The AfD cannot be banned – and that’s a good thing

Opinion

Are there many right-wing extremists in the AfD? Yes. Is the party becoming more radical with each election? Also yes.

So should a ban be initiated? No.

There are three reasons for this no. First: the process would fail, and rightly so. A high hurdle has been built into the Basic Law for the regulation – which is unique in democracies. In order to be banned, a party must be “aimed in its goals or the behavior of its supporters” at “impairing or eliminating the free democratic basic order or endangering the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany.” Even SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert, who considers the AfD to be fascist, sees no sufficient evidence for this.

Second: The process would be politically counterproductive, especially since it would take years. During this time, the AfD could truthfully claim that the competition wants to eliminate them. Of all people, the AfD, whose politicians like to draw from the murky sources of the National Socialists, could spread their demagogic narrative of an allegedly looming dictatorship even more efficiently.

And thirdly: Even if a ban were to come about, it would be practically impossible to implement. How does a parliamentary democracy dissolve a party that has large factions in almost all parliaments? And how do the millions and millions of voters who elected you behave? You can’t even imagine the answers to these questions. In any case, the social upheaval would be enormous.

In any case, a new party would soon have emerged to rally the members and supporters of the AfD. Should the next ban procedure begin immediately?

The Höcke course has prevailed in the party

Conversely, all of this does not mean that the AfD is a normal, democratic-minded party. On the contrary. It is not only populist and authoritarian like the BSW, but also extremist in parts. And these parts are getting bigger and bigger.

The former “wing” around the right-wing extremist Björn Höcke has ideologically asserted itself in the AfD. The so-called remigration, i.e. the deportation and, yes, expulsion of millions of people from Germany, is now the official AfD line. Because with this line the party is successful in elections.

But why is that so? The debate about this question has been going around in circles for years because there is too little differentiation in politics, but sometimes also in scientific discourse.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is not suitable as a witness against the AfD

Yes, the extreme core clientele is racist, authoritarian and ethnic. And it grows with the party.

But the majority of AfD voters are not extreme per se. Surveys showing that a good half share the party’s goals do not automatically prove that the majority of the party is elected by convinced right-wing extremists. Because in the AfD’s program – and this is the decisive difference from the former NPD – there are radical demands, but not anti-constitutional ones.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is also really not a good witness for a ban procedure. On the one hand, it remains highly problematic in terms of regulatory policy that a subordinate authority de facto decides whether a party is unconstitutional or not. On the other hand, as is well known, the first NPD ban process failed because the party was riddled with undercover agents from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

The open society and its enemies

The AfD can only be dealt with legally if its representatives, like Höcke recently, use Nazi slogans or commit other crimes. Otherwise, the other parties will have to deal with her politically.

This includes taking the moderate AfD voters seriously without pandering to them. And this also includes distancing yourself from party officials. The fact that the AfD does not come to power despite having up to a third of voters behind it is not undemocratic. Rather, it is a sovereign sign that the open society is protecting itself from its enemies.

At the same time, however, a different signal must be sent: the AfD would then be seen as capable of discussions or even cooperation if it can separate itself from its particularly extremist part.

Of course, this is currently hard to imagine. After the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg and especially after the FPÖ success in Austria, the AfD will rely on escalation in the federal election campaign.

Banning driving would only strengthen extremists like Björn Höcke and Maximilian Krah in the AfD. This is also why it is good that the motion is unlikely to find a majority in the Bundestag. By then, however, he will have caused enough political collateral damage.