Why the AfD Wins

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• Hacker News
• as additional context regarding the topic:

  "The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been officially classified as a far-right extremist party by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV)."

  "This classification is based on several factors:

  Xenophobic Rhetoric: The AfD has consistently used language that disparages immigrants and minority groups.

  Islamophobic Statements: The party has made numerous claims that portray Islam and Muslims as threats to German society.

  Connections to Far-Right Movements: The AfD has been linked to various extremist groups and ideologies, raising concerns about its influence on democratic values."

  - Björn Höcke Used a banned Nazi slogan and criticized Germany's Holocaust memorial.

  - Alexander Gauland Trivialized Nazi crimes by comparing them to "bird poop" in history.

  - Maximilian Krah Suggested that SS members were not automatically criminals

  that doesn't directly explain why they won but for sure explains for which reason people voted them.

  by giov4
• We can have billionaires, or we can have democracy. We cannot have both, because the billionaires have declared war on democracy. We have to imagine a world without billionaires because the billionaires are imagining a world without us. --Gil Duran, author of The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
  by asmodeuslucifer
• If a right wing party can win in Germany, that’s a sign the left wing and centrist parties completely sucked and ignored voter concerns for too long. Let’s start there.
  by gjsman-1000
• Because all other parties both want more immigration and two do their best to ignore the crime statistics by the immigrants. There is also the high percentage of immigrants who require public assistance coupled with a reluctance to assimilate definitely drives people to make these choices.
  by mc32
• The left party in Germany is basically organising anti-Semitic rallies and call for the eradication of Israel which is quite problematic given the history of Germany.
  by sajithdilshan
• Because people want Nord Stream, fewer immigrants, more apartments, nuclear energy and no forced state TV payments.

  Weidel is of course living the woke WEF lifestyle in Switzerland with her Sri Lankan lesbian partner and was at Goldman Sachs.

  So a betrayal of the voters, Meloni or Trump style is very likely if the AfD should manage to have the federal majority.

  by qw12j
• Extremely high budget for ads and posters, social media campaigns, etc., all paid from foreign countries under dubious circumstances by straw men. It's all copy & paste across EU countries, far-right parties even copy the slogans they put on their posters, they just exchange the country name.
  by 13415
• Is this what you truly believe?
  by ballon_monkey
• Yep. Like they say, follow the (foreign) money.
  by fatcatsbestcats
• yes, but also there's a real obvious unserved/underserved voting bloc

  https://www.slowboring.com/p/a-boring-theory-of-the-populist...

  by pas
• That's kinda implying that they only got elected because they had money and a good campaign instead of addressing issues that are not addresses in an effective way by the other parties.

  This is probably the case of both things being true at the same time.

  by dewey
• Congratulations to democratically elected leaders!
  by karol
• Hitler was also put in power legally
  by oulipo
• This is a question for the AI chatbots to answer.
  by rvz
• The main reason AfD won the election is the incompetence and arrogance of all other political parties.

  Since Covid times every other political parties in Germany seems to be under the impression that they are somehow holier and knows what is best for the people and what people wants doesn’t matter and the politicians decide what people deserves. The pinnacle of this is the current Chancellor of Germany which is arrogant, completely broke his election promises and keep on pushing the voters that are in the centre right or centre left towards the respective extremism.

  Another important factor is the current German economy. When the economy was somewhat in good shape after Merkle’s government people mainly voted for the Greens whose main agenda is climate change back in 2021 because people had good living standards and they could afford to focus on solving world problems. But the current economy is imploding and a lot of people are losing their well paid jobs and no other party seems to be even talking about it except for AfD and somehow the current government is under the delusion that economy is doing far better than they have thought. This again is a reason for a lot of people to vote for AfD.

  Last but not least is the Islamic extreme/terrorist attacks that happened past years. There have been multiple incidents of cars been driven into crowd including in Christmas markets and latest attack in the Gay pride in Berlin this year. That has been used by AfD to emphasise the incompetence of the current and previous governments to ensure the internal security of the country to gain even more votes

  by sajithdilshan
• The Economy is not imploding. While 2025 was a lost year for growth Germany‘s GDP is consistently growing since q4 2025 - despite a very interesting geopolitical situation. It is part of the problem that every media outlet from progressive to far-right paints the economical situation in the worst light. What is decreasing are nominal wages at least for parts of the population which is a pure allocation problem. Sure the automobile sector has structural problems and the chemical industry needs cheaper energy but Germany is still an economical powerhouse even without a strong domestic ICT industry, which is, in comparison, the most important driver of growth in the US. During the pandemic something went terribly wrong and public institutions seem to be incredibly weak in the moment. Don’t be fooled though, the problems are solvable, the question is how to find political majorities for doing so. The tale of the weak economy is taken as a reason to cut down welfare and thus the CDU/CSU have a vested interest in writing down the economy. This policy will soon lead to even more people turning to political extremism and the CDU is going to suffer most from this development. On the other hand, with the AfD in charge in Sachsen-Anhalt, a small part of Germany with only 1.7 million voters, France, which has its own political problems, is already getting wary of chancellor Merz's plan to build the largest conventional military forces in Europe. Maybe this mechanism explains why so many Germans in the pacifist movement are so compatible to so called nationalists (who also want to withdraw from helping Ukraine against Putin). The biggest irony is that Germany is gaining so much through the Euro currency (most of the exported goods stay within the EU) and a German national currency, which the AfD wants to implement, would appreciate so hard and quickly that exports would go down enormously. That would easily cripple GDP by 10% or more leading to substantial problems.
  by slow_typist
• I don't know why this happens, but I would caution against assigning rationality to the voters.

  In Italy voters have been electing one party after the other without consistency for the last several elections, which I would use as a point to general desperation and not feeling represented.

  I would like to know how many other countries have a similar attitude, like "let's try these ones, we have not voted them yet so maybe this time it's better"

  by Luker88