The AfD and the seizure of power: What goes wrong in the debate

The idea that we can plan our lives on this particle of the universe is one of our favorite illusions. Even the most important private decisions, whether about a partner, children or career, often depend on circumstances, emotions and coincidences.

The same can be said about our very existence. Or how did your parents meet? Even.

Even in politics, which, even if we like to suppress it, is made by fallible people like us, future events can only be planned to a limited extent. A laugh at the wrong time, a misfire in a speech duel, a turn on a ski slope: and everything is suddenly completely different.

It happens as it happens, we can hardly influence it – but we can influence how we later talk about what we do with it. And that’s what I want to write about today.

Almost five years ago, on February 5, 2020, I sat in the press gallery in the Thuringian state parliament and watched the election of the Prime Minister. It was the third round of voting, and parliament had the choice between the acting left-wing head of government Bodo Ramelow, a non-party village mayor appointed by the AfD, and the cowboy-booted FDP state leader Thomas Kemmerich.

What some suspected, but only selected members of the AfD knew: The faction led by Björn Höcke did not elect their own candidate in the secret vote, but rather Kemmerich. And so the FDP man got 45 votes, which was one vote more than Ramelow – and then did what changed his life (and mine a little): he accepted the election.

Now it’s not like those involved didn’t have plans. But the only plan that partially worked was the AfD’s. And even that was risky.

If the red-red-green coalition hadn’t called an election without a majority, if the AfD hadn’t found a stupid pseudo-candidate at the last minute, if the CDU hadn’t fought with itself, if only one MP had decided differently – or if Thomas Kemmerich, That was the name of the head of government without a government, he didn’t just say yes to the poisoned office, then, yes, then fascism wouldn’t have broken out in Thuringia back then.

Yes, you read that right: fascism. Many politicians, activists and some journalists didn’t do it. Not only were historical parallels drawn to the Weimar Republic, which were particularly evident in Thuringia: no, they had to be equated. Höcke also couldn’t just be who he is, namely a right-wing extremist. No, he had to be a Nazi, and so was everyone who belonged to his faction and party.

Four and a half years after that winter day, I recently sat again in the press gallery in the state parliament. It was even the same place. History once again wafted through the stale air. In the state elections, the AfD became the strongest faction in a German parliament for the first time and had the right to nominate the president. And she appointed the senior president, who led the associated election.

Again there were mighty huge plans. The senior president had been instructed by his AfD not to call for the change to the rules of procedure that had been put on the agenda at short notice before the election of the real president. Because this amendment would eliminate the sole right to make proposals.

Reality didn’t stick to the program

All other factions, which together have a majority, first wanted to change the rules in their favor and then elect a CDU parliamentary leader.

This time too, reality did not adhere to the man-made program. The senior president, a retired engineer from Sonneberg, was hopelessly overwhelmed by the propaganda script and overcompensated for his inability with brazen arrogance. The other parties reacted erratically to panic and resorted to scandalizing. The parliamentary manager of the CDU, a man who otherwise appears clever and considered, even shouted: “What you are doing here is a seizure of power.”

Seriously? In fact, the AfD, which it later happily broadcast in its channels, had only adhered to the current rules of procedure and insisted on customary parliamentary law, which is almost always observed in Germany.

Yes, she didn’t even have to think up the victim’s story herself as usual: she had been given one as a gift, including a constitutional court that interpreted the actual processes in the state parliament rather creatively. The fact that a judge, whose son belonged to the plaintiff CDU faction, did not declare himself biased in order to avoid any false appearance rounded off the picture desired by the AfD.

And so it was like it was once again in February. The left-wing prime minister, who was again in office, sent a letter from Hitler via Telegram in which he celebrated the NSDAP’s first participation in government (it was of course in Thuringia), while a suitable quote from Goebbels went viral in the left-wing network bubbles. At the same time, the far right was reliably talking about the resurrection of the GDR.

The process represented the state of the political debate in Germany: Some are for democracy, others for dictatorship. And vice versa. There is little between this double layering of history.

The overreach is there

Now I don’t want to make the same mistake that I just described, i.e. equating things that are similar in appearance but fundamentally different in their essence. Because even if the AfD is not simply a neo-NSDAP, it is still a radical populist and increasingly right-wing extremist party. And even if the so-called established parties often act for self-interested and ideological reasons, they still act on a basis of values, also known as the free-democratic basic order.

But the transgression is there, in actions and in communication. This was evident, for example, with the protective measures during the corona pandemic, which of course were not harbingers of a dictatorship, but some of which turned out to be disproportionate or illegal. And it shows itself in the language. Anyone who simply uses categories such as “Corona deniers”, “Nazis” and “Putinists” inadvertently reflects inflammatory terms that echo the Nazi era such as “cartel parties”, “lying press” and “traitors”.

It always has to be the escalation that causes maximum damage to the German dictatorship. It’s not just those who demand a 180-degree historical-political turnaround and shout “Everything for Germany” that put the singular crimes of National Socialism into perspective. Anyone who uses terms imprecisely and ahistorically also empties them of their meaning.

Now, from my experience of so-called shitstorms, I can anticipate possible objections to my argument: I trivialize the right-wing extremist danger, forge aluminum horseshoes and, by the way, I haven’t understood anything. And, who knows, maybe I’m secretly one of those, well, you know?

Which is true: I have no answers. I’m looking for it. But those who shy away from this effort, those who are too sure of themselves, may only contribute to the fact that exactly what is not supposed to happen can happen.