If you believe last week’s hysterical headlines from Germany, you might think the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is about to take power in Europe’s largest economy. The reality is more complicated.
Last Wednesday, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz allowed a parliamentary statement on migration controls to pass with AfD support. The move broke a long-standing taboo in German politics against any cooperation with the far right. Merz’s predecessor and former Chancellor Angela Merkel promptly condemned his tactics.
Two days later, Merz then tried to get a piece of legislation on migration passed, again with AfD votes. It got narrowly defeated. Yet the political earthquake had already happened.
On the left of German politics, there was widespread outrage. How could Merz cooperate with the AfD? How could the CDU deliver so much power to them? Was this another 1933 moment?
Now, to be clear, the AfD is a nasty party. It occupies the far-right, extremist fringes of the political spectrum. Its positions on Russia, the EU and NATO also make it a risk to Germany’s security.
Still, risking a joint parliamentary vote with the AfD was not a move to enable them. On the contrary, Merz’s actions were designed to avoid further empowering the AfD.
Indeed, his strategy is to rob the party of its political lifeblood: the establishment’s persistent unwillingness to address Germany’s migration challenges.
It is a high-risk strategy to bring alienated voters back to the democratic centre. A major recent study released by Germany’s Rheingold Institute reveals that his pragmatism, while unsettling, is desperately necessary.
Through in-depth psychological interviews with voters across the political spectrum, the Rheingold researchers found that the German population is united only in its sense of hopelessness.
With a general election only a month away, Germans feel trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of crises with no clear solution. It is a sentiment shared across the political spectrum.
Rheingold found that even Social Democratic voters overwhelmingly support stricter migration controls – precisely the kinds of measures that were rejected by Social Democrats and the Greens when Merz put them to a vote in the Bundestag.
The Rheingold study also revealed how voters feel increasingly like strangers in their own country. That is not primarily because of immigration itself, but because concerns about it have consistently been dismissed as illegitimate.
Among these concerns are perceptions of increased crime. For example, a couple of weeks ago, Germany witnessed another double murder committed by an asylum seeker from Afghanistan. One of the victims was a young child from Morocco. It was that event which prompted Merz to act.
After each previous attack, the response of the political class was the same: Condemnation of the crime, followed by statements that the perpetrators will face the full force of the law. But what has been lacking, until now, is any commitment to tackle what many voters see as the root cause of the problem.
Perhaps even more than the crimes themselves, it has been the routine nature of these statements that enraged people. After the latest murder, Merz did not want to add yet more banal platitudes. Instead, he decided to take his proposals on curbing migration policy to Parliament.
None of Merz’s proposals were extreme. They would have limited the ability of refugees with temporary residence titles to bring family members into the country. They would have given the Federal Police new powers – powers that Chancellor Olaf Scholz had already called for. They effectively aimed to restore Germany’s approach to refugees to the one that preceded Angela Merkel’s opening of the borders in 2015.
Still, Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens would have none of it. Instead, they labelled any Merz’s attempt to bring migration under control as a “far-right”, AfD-style policy. Never mind that neighbouring Denmark, governed by a centre-left party, pursues precisely such policies.
How can that be? The answer has a lot to do with Angela Merkel. Her policies have shifted Germany’s entire political spectrum to the left – and not just on migration policies.
In the past, the CDU once stood for free markets, strong defence, nuclear energy, and controlled immigration. Merkel systematically abandoned all these positions.
She abolished nuclear power. She suspended military service. She expanded renewable energies. And perhaps most consequentially, she opened Germany’s borders during the 2015 refugee crisis.
Each of these decisions aligned with the zeitgeist of urban elites. Yet they left millions of traditional centre-right voters politically homeless.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and politics is no different. Into this void stepped the AfD, originally founded as an anti-Euro party but increasingly attracting those alienated by Merkel’s general leftward shift.
The tragic irony is that the AfD’s rise has made it harder to address the legitimate concerns that fuelled its growth. Any policy proposal the AfD might support became automatically toxic to mainstream parties.
Paradoxically, the more the far-right AfD grew, the more power it gave to left-wing parties. The left could veto any CDU policy simply by pointing out the AfD’s potential support for it. Meanwhile, the underlying problems went unaddressed.
Merz is now attempting to break this destructive cycle. It is a risky strategy for him, but a necessary one for the CDU. You only need took at the polls to understand why.
Post-War Germany has never had a more unpopular government than Scholz’s failed coalition. Never have a chancellor’s approval ratings been lower.
In normal times, such widespread dissatisfaction would catapult the main opposition party into the political stratosphere. The CDU should be polling in the high 40s. Instead, it hovers around 30 percent.
This explains the AfD’s strength. Many voters would rather channel their anger through protest votes for the far right. They have not forgiven the CDU for its role under Merkel in creating many of the problems that Scholz’s coalition government went on to make worse.
Unless Merz breaks with Merkel’s progressive policies (as he is doing now), he will not convince voters that any government he leads will tackle Germany’s many problems.
As Rheingold’s study revealed, there is a cost of supressing political debate. Voters, including many who despise the AfD, feel increasingly frustrated that obvious problems cannot even be discussed, let alone solved. The longer this goes on, the more their trust in democratic institutions erodes.
After the tumultuous events of the past week, the February 23 election will thus be a moment of truth. Can Merz convince these disaffected voters that mainstream conservatism still offers real solutions?
Or will they continue to express their frustration through support for the AfD?
To read the full article on the Newsroom website, click here.