In Germany, a Huge Election Win for AfD Rattles the Establishment

On Sunday night, Sept. 6, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, voters delivered a huge win to a right-wing party rapidly gaining traction on the national stage. That party is Alternative for Germany, known more commonly as AfD (Alternative für Deutschland). Though it came up a few seats short of the absolute majority it needs in the state parliament to form a government, AfD is rattling the German establishment – and the irony of it all shouldn’t be lost on any fair-minded observer.

Germany has undergone a remarkable transformation in the eight decades since the end of World War II. It went from fascism – or the Nazi Party’s cult-like patchwork philosophy loosely built on fascism – all the way around to once again knocking on the fascist door under former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Will the Real Fascists Please Stand Up?

A subtitle borrowed from Liberty Nation Executive Editor Leesa K. Donner – but appropriate in this context. Germany is very much a security state – practically a police state, complete with political police, Big Brother mass surveillance, and little in the way of real freedom of speech. Like several other European countries, Germany has laws that prohibit certain public criticisms of government officials. Ironic, then, that both the current chancellor and his predecessor portray AfD as some kind of second coming of the Nazis. It may be highly controversial to say so, but, looking at what Germany has become over the past three decades, it’s easy to wonder if the bad guys ever completely went away.

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Take, for example, how German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, leader of the “center-right” Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), responded to the AfD victory in Saxony-Anhalt. He pledged to use “all the instruments” in Germany’s “strong constitution” to defend the nation against “a right-wing extremist state government,” as Breitbart reported. That sounds very much like the kind of statement any communist or fascist strongman would make if he felt his power threatened.

AfD is merely a “Germany first” party, one might say. It is a conservative party that wants to end mass migration and withdraw Germany from the European Union. Still, in today’s political climate both in Europe and America, such entirely reasonable sentiments get one branded as “far-right,” “right-wing extremist,” or even fascist.

AfD Versus the Establishment

The AfD clobbered all opposing parties in Saxony-Anhalt. Though it ended the night with three less than the 42 seats it needed for an outright majority, it took 43.8% of the votes. Merz’s CDU won a dismal 17.2% - a foreboding vote of no confidence in the German chancellor. Germany’s principal left-wing party, the SPD, didn’t get out of single digits.

Despite all the phony pearl-clutching over threats to democracy, five of the other political parties with seats in the state’s parliament immediately vowed not to work with AfD, thus preventing them from forming a government.

In America and in Europe, the people who claim to be defending democracy will not hesitate to ignore the will of the voters the moment an election doesn’t go their way.

Probably, the only option for the parliament in Saxony-Anhalt is a new election. But then, there is always the risk, for AfD’s opponents, that the party does even better the next time around and picks up the extra seats it needs for an absolute majority.

That’s not set in stone, though. The parliament votes to elect one member to serve as president of the state – the minister-president – and Ulrich Siegmund, the leading AfD candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, could still be voted into that position with a handful of abstentions in another round of voting. There is talk that the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a left-wing party that surprisingly shares the AfD anti-migration stance and has five seats in the new parliament, could abstain from the voting. If that transpired, it would take just one more abstention or one vote – one defection, essentially – from one of the other parties to hand Siegmund the top job.

The far right – whatever that is supposed to be – is not on the rise in Germany. Rather, a populist opposition to the globalist agenda, the altar upon which European culture is being sacrificed, is gaining ground. The rest of Europe – or at least the western part of that continent – should probably pay close attention.