I wonder if part of the story of the surge for far-right options isn't the recent success of far-right parties in other parts of the continent? The Sweden Democrats were if anything more ostracized than the AfD until 2022, but now they've entered a government and have had real influence on Kristersson's policies (or at least his rhetoric); Giorgia Meloni's party was never really ostracized in the same way, but her leading a government as Prime Minister is also sort of unprecedented. (The RN in France have not yet entered government, but in 2022 the 'republican front' clearly broke down at the voter level, with not just center-right but many centrist voters preferring the RN to left-wing candidates, which would've been unthinkable in, like, 2017.) The western European far-right had a very successful year in 2022, and so voting for an organization like the AfD must feel less unrealistic now.
My opinion is that Merkel despite being from a Conservative Party didn’t really govern like a conservative at all and given that Merkel was Chancellor for such a long time , it made solid conservatives to become disillusioned with the CDU.
If Merkel had actually governed like a conservative (not be so left wing on refugee issues, not implement left wing energy policies) then maybe you wouldn’t see AFD rise as much as they have .
