Already there is a new trend, according to the latest Deutschlandtrend survey conducted for German broadcaster ARD. Pollster infratest dimap surveyed a representative sample of 1,334 eligible German voters from March 31 to April 2. The CDU/CSU slumped to 26%, their lowest level since October 2022, while the AfD reached a new high of 24%.
Seven out of ten respondents in the ARD Deutschlandtrend survey would like to see higher import tariffs on US products in retaliation
I don’t think xenophobia is even the root cause. There are studies on extremism that reach back decades that show a consistent racist potential of the German population at about 10%. Personally I’m convinced that most of the percentage on top of that for the AfD is people that feel abandoned or even betrayed by our political system. And looking at how the distribution of wealth and income has developed since the 90s, they’re not wrong to feel that way. People voting the extreme right are mostly those left behind in these statistics.
And up until this point, every party except the democratic far left has completely ignored this or resorted to victim blaming, telling the poor to just work harder. So these people vote the only party that tells them they will burn the whole system down. Let’s see if the ruling parties use their last bullet to remedy this.
From what’s I understand about the political landscape in the US, the situation is not too different there.
Yeah, a lot of the problems that the AfD talk about are real (when they aren’t making up numbers about immigrants). It just sucks that the voters are flocking to the xenophobes instead of parties that at least try to improve things, and I think the latent xenophobia in a large part of the population (way more than 10%, though they’re not necessarily all as extreme as those 10%) is a big reason why. And propaganda, of course.
And the Sadest thing is. That like Trump the AFD wants more money for the rich and less for the poor. And most Voters are poor and dont’t understand what they will do if they have the power.