Current moment on right-wing extremism: party politics instead of solidarity

The meeting of radical right-wingers that became known a week ago was a topic in the Bundestag. Representatives of Ampel and Union took the AfD harshly to task. However, the session was not a great moment for Parliament.

The deputy SPD parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese stands at the lectern and addresses the astonished AfD MPs in the room. “I would like to say thank you to the AfD,” explains Wiese. Because by taking part in the secret meeting in Potsdam, the AfDers would have opened the curtain on the brown swamp here on the right. Applause from all other groups. Yelling and jeering from the AfD.

There was a lot of excitement in the plenary hall of the Bundestag today at the current hour. The occasion: The so-called secret meeting in Potsdam in November. At the meeting, right-wing extremists discussed a master plan for so-called remigration with AfD politicians and members of the Union of Values. What is meant is the expulsion of millions of people from Germany, including asylum seekers, foreigners with the right to remain, “unassimilated citizens” and refugee helpers. The media company Correctiv reported on it. Since then, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets, demonstrating for democracy and against right-wing extremism.

AfD managing director Bernd Baumann, to the applause of AfD MPs, considers all of this to be a “devious campaign by politicians and journalists from the run-down left-green class.” Baumann turns the matter around: the traffic light’s lousy poll numbers and the sometimes rapidly increasing approval for his party are the reason to defame his AfD. “Panic is spreading. You can almost smell your fear,” he sneers towards the traffic lights and Union.

Not a great moment

It was not a great moment for parliamentarism, this current hour requested by the traffic light called “debate on the subject of enemies of democracy and expulsion plans”. It started with a visibly and audibly affected SPD leader Lars Klingbeil. He had just called AfD co-chairwoman Alice Weidel a “right-wing extremist”. Bear responsibility in a right-wing extremist party.

Today in the Bundestag, Klingbeil turns to the German population and says: “The AfD wants to drive millions of people out of the center of Germany because they are not white enough for them, because they do not correspond to their ethnic worldview.” And then Klingbeil tries to unite all Democrats in the Bundestag: “We say to all those people who feel threatened by the AfD: We are looking out for you. You are part of this country.”

Applause for this promise from all factions beyond the AfD. But the democratic solidarity is quickly crumbling. At the latest when the parliamentary managing director of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei, takes the podium. Of course, the Christian Democrat also condemns the secret meeting, the deportation plans, and the right-wing ideas. When it comes to the question of why the AfD is so popular, party politician Frei already sounds the part. “80 percent of people in the country believe that this traffic light government is not making good policies for the country.” Now the Union and a few AfD MPs are clapping. The Greens, FDP and SPD no longer move a hand.

“This democracy knows how to defend itself”

Disturbed looks as CSU MP Alexander Hoffmann holds up the traffic lights, saying that their politics are driving people in droves into the arms of the AfD. Many had previously listened in horror to the words of the AfD politician Baumann. “The wind is changing,” he called into the hall with a view to the polls in the country. Something new is coming for Germany. The AfD is coming for Germany.

Nancy Faeser, the Federal Minister of the Interior, shakes her head and is reminded of the secret plans for “remigration” of racial laws and the Wannsee Conference. “The AfD wants ancestry and origin to decide who belongs to Germany and who doesn’t.” Faeser announces resistance and shouts to the applause of the traffic lights: “We won’t allow that. This democracy knows how to defend itself.”

The AfD sees itself – again – as a victim

The co-chair of the AfD, Alice Weidel, tried to take the explosiveness out of the secret Potsdam meeting on Tuesday. It was a private meeting. The AfDler Baumann will later speak of a “debating club”. The AfD sees itself – again – as a victim. Private exchange of opinions is criminalized and the opposition is defamed. This is how Weidel sees things.

Faeser counters and calls out with regard to the alleged private exchange of opinions between like-minded right-wingers: “None of it is harmless. None of it is civil. We must not tolerate any of it.”

Britta Haßelmann, co-leader of the Green Party, goes even further. She counters the AfD by saying that they may have been democratically elected, but they are not democrats. “They are fascists,” she shouts to a predominantly laughing AfD faction. The occasional clap again when CDU MP Amthor accused the traffic light of labeling any criticism of its policies as right-wing extremist. “It cannot be the case that criticism of migration policy is reinterpreted as right-wing, anti-democratic and racist.” According to Amthor, the traffic lights are doing the business of the enemies of democracy. That’s what the current lesson should actually be about.

Thousands on the streets, debate without a chancellor

And thousands of people have been taking to the streets against them for days. “It continues on Friday,” announces Family Minister Lisa Paus. In Frankfurt am Main, Erfurt, in Braunschweig, demos in Dortmund, in Hamburg. More and more clubs and movements are calling for resistance to the right. “Not an inch to the Nazis and the enemies of democracy,” says Green Minister Paus in the Bundestag.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz had just announced on social media that he was grateful that tens of thousands of people were taking to the streets all over Germany against racism, hate speech and for our liberal democracy. In the current hour on the topic of “enemies of democracy and expulsion plans,” the Chancellor’s seat on the government bench remained empty on Thursday.