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Demo against right-wing extremism in Hamburg: When other parties adopt the themes of populist parties, it benefits the latter
Photo: Stephan Wallocha / IMAGO / epd
Populist parties and politicians are successful in turbulent times like these for one reason in particular: they offer seemingly simple answers to complex questions.
There are many of them, from demographic change to the future of the global economic order to the mother of all problems, the climate and species crisis.
The answer from right-wing populists is always the same: others are to blame.
The immigrants, the “globalists” (read: the Jewish world conspiracy).
Everyone except the populists themselves.
"Especially in the imagination of right-wing populists, the elites enter into an unholy alliance with parasitic underclasses who are also not part of the true people," has written populism expert Jan-Werner Müller, who teaches at Princeton.
The invented dichotomy
So populism is always based on a division, on dichotomies.
There is no more simplification.
The fact that Germany is not falling apart into two parts is currently evident everywhere on the streets: people of various political orientations, now around 200,000, are demonstrating against the neo-fascists across the country.
In an interesting article a few years ago, two economists diagnosed a structural similarity between neoliberalism and populism: "Both assume a divided world that consists of two opposite parts." In the case of populism, these are two parts of one society, while "neoliberal market fundamentalists see the “We take the position that there are only two opposing economic and social orders.”
We are currently observing both in Germany, and, as far as economic arguments are concerned, not only in the AfD (which represents radical neoliberal positions when it comes to the economy).
This can be seen in the term "planned economy" that is now common among the Union and FDP for any form of regulation that does not suit them or their clientele.
In the USA, the Tea Party, financed by billionaires, and its successors in the Republican Party have been doing this for around 15 years: there, even universal health insurance is considered by many to be “socialism”.
“Old parties” and “left-green”
The AfD marked the simulated division of the political landscape very early on with two terms: “old parties” and “left-green”.
That means: us against them.
The success of this populist simplification can be seen in the fact that the phrase “left-green” has long been occasionally heard from the FDP and CDU/CSU.
Parts of the CDU/CSU and FDP still believe in the existence of a “bourgeois camp” to which they themselves belong.
But who should face this “bourgeois camp”?
The working class?
And which camp do AfD voters belong to?
The actual composition of the electorate of the Greens, SPD and Left also makes this dichotomy absurd: Of course, all of these parties have many “bourgeois” voters.
Simple dichotomies are always wrong in a complex world.
Measure one
to reduce the size of the AfD is therefore:
All democratic parties must consistently resist misleading simplifications and divisions.
Populists win when others adopt their positions and interpretations of the world.
This doesn't just apply to crude attacks on political competition.
The seemingly simple answer from right-wing populists is: “Immigrants are the problem.”
This was impressively illustrated by Correctiv's research into the depopulation plans of German right-wing extremists this week.
The deportation fantasies, which are treated as utopia in these circles, are not only inhumane, but also irrational: a quarter of the German population has a migration background.
If the right-wing extremists prevail with their racist and ethnic ideas, this country would collapse.
Racism is not a justifiable position, it is emotional and irrational.
There never was, can and never will be an “Aryan” Germany.
Measure two
is therefore:
All democratic parties must always brand racist, i.e. irrational, positions and arguments as such and avoid them themselves.
There is a dark tradition in the Union in this regard (“Children instead of Indians”, Roland Koch's campaigns against young people with a migrant background).
And today?
One thinks of Friedrich Merz's talk of the "little pashas";
of refugees who supposedly take away dentist appointments from Germans;
to Markus Söder's talk of “asylum tourism”.
It has been read several times in this column, but it is too important to leave out here: It has been empirically proven many times that adopting populist positions only benefits populists: adaptation strategies do not reduce support for right-wing radicals.
What helps against this is a "cordon sanitaire", as can often be read in specialist literature, which roughly corresponds to the German term "fire wall".
Friedrich Merz, Markus Söder and others who are currently speaking in the Union (and parts of the FDP) obviously do not want to accept this.
Merz claimed this week that the traffic light coalition was waging a "campaign" against farmers and that right-wing radicals had not taken part in the tractor protests.
This is demonstrably false, and Merz must be clear about that.
That is the sound and style of the AfD.
Who owns anti-immigrant sentiment?
When other parties adopt the themes of populist parties, it benefits the latter.
The technical term for this is “issue ownership”.
The topics “rejection of migration and immigrants” and “hatred of the Greens” are core issues for the AfD.
It is therefore a serious mistake that Hendrik Wüst, the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, clearly differentiates himself from the AfD, but not from its issues.
Wüst wants an “alliance of the middle,” not against the AfD, but against migration.
So he suggests that the AfD sets the issues for the “center”.
It will not work.
The Union, namely people like Jens Spahn, Markus Söder and Friedrich Merz, have intentionally made the issue of migration as big as it is right now.
The Union carries out agenda setting in favor of the AfD.
This is a major mistake.
“Media attention to issues that belong to a party increases support for the issue owners,” says an empirical study from 2016.
Measure three
is therefore:
All democratic parties must stop placing the AfD's issues at the center.
This is particularly true for the constant problematization of migration.
By the way, that doesn't mean that you can't deal with issues such as integration, supporting municipalities or strengthening the education system.
But not on the level of “little pashas” and “asylum tourism”.
How should we counter the AfD then?
By exposing it for what it is: a collection of largely racist charlatans who are repeatedly caught lying and who, once in power, would massively harm their own electorate.
For example, there should be a lot more talk about the AfD's economic policy delusions.
But also about the true consequences of their irrational racism.
An interesting field experiment that took place in Italy in 2020 found that an effective way to combat populist voting behavior (the context was a referendum on the number of parliamentary representatives) is to attack the credibility of populists.
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The “Correctiv” report was a good example: Here you could experience real right-wing extremists among themselves and their true wishes, so to speak.
Although such positions have been formulated publicly in abstract terms by the AfD and others for a long time, this very personal experience has apparently not only triggered disgust among many people - and in business - but also a motivation to oppose these people.
Measure four
is therefore:
Instead of adopting their issues, all democratic parties must focus on the AfD's lack of credibility and hypocrisy, lies and charlatanry.
Measure five
is not a task just for individual parties, but for society as a whole, for associations, clubs, churches and each and every individual:
It must be made clear at every opportunity that approval of the positions of the AfD and other right-wing extremists is too social Ostracism leads.
It must be unpleasant again to be caught spreading right-wing extremist ideas.
What is currently happening in German city centers shows that this can be successful – if the democratic parties also go along with it.