger. Exactly as it has up until now.

Yet make no mistake: Germany’s radical Centrists are obstinate. Even with the ‘firewall’ demolished, they might still try to cling to its ruins for a while. That, however, will not make a difference in the end. What could have more substantial and very disruptive consequences is something else. What if they radicalize their strategy against the AfD, its electoral surge (in free and fair votes), and its supporters further?

Among the sane, such a doubling down might appear absurd: Where would it be supposed to lead? Severe unrest? Secession? But you only have to look at the current establishment’s policy toward Russia, Ukraine, and the Ukraine conflict to realize that Berlin, as it is now, does not shy away from anything just because it’s entirely mad and highly damaging to Germany.

And that, notwithstanding the ceaseless and ever less effective mainstream media propaganda smearing the AfD as Nazism redux, is where the real threat to democracy lies. Merz has already struck a tone that is, in effect, threatening: “Reassuring” German citizens, who mostly cannot stand him, that the German Basic Law, the de facto constitution, “prevails in Saxony-Anhalt as well.”

Since, in reality, no one has challenged that fact, Merz’s statement is suspect. It can easily be read as a crude hint that Berlin is looking for pretexts to engage in dirty lawfare against the AfD in general, the AfD specifically in Saxony-Anhalt, or a state government led by the AfD in Magdeburg. This may become even more likely if the AfD there is joined by CDU renegades, as seems probable.

In that case, the CDU leadership in Berlin – if Merz continues to dominate it – would also want to make an example of these local rebels and punish the AfD for the CDU’s own failure to keep its troops together. Finally, never forget that Merz is also ‘Mr. Firewall’: there is no politician in Germany more associated with that failed policy. His personal frustration must be boundless; his good faith and fairness are infamously limited.

And then there is – drumroll, fanfare blast, and an endless, tormented yawn – Russia, Russia, Russia. Yes, you have guessed right: after tanking the German economy as never before since World War Two, maneuvering the country as close to World War Three as also never before since World War Two, and throwing German taxpayers’ earnings into the Kiev money burner to the tune of, at least, a hundred billion euro and counting, Merz and his motley crew are seriously trying to tell us that the real reason why no one wants them anymore is Moscow or, why not, President Vladimir Putin personally.

The usual “civil society” cut-outs have already started pointing fingers. Merz himself has found time to reaffirm that “especially now” he won’t “budge a millimeter” from, in effect, trying to drive Germany into an open shooting war with Russia because the current proxy war is just not good enough for him.

And, of course, the public is subjected to an ongoing propaganda barrage smearing the AfD as a whole and in Saxony-Anhalt in particular Moscow’s fifth column. In reality, its crime is to have articulated many ordinary Germans’ perfectly reasonable resistance to the establishment’s out-of-control warmongering.

In sum, take these two lines of CDU defense – or attack – together and it is obvious that the real threat to German democracy comes, as before, from the radical Center: Accusing the AfD of being a Russian Trojan Horse and, at the same time, hinting that its success is somehow incompatible with the constitution – those are the key ingredients for justifying repression. Let’s hope that neither Merz nor his CDU nor the establishment as a whole dare try, because if they do, there will be resistance. Berlin has already ruined peace abroad. Domestic peace should not follow.