Across Europe and in the US, the political establishment is increasingly frustrated by the dogs who won’t eat the dog food. The latest example is in Germany where the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party continues its rapid rise.
Along with the rise of these “populist” parties—which has come to mean any party the establishment does not yet approve of—comes the questioning of democracy itself.
I was pained to see Adam Tooze recently flirt with the idea of simply ignoring AfD voters.
Tooze’s 2006 book, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, included such a deep exploration of the socioeconomic dimensions of the Nazis rise to power that he could write the following:
The aggression of Hitler’s regime can thus be rationalized as an intelligible response to the tensions stirred up by the uneven development of global capitalism, tensions that are of course still with us today. But at the same time an understanding of the economic fundamentals also serves to sharpen our appreciation of the profound irrationality of Hitler’s project.
This isn’t meant to compare the AfD to the Nazis, nor to pick on Tooze, but it’s remarkable how some of these lessons are being discarded as panic spreads over the crumbling order, and Tooze appears to be wrestling with the temptation to simply ignore the voters. Here’s what he wrote in response to the AfD’s victory in the state of Saxony-Anhalt:
To my mind, if progressive policy hopes to engage with such voters at all – and it is open question whether it should – it must address not just the material realities of relative economic disadvantage, but above all the “outsider” credentials of the AfD…The more obvious conclusion is that to contest the political terrain with the AfD, if that is indeed something we want to do, we need to offer not more of the same (just better), but an “alternative to the Alternative”…that can produce something more than just material benefits. That can produce identity.
These questions over whether progressives (and neoliberals) should engage with voters for the latest rightwing bogeyman is a question that keeps popping up across Europe and the US. Should centrists only campaign in —and govern for— “places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward,” as Hillary famously said?
Why is the establishment so keen to write the voters off as irredeemable racists?
Are we to believe that a third of the German electorate are simply irredeemable xenophobes? In the US, is it closer to 50 percent? And why does the number of xenophobes seem to be growing (based on voter share for rightwing parties) across the West?
So Why Are They Voting for AfD?
Let’s establish a few facts about German sociopolitical and economic terrain in recent years.
Austerity is causing declining living standards. Here’s Wolfgang Streeck with a brief overview:
As far as Germany is concerned, every government regardless of who leads it faces roughly the following problems, which are as acute as they are intractable, at least in the short term. All are caused by a latent policy of austerity, resulting in a failure to invest in public goods. These are, in no particular order: stagnant growth, under which any structural change takes on a zero-sum character; the deterioration of public infrastructure, including railways, bridges and roads; a growing housing shortage and rising urban rents; the failure to adapt both cities and rural areas to the consequences of climate change; the lack of an immigration policy to counterbalance an ageing population alongside a sharp decline in birth rates; the decay of the education system, particularly primary schools; the indebtedness of local authorities and their diminishing ability to make necessary investments and provide essential services; growing inequality in income and wealth, with low-income families – particularly those headed by single mothers – chronically the worst hit; and, last but not least, widespread anxiety about the future, driven in part by fear of cuts to state-provided essential services that are becoming increasingly hard to finance.
Germany has received record levels of immigrants in recent years with a high of 2.6 million reached in 2022 and 1.5 million last year.
Political parties across the mainstream have abandoned the working class, and instead have placed their remaining bets on a bid to topple the government in Moscow and turbocharge the economy while resetting the geoeconomic board.
What does this cocktail create an opening for? A party precisely like the AfD.
Are all AfD voters xenophobes? Tooze writes that, “The AfD are a party of racist xenophobes, to put it mildly.”
The data repeatedly counter that claim, however. A poll by Instituts für Demoskopie Allensbach commissioned by the FAZ a few years back when the AfD really started to take off found zero evidence for a right-ward shift in German public opinion. According to the results, about two percent of the German population has neo-Nazi beliefs, and 12 percent have what the institute labels far-right and authoritarian views.
People with neo-Nazi beliefs constitute about 13 percent of AfD’s support while another 43 percent is from those with authoritarian views. That means there are 44 percent of AfD backers who are neither.
Other public surveys repeatedly show that AfD voters are more concerned with the economy an immigration than the general public. And this is key: they say they would vote for AfD to show they were unhappy with current policies.
Some might believe it’s the best chance to get off the war path with Russia. Others might disagree with immigration policy while not necessarily being xenophobic. Others might simply want to give a raised middle finger to the political establishment which has been giving it to them for so long.
It is not a failure of the voters. It is a failure of progressivism which has disappeared from the political scene. It is a failure of centrists who envision these voters being slaughtered on the front lines of a war with Russia.
According to Manès Weisskircher who researches social movements, political parties, democracy, and the far right at the Institute of Political Science, TU Dresden, AfD’s support in the East can be primarily traced to three factors:
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The neoliberal ‘great transformation,’ which has massively changed the eastern German economy and continues to lead to emigration and anxiety over personal economic prospects.
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An ongoing sense of marginalization among East Germans who feel they have never been fully integrated since reunification and resent liberal immigration policies in this context.
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Deep dissatisfaction with the functioning of the political system and doubt in political participation.
We have many studies pointing to how austerity leads to more fertile ground for xenophobic parties.
A 2021piece published in the Journal of Economic History showed that voting data from a thousand districts and a hundred cities for four elections between 1930 and 1933 showed that areas more affected by austerity had more support for the Nazi Party.
Other more recent studies show how fiscal consolidation leads to political instability and an increasing vote share for parties like the AfD.
The lesson seems simple enough: the political center pretends neoliberal accommodation of markets is democratic. Voters beg to differ.
Tooze points to xenophobic views while also acknowledging these voters are concerned about the economy:
If you ask AfD voters what they worry about, along with their xenophobic concerns about “too many foreigners”, they will mention the cost of living and their concerns for their standard of living. They also mention climate change and the threat of external war…But if you ask them what they think about the AfD and why they voted for it, economic issues are barely mentioned. What comes first is security, foreigners, woke politics, remoteness etc.
Analysts like to treat immigration, economy, and other voter motivations in silos, but it often isn’t that simple. Anyone who grew up in or has spent time in working class communities is probably familiar with how this works. The political and economic system hammers the humanity of working people, and then acts surprised that voters can act mean too. Economic stress frequently helps lead to anger, resentment, chemical dependencies, ill health, etc., and a message of decline with easy scapegoats becomes an easier sell.
Did AfD’s Rise Cause Political Crisis or Was Germany Already in Crisis?
Tooze writes the following:
…this result shakes Germany’s political system. It shows how far the familiar political norms of the Federal Republic have disintegrated…The crisis of German democracy has long been forecast. It now seems to be upon us.
Some would argue the crisis began long ago. What of the past five or so years in which every major political party in the country has supported a war against Russia that has hurt the German economy while simultaneously accelerating social austerity in the name of rearmament? What of the support for genocide in Palestine and crackdown on speech at home?
As even Tooze points out:
…breakdown of trust happened in the 2000s due to the Red-Green government’s dramatic assault on the German model of welfare and labour market administration – known as the “Hartz IV reforms”…
When social welfare political parties abandon them, ignore them, and a party that doesn’t tell them it’s all the immigrants’ fault, well here we are.
Additionally, how wise is it for a state—any state—to embrace record levels of immigration while cutting social services and undergoing a rapid financialization of the economy? It’s unclear to me what makes opposition to more immigration xenophobic when the state is cutting spending across the board for social services that were already underfunded. What level do immigration numbers need to reach before a voter can say enough without being xenophobic? Is there a number, or must it be supported in all cases?
I wouldn’t blame the immigrant trying to find a better life. I would blame the political class who embarked on this course. Let’s remember too, that many of these immigrants are coming from regions of the world destroyed by the ringleader US with Germany as one of many sidekicks.
Tooze says they should vote for one of the other parties if they have economic concerns:
If you are hard up and working-class it would after all be nothing short of bizarre to vote for the AfD in the hope of improved social protection. There are parties in Sachsen-Anhalt offering a progressive welfarist program – notably Die Linke and arguably the SPD and the Greens as well – and the voters are not flocking to them.
(Don’t forget the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice.)
Tooze might be right—to a point. The AfD is not a worker-friendly party. Yet Die Linke (The Left) long ago abandoned its worker-first focus in favor of identity politics, neoliberalism, and war. Same for the SPD. And, well, the Greens? Here’s former Green foreign minister Annalena Baerbock’s famous F-U to voters in 2022:
That moment when Annalena Bearbock, former German Foreign Minister said:
“I will put Ukraine first no matter what my German voters think or how hard their life gets” pic.twitter.com/suaJGf0sEz
— Richard (@ricwe123) November 10, 2025
These parties are not trustworthy. That’s not to say the AfD is, but they are more of an unknown. Perhaps it’s enough for voters to know that the hated establishment opposes them, and the enemy-of-my-enemy rule takes the day.
A Deepening Crisis
If Germany was already in crisis, the AfD is likely to deepen it. That’s because its answers are insufficient. It is on the side of plutocrats and blames foreigners. That’s not going to remedy what ails Germany.
Perhaps the AfD will get Germany off the war path. I wouldn’t bet on it.
The AfD already looks to be extending a fig leaf to the Atlanticists by calling for the expulsion of all Ukrainians in the country. That rhymes with what German Foreign Minister Johann Wadepuhl was saying just a few weeks back. Maybe they can send a few hundred thousand more into the meat grinder and extend the war for another number of months.
This marks a truth the political establishment prefers not to admit: the new boss wouldn’t be all that different from the old boss. Yet the political establishment has little to cling to anymore other than protecting “democracy” from the AfD.
What kind of democracy is it if an increasingly large chunk of the electorate is simply written off as irredeemable xenophobes? What could be done instead? Let’s again turn to Wolfgang Streeck for a few suggestions:
What should those on the side of ‘democracy’ do? A first step would be to admit that, after all these years of ‘credit-pump capitalism’, as Ralf Dahrendorf called it, there can no longer be a magic formula; and a second would be to stop making promises that everyone knows are hollow: that we will ‘kickstart the economy’, as if it were a stalled 1960s VW engine; that we can balance the budget whilst at the same time spending 5 per cent of the gross national product – borrowed, no less – on armaments; or that the school system will be brought up to Scandinavian standards whilst the current pupils are still at school, if we carry on ‘making savings’ and ‘working harder’.
Above all, questions must be asked – particularly by the left – in front of an audience who, contrary to the advice of PR ‘experts’, we must still regard as capable of reason if democracy is to continue to exist. How do we get capital to foot the bill for the costs it imposes on society and nature? How do we prevent tax avoidance and tax evasion? How do we protect companies that provide good-quality work for the people in our country from a global trade system that shows no regard for working people? How can we halt the decline in our population, through immigration as well as through better family policies? How do we relieve our local administrations of their debt burdens, to allow them to provide the public services that are indispensable for a good life for all in a society in transition such as ours? And how must ‘our democracy’ be restructured so that it can be a democracy for all and give its citizens the opportunity to take control of their own lives, rather than having to beg for help from a state whose coffers are empty and will remain so for a long time to come? The time for playing games is over; the situation is serious, and there is an urgent need to grow up.
