Young Germans are less right-wing and the AfD is primarily an East German phenomenon? Hesse and Bavaria show what's wrong with that. In both countries, the party has just set records.
The AfD is stirring up fears and tapping into new target groups. In doing so, it is benefiting from a growing sense of insecurity among the population. And of an extremely successful strategy, which is particularly visible on TikTok.
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Alice Weidel is one of the AfD's reach guarantors on TikTok
Photograph:
LIESA JOHANNSSEN/REUTERS
How did the AfD make it to first place there? This is explained in this episode by extremism researcher Julia Ebner from the University of Oxford. On TikTok, the AfD reaches a target group "that may not want to deal with the party manifestos in more detail, but that actually also has the feeling that there is a gap in representation in politics."
The other parties rarely achieve comparable reach successes. They can't win a race with the AfD for the most radical message: "You can see that it's never enough," says SPIEGEL editor Ann-Katrin Müller. Even when the traffic light coalition significantly tightens its migration policy or CDU leader Friedrich Merz blasphemes about rejected asylum seekers, the AfD's messages are always more radical. Voters usually opt for the original.
But what helps then? Here's what we'll discuss in this episode:
"Stimmenfang" is SPIEGEL's political podcast. For all those who want to understand Germany better. Marius Mestermann discusses the political topic of the week with his guests. New every Thursday.
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