The Professor’s Party Comes of Age: What the AfD Can Teach Irish Populism

The European political arena is still ringing with Sunday’s not-so-surprising triumph for Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in two regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony that placed them comfortably ahead of Berlin’s ruling green-left coalition.

Irish press coverage scarcely goes deeper than platitudes about the ‘rise of the far right’ or narratives about the socio-economically left behind, but with the populist party coming first in the heartland of Thuringia and effectively neck and neck with Merkel’s CDU in Saxony, there is much more to think about.

After 2014, German, and indeed European, politics now occurs in the shadow of the migrant crisis with a remarkably radical platform of remigration, anti-green talking points along with peace overtures on Ukraine dealing an electoral blow to the Scholz coalition.

Adding salt in the wounds for the Berlin establishment is that Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW failed to eat in the nationalist surge but instead gobbled into a moribund German Communist Party Die Linke. The AfD in Thuringia is especially known for its radical stances, compounding the regime’s misery.

Just over a decade since Alexander Gauland, Bernd Lucke and other renegade academics established the AfD in opposition to the eurozone crisis, it is not far-fetched to assume that Germany could be just one botched centre right coalition government away from a populist administration.

The golden era of German liberalism is facing death by a thousand stab wounds as the country’s centuries old industrial engine enters self-imposed collapse-mode.

Quite a distance ahead of Ireland and our populist offerings, the AfD offers examples of what to do and what to avoid for an inchoate Irish right-wing movement. 

Start Soft, End Strong

This side of the Nuremberg trials, presenting a positive case for German nationalism is a complex task. Post-war German right-wing politics is replete with dead-end neo-fascist groups in existence more as containment zones rather than anything with political potential. The NPD being notorious amongst them.

Initially derided as a run-of-the-mill libertarian party in the vein of UKIP benefitting from a deteriorating migration situation, a decentralised party network as well as savvy entryism beginning from 2014 by east German radicals, the AfD is a full-fledged nationalist party dragging the topic of remigration into the mainstream.

An Irish equivalent would be if Renua or the Progressive Democrats veered to the hard right upon getting an electoral foothold, even if the AfD is institutionally handicapped by a reformist Berlin leadership and grassroots radicals.

Life Beyond Street Movements

The Pegida craze of 2014 seeded the AfD that we know today. Located at the tailend of the counter jihad years and post-2014 electoral populism, similar to our own ‘Get them Out’ protests, these enabled the German Right to garner the confidence to enter the mainstream.

The key aspect to acknowledge with Pegida and our own anti-asylum movements is that while a short term sugar rush, serious political projects have to move beyond continuous outdoor demonstrations into grassroots and institutional politics.

The PEGIDA movement gradually faded into petty infighting and unsightly lumpenprole behaviour before entirely disappearing. Whether or not our own protest movement meets a similar fate, it’s important that more pragmatic electoral vehicles grow from it sooner rather than later. The lasting effect of the Pegida era was that it mobilised activist cadres and political operators precisely at the time populism was needed.

This type of organic expression of nationalist feeling is by its nature a symptom of a lack of a viable political alternative and Irish nationalists would do well to envision a world beyond these protests.

Finding Your Junker Class

All European populist parties come down ultimately to a select administrative class of a few dozen individuals. For all the street-level energy in Ireland of the last 18 months that ideological and activist core has yet to be fully formed though that is quickly changing.

The AfD with its approachable background was able to attract middle-class radicals and educational elites previously aligned with the centre right and channel them towards anti-system politics.

The calibre of people running GAA clubs, trade union meetings or chairing community events are the boiler room of any nationalist movement – deally working in sync with an ideological vanguard.

In Ireland the social equivalent to the professors, academics and military men who left the CDU for the AfD would be those who staff what is best described as the remnants of the old Christian Democratic order (teachers, Catholic doctors, civil servants).

Creating an environment whereby conservative to radical leaning professionals and/or normal workers can join a radical party or movement is a key battleground for us, with the antics of PR-toxic barmy individuals (who will remain nameless) heavily tipping the odds against our favour if we allow them to go unchecked.

Don’t Mention the War (No Seriously Don’t)

Literally don’t quote Hitler or publicly threaten to overthrow the existing democratic order and be ready to ruthlessly purge/ marginalise those who think it is a good idea to do so.

Ironically, stringent hate speech laws codified into the German constitution have trimmed the herd within the German Right as Ireland’s deals with waves of politically demented boomers running into political traffic.

Zoomer Radicalism Is Your Friend

The past two decades of right-wing politics on the Continent has seen a false dichotomy build up between radicalism and reformism. By becoming more overtly ethno-nationalist simultaneous to breaking out of the dreaded cordon sanitare the AfD has defied the claims.

The winning over of the German youth through a mixture of zoomer irony, TikTok and well presented radicalism the AfD have confounded the establishment’s expectations.

A possible deficiency in the Irish Right as it exists now is the lack of many youth outlets, with the risk that long term activity is dictated by an older cohort of very often unprofessional boomers.

It’s not 2011 anymore and overtly nationalist talking points need not be sanitised to be sold with swathes of the under 30s ready and waiting for a viable electoral outlet if packaged on social media correctly.

The Atlantic and You

The final hurdle to any prospective AfD administration is the manner it handles itself with the European Commission and more importantly Washington.

Noted as taking a confrontational approach to what many AfDers view as NATO occupation l, it is unlikely that the nationalist party would be allowed to take power of a European powerhouse with such an anti-atlanticist stance. This is the crux of the issue in a way, however, if you want to challenge the establishment you have to be a challenge to the establishment.

That being said, a post-bellum Ukraine and a second Trump administration could change the game in Germany and across Europe.

On the other end of the spectrum the Meloni administration shows the benefits and pitfalls for populists accommodating itself within an existing liberal framework in hopes of solidifying a nation’s position once right-wingers are in power.

The Irish movement is years away from such questions, but these long term geopolitical orientations, specifically how to deal with the transatlantic relationship, are conundrums to be grappled with for anyone looking to enter power.