In a current survey, the AfD has reached its highest value since February 2020. Its means: fueling fears in the population and hate speech against the federal government. Not only the energy crisis makes the right-wing populists currently available to so many.
The AfD is growing in favor with voters: In the Sunday trend, which the opinion research institute Insa collects weekly for the “Bild am Sonntag”, the party has reached its highest value since February 2020 with 15 percent. It is clearly gaining strength again, especially in the east.
Before the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, things looked very different for the right-wing populist party: it lost more than two percentage points in the 2021 federal election compared to 2017, was thrown out of the state parliament in Schleswig-Holstein and also lost in polls in the east. Now there seems to be a trend reversal: According to pollsters, the right-wing populist party has 27 percent of the votes in the eastern federal states, putting it right at the front.
The other parties attribute the clear upswing of the AfD primarily to the energy crisis – but there is more behind the AfD strategy.
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For months, the AfD has been drumming for a “hot autumn”: They are calling for demonstrations and mobilizations against the federal government’s energy policy. For the chairman Tino Chrupalla, the federal government had ignited the protest actions itself – the mobilization had only just begun.
The AfD calls for an end to the sanctions against Russia and the fight against inflation. She is also taking a clear stance against arms deliveries to Ukraine. According to the Tagesspiegel, Putin supporters and neo-Nazis could always be found at demonstrations.
A microphone breakdown at an AfD event revealed in early September that the AfD was hoping for a further aggravation of the energy crisis. In an interview with another participant, Harald Weyel, member of the Bundestag and member of the party executive, responded to his statement that it would be dramatic: “You have to say, hopefully, right? If it’s not dramatic enough, then it’s business as usual.”
Other parties are concerned about the high poll numbers. The SPD member of the Bundestag Elisabeth Kaiser told the “Tagesspiegel” that the AfD was specifically exploiting the concerns of people who felt fear of existence due to high energy costs and inflation.
Johannes Hillje, political advisor and author, noted in his own place: “The AfD currently has no content-related, but very much an emotional unique selling point. No party manages the fear as strongly as the AfD.” Their central narrative is: It is not Russia or Putin who are to blame for the price increases and the energy crisis, but the federal government.
In addition, the party knows how to target social networks with its content. For example, the AfD tries to win over young adults via TikTok: the party is now the most successful on the platform. Five channels of AfD politicians are among the ten largest German politician accounts, reports the “Spiegel”.
The party has positioned itself broadly on TikTok, in addition to dozens of accounts for members of the state parliament, channels for parliamentary groups and state associations have also been created. After all, what use are messages if they don’t get through?
“Basically, of course, the high energy prices and overall inflation affect everyone nationwide, but there are fewer assets in the east, a higher proportion of small companies with fewer reserves and lower incomes,” says Green politician Paula Piechotta of the dpa. The doctor of radiology comes from Gera and sits in the Bundestag for the Leipzig II constituency. “The wealth buffer in the West is just bigger.”
At the same time, memories of the years after reunification in the East are fresh, and confidence in politics is weak. “The impression of some in the East is, and you don’t have to share that, that they got the arse card twice, in 1945 and in the 1990s, with more traumatizing upheavals than in West Germany,” explains Piechotta. The relationship with Russia is also more complicated for many in the East, and mistrust of NATO and the armaments industry is high.
The most recent report by the federal government’s representative for Eastern Europe reflects the dissatisfaction in the country: only 39 percent of people in the east are satisfied with today’s democracy.
Right-wing groups are getting involved in the current dissatisfaction. This is how the Saxon constitutional protection officer Christian sees it: “The justified concerns and needs of the citizens only serve the right-wing extremists as a vehicle for their anti-constitutional agenda.”
And Piechotta knows that too: “The demo events are different in the east, that’s just the fact.” Right-wing structures were established in rural regions during the migration and Corona period – not only the AfD, but also right-wing extremist groups like the Free Saxons. The structures would now be used again, just for a different topic.
The protests do not come as a surprise to the sociologist Raj Kollmorgen from the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences: if you allow existential fears to spread deep into the middle classes, it should not come as a surprise that people lined up at demos organized by the AfD, he tells the “Tagesspiegel”. Concrete relief, such as the 200 billion euro package from the federal government, is now all the more urgent. “That was a very important decision, especially for the East,” Kollmorgen clarifies.
