Analysis
In Germany it’s no longer possible to ignore the extreme right
Alice Weidel's ultra-right, with its 20 percent – won without any effort at a bourgeois makeover – doesn’t yet have the blackmail power that the National Rally has won in France, but it is an uncomfortable presence.
The results of Sunday's German elections, which saw extraordinary turnout, were fully in line with the last polls on the eve of the vote. And they fully reflected the shift to the right under way throughout the Old Continent, and the inability of moderate and conservative forces to cope with it – or, even worse, their temptation to exploit an ambiguous game of tug-of-war with the ultra-right to their advantage.
Half the time, they’ve been treating it as a feared competitor, and in the other half they’re using it as a convenient bogeyman to tamp down excessive demands of social redistribution brought by uncomfortable coalition partners of a more or less left-wing orientation. This is what has happened in France, Austria, Holland, and Scandinavia, not to mention the countries where the far right is already in government unimpeded. It’s true that this makes a particularly powerful impression when seen in Germany, and not only for historical reasons, but also because of the enormous weight of the Federal Republic in Europe. The impression was so striking that it brought two million people to the streets in recent weeks against the AfD and any scenario of that party's rise to the levers of power. And it led to die Linke's unexpectedly good result, particularly among young people.
Alice Weidel's ultra-right, with its 20 percent – won without any effort at a bourgeois makeover – doesn’t yet have the blackmail power that the National Rally has won in France, but it is an uncomfortable presence, and one which it will be impossible to disregard, having behind it both the aggressive aims of Trump's America and the sympathy of Russia, which, for better or worse, is part of a space of economic interchange, and not only, that is vital for Germany. It is also a big enough result that it lends legitimacy to the charge of disregarding democracy that is generally leveled against any agreement to exclude a certain party from power, such as the one against Weidel's party in this case. Washington is already clearly moving in that direction.
The CDU-CSU won a clear victory, but it was not a triumph. We are far from the record levels of support Angela Merkel achieved in her long chancellorship. Friedrich Merz, who was her opponent, is hardly a leader who arouses a comparable level of enthusiasm, and his campaign to chase after the far right on its own issues and playing field has drawn the infamous accusation of plagiarizing his program from the AfD, without even succeeding in taking votes away from the latter party. The popular refrain about rejecting migrants and restricting the right to asylum is now so widespread, persistent and stereotypical that it counts for very little in building a distinguishable political profile, as the Greens and SPD have had to learn the hard way. Furthermore, it is less and less credible as a tool for coping with the model crisis and recession gripping the Federal Republic.
The new course, strongly emphasized by Merz to distance himself from the AfD’s positions, will be to make Europe independent of the U.S. But one can hardly hide the fact that this is more of a circumstance imposed by the Trumpian earthquake than a free decision. It is also a difficult road to travel for those who have lived for the last 80 years safe in the most devoted Atlanticist faith. Not to mention the war in Ukraine that sealed Germany off from the East, which America is now vying for while bypassing the Old Continent altogether.
While it is ideologically pro-European, Germany has a significant share of responsibility in having hindered the cohesion of the European Union and its ability to give unified responses marked by solidarity in crisis situations, with its rigid financial doctrine, “priority of national interest,” discrimination against debtor states and strenuous refusal to incur common debts. These attitudes have since translated into the Euroscepticism which has fueled the radical right and the flourishing resurgence of nationalism.
And it is doubtful that the German establishment would be willing to dump this ideological ballast altogether, even while the disappearance of the FDP liberals from the Bundestag, which remained below the 5 percent threshold, radically calls into question those out-of-touch financial dogmas, inspired by the arrogance of Germany's past economic soundness, in the name of which Christian Lindner ended the governing coalition with the SPD and Greens, paving the way for this ill-advised election round that led his party to ruin.
Also failing to cross the 5 percent threshold (by a few thousand votes) was Sahra Wagenknecht's new party, born of a split from die Linke, despite a great start in the recent regional elections in the eastern states. The AfD swept all those constituencies, showing that it is the rightful owner of the issues of migrant rejection and deportation of unwanted foreigners. Those who are obsessed with these specters naturally lean to the right, towards authoritarian solutions. The idea of reconciling nationalist, conservative and identity-based positions with the left's demands for social justice and egalitarian aspirations has proven to be an abstract and unsuccessful operation, with no institutional political outlets and no ability to energize social movements.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/prescindere-dallultradestra-sara-impossibile on 2025-02-25