Elections in Saxony and Thuringia: Why I didn’t support the AfD for a while
It is difficult to digest what was elected in Thuringia and Saxony. One may feel a paradoxical anger towards the Democratic Party because of the anti-democrats.
After the election is before the election. Now comes Brandenburg. Photo: Jan Woitas/Photo Alliance/dpa
It’s been a few hours since the 6pm election night predictions and the subsequent outrageous statements from politicians, but the real shock has yet to hit me. I find myself continuing to point the finger at Saxon AfD in the tight race for first place.
It was a very short moment, but it lasted so long. I thought, God in heaven, then you must be the most powerful force there.
It was definitely an accumulation of emotions. I was angry. A citizen who was angry in the moment.
Ike. Anti-racist Taz writer and self-proclaimed people expert, he stands in front of the screen wearing a safe and spacey Berlin jewel. What the heck…?! Of course, there is no rhyme or reason to all this. But what about sense and reason today!?
What finally burst out in that brief moment was definitely some kind of emotional accumulation. I was angry. A citizen of immediate anger. Memento Uti. A paradoxical anger toward the party-political Democratic Party because of the anti-democrats.
The CDU’s initial reaction was almost unbearable. It was as if they had won an absolute majority. They achieved their worst and second-worst election results in Saxony and Thuringia since 1990. According to ARD, more than half of the CDU voters voted only for the CDU “so that the AfD would not gain too much influence.” In both countries, despite (or because of?) record turnouts, turnout was over 30 percent.
Among the under-35s, the right-wing extremists were by far the strongest. Among the 18-24 year olds in Thuringia, they won the highest vote share of all (!) age groups. How can the CDU congratulate itself so self-indulgently, especially after months of carelessly pandering to the right-wing extremist frame?
Of course, it is not only the CDU. Olaf Scholz’s first and perhaps most angry reaction to the election results was “Then it is bitter!”. Perhaps the most incomparable insult to his unsettled emotional situation. The day after the election, Saskia Esken said about Olaf Scholz’s new chancellor candidate that the wind had changed just before the last federal election and that he would succeed this time too. Aha. Well, let’s just hope that Armin Laschet and Annalena Baerbock will compete again.
Christian Lindner, whose FDP would soon be seen only in a petri dish under a microscope, immediately said: “People are fed up with the state losing control over immigration and asylum in Germany.” Attacking his own coalition from a right-wing perspective would have worked just as well in the past as it did this time.
Money. The Greens are at least publicly licking their wounds, but their self-criticism is commonplace and has so far had no real consequences.
This text is week. From left, our weekly! Every week, wochentaz covers the current world and the world that could be. It is a leftist weekly with a voice, attitude, and a special Taz worldview. You can find new news every Saturday at the kiosk. Of course, you can also subscribe.
What remains? The innocent antics of my inner right-wing troll, without serious consequences, but almost unbearable and proof of helplessness due to anger. What else? Thousands of campaigners who, not only in Saxony and Thuringia, but also in the anonymity of the big cities, without seeking public protection, stand up to anti-democrats with sincerity, integrity and truth. I admire and respect their courage and their true love for their country.
Hopefully they are in better shape than their top staff, gasping in an intellectual Bermuda Triangle between the Berlin political bubble, the media circus of the capital’s newsrooms, and the din of their own social media communities. Two weeks later, a shout out to Brandenburg!