SZ Podcast “On the Point” – News from August 9th, 2023 – Politics

Björn Höcke, head of the Thuringian AfD and its parliamentary group, wants to move into the government headquarters in Erfurt in the event of an election victory. He said that on Wednesday in the MDR summer interview. In polls, the AfD is at 34 percent a year before the state elections. But the AfD in Thuringia is classified as right-wing extremist by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And she is completely isolated in parliament, all other state parliament parties reject an alliance with her.

But because you have to treat all parties equally, according to the MDR, Höcke is also given half an hour of broadcasting time. The moderator tries to ask him questions about concrete measures, for example in school politics. But Höcke answers almost exclusively at the meta level: “Healthy societies have healthy schools.” He railed against the federal government’s family policy, against immigration, and he wants to free Germany and Thuringia from “ideological projects” – by which he means inclusion and gender politics. Höcke unashamedly uses historically charged terms such as “Gleichschalt”, he speaks of “old parties” and “client parties”. It’s not going to be a real conversation.

“This is completely normal AfD talk, which is intended to devalue the established parties,” says Roland Preuss, editor in the Berlin SZ parliamentary office. With the worldview that the AfD conveys, they also present themselves as “victims of established media”.

The interview with the sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer about the AfD can be found here.

The report about the think tank for fighting lies and hate on the internet here.

Other news: Non-binding Amazon summit, boat accident near Lampedusa, eleven dead in fire in Alsace

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