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AfD rally in Schwerin: The majority of supporters are not interested in social policy
Photo: Jens Büttner/dpa
When it comes to how the AfD can be successfully pushed back, many politicians think of expanding social benefits.
“We mustn’t let anyone get away with developing the idea because they are allowed to have right-wing radical ideas because they are feeling bad,” said Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the SPD party conference in December 2023 – insinuating that people should be excluded from the election the partly right-wing extremist party could deter through social policy.
That might be a misconception.
Programmatically, the AfD has largely remained the economically liberal party it started out as.
In almost all respects, she meets exactly the demands that her electorate places on her.
This is particularly critical of social policy measures.
The assessment repeatedly made by politicians that the AfD is structurally a party of the precariat, the left behind and the unemployed is simply wrong.
Closer to the FDP supporters
Although the AfD's electorate, which started as a kind of higher-earning professor's party, has shifted socio-demographically downwards over time, its middle class belly has grown over the years.
The title as a party of average earners who feel at the mercy of people still fits.
This title includes two elements: firstly, the socio-demographics mentioned above.
And secondly, that AfD supporters differ from those of all other parties in that they believe least in being able to largely determine their own lives.
This finding is consistent across surveys.
By the way, they are equally stable and take the extreme position on almost all political issues and values.
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In terms of social policy, the AfD's supporters are most similar to those of the FDP: whether it's distribution policy in general, citizen's benefit or basic child welfare: their view is the most critical, followed by the FDP supporters.
Only when it comes to limiting rent increases is it the other way around: This is one of the rare social policy issues that meets with the majority of AfD supporters' approval - and in which they generally support state intervention.
The group that speaks out against the rent cap is much larger than the Union supporters.
Many AfD voters feel at their mercy
In the same way, people who lean towards right-wing populists think fiscally conservatively when it comes to budget issues.
In response to the Federal Constitutional Court's decision to declare the 2021 supplementary budget invalid, according to an Infratest survey, more than two thirds of them are in favor of savings and only 17 percent are in favor of suspending the debt brake, and only one in twenty are in favor of raising taxes .
Cuts in the welfare state play a central role: when asked specifically, 84 percent said they wanted to save money on citizens' money, and 82 percent wanted to "convert the economy towards more climate friendliness."
As expected, AfD politicians are stylizing the budget crisis as a distribution conflict.
They accuse members of the government parties of being “all […] left-wing dreamers, socialist ideologues who are ruining Germany and its hard-working residents.
They are the lawyers of the non-performers, protectors of the lawbreakers" (Kay Gottschalk, financial policy spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group) or decisively "in favor of the whole world and to the detriment of the Germans" (Peter Boehringer, budget policy spokesman) - both quotes come from debates in the German Bundestag last year.
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The reason for the rejection of social policy positions is probably largely due to the feeling of AfD supporters that, from their point of view, the benefits benefit illegitimate recipients: almost 90 percent rejected the traffic light coalition's citizen's benefit reform on the grounds that increased migration would put a strain on social security funds;
the percentage of those who want immigration policy to be tightened is even higher.
Once again both positions mark the extreme.
In addition, there is the realization that the majority of AfD supporters themselves are neither the recipients of social policy nor do they belong to the precariat, but simply fear that they will be relegated to it due to circumstances that they themselves can hardly influence - or rather: be relegated.
Beyond a decidedly welfare-chauvinistic restructuring of the welfare state, it is questionable how expanding it could cost the AfD percentage points.
So social policy will hardly fix it.
Besides, the phase in which every political rift could be filled with money is over anyway.
On the other hand, an economic policy area in which points could be scored against the AfD is regional policy: Especially in times when established industries are being questioned by the necessary decarbonization, the importance of economic structures that have grown over decades must be taken into account in regional policy.
In the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse, the AfD was once again able to celebrate above-average electoral success in regions under pressure for structural change - a pattern familiar from East Germany.
It is increasingly gaining ground in well-off regions where people fear for their prosperity and are unwilling to bear the costs of transformation policies.
In addition, the associated projects are perceived as excessive - the best example in this category is the heating law, which has failed in many respects.
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It therefore seems more fruitful than trying to win back this electorate through the after-care welfare state to prioritize the scarce resources in favor of a precautionary investment promotion policy.
Ultimately, the regional balance of the German economy is a unique selling point that, unlike in industrialized countries such as the USA, France, Great Britain or Italy, still helps to economically contain tensions between large cities and rural areas.
In the political debate, it could help to present the protagonists from the right-wing fringe, as difficult as that is, and not just exhibit them, as happens all too often in parliaments and on talk show stages.
Last but not least, the AfD is extremely dangerous in terms of economic policy;
It is toying with the Federal Republic of Germany leaving the European Union and/or the Euro, it has no concept of combating the shortage of skilled workers, and it is threatening our free system.
There are also contradictions, such as the demand for a reduction in subsidies contained in the basic program, which is counteracted by the current “immediate agriculture program”, which calls for “doubling the agricultural diesel refund”.
The same applies to free trade, to which the European program is expressly committed on the one hand, while on the other hand the parliamentary group rejects the Mercosur agreement with South America and unanimously voted against the CETA agreement with Canada.
Last but not least, good joint governance should help - not only the Union, but also the AfD benefits from the weakness, the dispute and the antagonism of the traffic light coalition.
In addition, the motto of the Social Democratic election campaign that led Olaf Scholz to the Federal Chancellery could help even with the angry electorate: respect.