Column: Political style - Please, strengthen the AfD

Highlights: The Greens are at 16 percent in the poll, in the election they came to 14.8 percent. The SPD, on the other hand, has lost almost six percentage points, from 25.7 to 20.5. The FDP has almost halved its result, from 11.5 to 6 percent. "Issue ownership" has an impact: If the issues of an opposition party are particularly present in the media, this party usually benefits from it in polls and elections. The poles are not "left" and "right"

The FDP distinguishes itself within the coalition through sabotage and diversionary manoeuvres. "Bild" and the CDU/CSU support with populist phrases. Predictably, this benefits another party in particular.

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Lindner (left), Döpfner: Very often it is not about real differences in content, but about the defamation of the party itself

Photo: Jörg Carstensen / dpa

Please answer the following question in your head, quickly and without thinking: Which party do you have the most against the Greens?

Please remember the answer, we'll come back to it later.

If you compare the official final result of the Bundestag election with the latest survey by the Elections Research Group, you can see a fairly clear result. Within the traffic light coalition, only one party has gained slightly: The Greens are at 16 percent in the poll, in the election they came to 14.8 percent. The SPD, on the other hand, has lost almost six percentage points, from 25.7 to 20. And the FDP has almost halved its result, from 11.5 to 6 percent.

Sure, surveys have margins of error, are snapshots, and different institutes come to slightly different results. But on the whole, all the Sunday questions of the past few weeks, whether from Kantar, Forsa, Allensbach, GMS and so on, show similar results: The Greens are between 14 and 17 percent, the FDP between 6 and 8, the SPD between 18 and 20.5.

Uncertainty helps extremists

In percentage terms, however, the biggest winner compared to the election result is reliably the AfD. In the election on September 26, 2021, it received 10.3 percent, now it is between 15 and 17. The AfD is a right-wing radical to right-wing extremist party, with which fortunately no one wants to form a coalition so far. So how is it that more people seem willing to vote for her?

Certainly, there is uncertainty in the country, the climate crisis is indeed here, and slowly even the last one has understood that there will really be a transformation to slow it down and remain internationally competitive. AI, climate, war, everything is changing, everything seems to be going faster and faster. If things go stupidly, the extremists with the supposedly simple solutions benefit from something like this.

At this point, however, a technical term originating from political science comes into play, which was already a topic in this column five years ago: "Issue ownership". The term used by the US political scientist John Petrocik refers to the fact that certain issues can "belong" to certain parties. Climate protection belongs most likely to the Greens, social justice is claimed by the SPD and the Left alike, and so on. "Issue ownership" has an impact: If the issues of an opposition party are particularly present in the media, this party usually benefits from it in polls and elections. This has been empirically shown several times.

The poles are not "left" and "right"

What did you spontaneously think when you asked the opening question? My guess is that they thought that the topic of "rejection of the Greens" was an AfD issue. According to a study by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which is based on surveys conducted in 2019 and 2020, 77 percent of AfD supporters rejected the Greens at the time. This is a peak value that is only surpassed by another constellation: 92 percent of the supporters of the Greens reject the AfD. The study contains these important sentences:

"In all other party supporters, there is this constellation, i.e. sympathy for the AfD and rejection of the Greens, at less than 5 percent."
"The formation of political camps is reflected in the attitudes towards the Greens and the AfD."

None of this is overly surprising, after all, the radical right-wing AfD has been vociferously opposing the image of the enemy "left-green dirty" it has created for many years. The CDU/CSU, in particular the CSU, which is campaigning for elections, is currently making this enemy more and more its own. The CSU, but also parts of the CDU, make mafia jokes about Economics Minister Robert Habeck (including the photoshopped "The Godfather" poster), adopt the anti-green slogans of the "Bild" newspaper ("heating hammer", "heating pillory", "heating espionage", "heating Stasi"), speaks in unison with the AfD with every hint of strategic thinking of "planned economy". Yet no one in the Greens is really questioning the market economy.

The »Heiz-Stasi« already exists – in Bavaria

By the way, the excitement about the collection of municipal heating data, which in turn was fanned up by "Bild", is quite funny: Such an "energy Stasi", such a "snooping state" (according to the Thuringian CDU chairman Mario Voigt ) already exists! Namely, in the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein, which are co-governed by the CDU/CSU – and in the CSU state of Bavaria. In all three countries, climate protection laws already provide for corresponding data collection.

Very often it is not a question of real differences in content, of different views on factual issues, but of defamation of the party itself. About straw man attacks. Friedrich Merz recently accused the Greens on Twitter of harboring "hatred of the market economy, the way we live and work." This can no longer be distinguished in tone from statements from the AfD.

For the CDU/CSU, this may even work halfway, after all, it is currently four to six percentage points more than before the election. However, this could simply be due to the weakening SPD. In any case, the Union still wins less than the AfD. And the Union will most likely one day have to form a coalition with the Greens in the federal government. Trumpesque defamation of political opponents is rarely advisable or even sustainable in a country with proportional representation. Above all, however, it damages the quality of political discourse and, in the end, democracy itself.

Comparison with Putin, party mood

As is well known, the topic of "devaluation of the Green coalition partner" is also socially acceptable within the coalition, thanks to the FDP. Time and again, the Liberals send people forward who use the ridiculous battle term "heating ban" to criticize a law that they themselves had long since approved. A far-right representative of the 6 to 8 percent party recently claimed that "millions of Germans would suddenly be in a party mood if the Greens left the federal government." Wolfgang Kubicki claimed to have discovered parallels between Robert Habeck and Vladimir Putin in March. When, as expected, this caused outrage, Kubicki apologized.

More by Christian Stöcker

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Bundestag election: What a defamation campaign doesA column by Christian Stöcker

Bundestag group leader Dürr is making common cause with "Bild" against the building energy law praised by his party chairman shortly before: "I will defuse Habeck's heating hammer." It's always against the Greens. But not against the real ones with whom you form a coalition, but against a fictitious party that rejects the market economy, wants to introduce a planned economy and ban heating. A party that supposedly single-handedly wants what in reality has already been stipulated in the coalition agreement. Against a straw man party.

And who does that help in the end?

Not surprisingly for people who have understood this by "issue ownership", all this really brings something: the party, whose brand essence includes the angry rejection of the Greens. An obviously divided government, constant disinformation (only to complain afterwards that the voter is now "unsettled") such as the ludicrous claim that German gas heating systems will soon be powered by hydrogen, polemics and fighting words instead of arguments and proposed solutions – this is how protest parties are prepared.

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Christian Stöcker

The Great Acceleration

Publisher: Pantheon

Number of Pages: 384

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Number of Pages: 384

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If you adopt the style of extremists – drama, defamation, disinformation – you drive people into the arms of these extremists. A 2022 study concludes: "We find no evidence that adaptation strategies reduce support for right-wing extremists. If anything, our results suggest that they are leading to more voters moving to the radical right."

Lindner's funny interview sentence

As is well known, the CEO of the Springer publishing house had asked his editor-in-chief at the time: "Please strengthen the FDP." (sic) The AfD doesn't really like Mathias "very much for climate change," according to Döpfner, according to his text message. But with their uninterrupted anti-Green campaign, "Bild" and "Welt" are also contributing to something else: Please, strengthen the AfD.

Funnily enough, FDP leader Christian Lindner, who is known to be married to a Springer journalist for the second time, said in an interview this week: "We will not make the AfD small by adopting its slogans."

He is right: the FDP does not belittle the AfD by adopting its style. It is making itself small – and the AfD bigger.