Amanda Huggenkiss
amanda dermichknutscht
Jr. Member
Posts: 659
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« on: September 22, 2021, 06:35:27 AM » |
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The AfD had the hegemony on the political discourse after 2015 - they were the only party to channel a widespread complete hostility towards refugees. Basically, every decision made by other parties was made with the underlying consideration of whether it might help or hurt the AfD, which is why CDU and CSU shifted significantly rightwards on migration policy--it has become a truism within the Union that "A situation like 2015 shall never happen again"--and the SPD, FDP and even Linke had deep internal discussions about how to handle the situation. None of the reactions were really sufficient, which is why the AfD achieved 12.6% at the last parliamentary election.
Somewhere between 2017 and 2021, the AfD--and the political right overall--had lost the hegemony on the political discourse. This is one aspect of the AfD's struggle to grow. As Hnv1 said, migration is not really an issue today. The top two issues are climate change, on which the AfD represents a deeply unpopular stance, and Covid, on which the AfD's stance is even more unpopular. The party is unable to moderate because, between 2017 and 2021, it has further radicalized to the right. This is also a reason why the party is unable to grow further: It is extremely toxic and supports stances and politicians that are held in wide contempt by the German public. Those ideas and people were there pre-2017, yes, but it was an extra-parliamentary opposition party then. There sure was the expectation by some that once the party has entered the institutions, it would moderate and learn how to play by the rules. It did not, and so the party is very uninteresting for many German voters: It is a right-wing party which has become so extremist and possibleyunconstitutional that German intelligence agencies are deliberating whether it should be surveilled (as some state branches already are!), they are utterly unable to produce a coherent policy proposal because there is deep party infighting, and they can't even get stuff done in parliament.
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