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German leaders enabled the rise of a populist party. Now those leaders cling to power by branding their challengers as extreme.
Nothing thrills journalists more than throwing around the term far right. In addition, they relish each chance to describe the far right as being “on the march.” That is the gift that headline writers have been granted again this week with the victory of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which finished in first place in an election in the eastern region Saxony-Anhalt. The party won almost 44 percent of the vote, which, as most of the English-language media have pointed out, gives a “far-right party” the first opportunity to govern a state in Germany since the end of World War II.
If all this were true, it would be a cause of great concern. But is it?
For people concerned with the future of Europe, the AfD is a vital as well as a special case. As such, it requires special attention. Unfortunately, most of the people writing about the party from outside Germany are intent on performing this feat of political analysis with all the care of a brain surgeon attempting to operate while wearing boxing gloves.
To start with, it is not the case that the AfD is a far-right party. Which is not to say that it does not have people within it who could be described as far right, or that it could not become such a party in the future.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Free Press
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Douglas Murray is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal.