It’s Immigration, Stupid. What AfD’s Victory Means for Europe
It’s not Nazism to realize your country is being invaded by people who refuse to assimilate and attempt to destroy it from the inside.
Europe had yet another monumental electoral upset as Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, won a series of local elections in the East German states of Saxony and Thüringen. The media has reacted to this with the normal amount of doomsaying, noting this is the first time a “far-right” party has won state elections since the Nazis.
The party garnered 33% vote share in Thüringen and 31% in Saxony and early polls suggest that nearby Brandenburg is set to elect throngs of AfD members to its local parliament as well. The AfD has surged to victory on the back of the most visceral issue facing the Old World at the moment: mass migration from Muslim majority countries.
Endless studies have shown that migrants and the attached issues surrounding them are beginning to enrage the natives. As we’ve seen in the U.K., sometimes these tensions boil over and cause outbreaks of mass violence to embroil the nation.
Indeed, Europe’s issues with mass migration are so all-encompassing, they’re beginning to realign political blocs in ways no one would have previously thought possible.
The youth vote has begun to shift in waves towards AfD and other parties that prioritize migration as a must-solve issue. AfD grabbed 38% of youths 18-24 in Thüringen and 31% in Saxony.
Meanwhile, the current ruling coalition helmed by the Christian Democratic Union’s Olaf Scholz suffered a blowout, with an anemic 13% support in Thüringen and 17% in Saxony.
Das ist nicht so gut!
When asked why these young voters would dare to cross the Rubicon and vote for evil, horrible, no-good, racist parties, the response is as simple as it is unanimous: stop importing the third world to Germany.
CNN highlighted two young voters who pointed out that migration issues have made them feel like strangers in Germany, unsafe on streets that they would have once called their own. “Hardly anyone dares to go out anymore. To be honest, I find that sad,” said 21-year-old Kevin Flurschutz. “You notice it on public transport. You notice it when you go shopping,” added 21-year-old Carolin Lichtenfeld.
Many have tried to tie the rise in AfD’s popularity to Russian psyop efforts or a resurgence in Nazism. But as these two voters explicitly noted, none of the major political parties concede that the core issue is simply that Europeans have seen the terrible consequences of unfettered migration from the Middle East and Africa and that they want it to stop. Simple as that.
This plays out in the data. When asked what the top issues facing Germany right now were, 31% cited criminality and 29% said refugee policy. Those numbers are up nine points from five years ago.
Want more proof? While AfD took the lion’s share of the vote in East Germany, the leftist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance or BSW party finished third with 16% in Thüringen and 12% in Saxony. Put together, parties critical of immigration took nearly half of the vote share in the two East German elections.
That’s as clear a message as a firebomb to Dresden.
But though that message is as clear as day, the German government looks poised to ignore it. Rather than address the issues that mass migration has created for the average German, the government would rather crack down on dissenting speech than fix the problem.
Which is why these migration-orientated parties aren’t going anywhere. Trends have shown that the right is gaining ground across the continent, from France to the Netherlands. As more migrant-fuelled violence plagues the West, people will flock to the banners of those willing to act.
And contrary to the beliefs of disconnected European elites, rising up to protect your country is no vice. It’s not Nazism to realize your country is being invaded by people who refuse to assimilate and attempt to destroy it from the inside.
That’s just called patriotism.