Make Germany Great Again
It’s hard to deny the similarities between the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party and Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, not that anyone is trying particularly hard. They share the same nationalist ideology (just swap out the nation), weaponize much of the same rhetoric (a little creativity, anyone?), and their leadership is similarly hypocritical (if you’re going to be anti-LGBTQ, having a lesbian party leader requires a bit of mental gymnastics). Yet Trump’s enthusiasm for the AfD’s recent win in Saxony-Anhalt, where they received 43.8% of the vote–the strongest showing for any far-right party in Germany since WWII–may be a little short-sighted. It is exactly the similarities between the two movements that could make an AfD-led Germany a poor ally for Trump’s America. After all, who has America First ever promised to put second?
America’s polarization is largely reflected in the urban-rural divide while Germany’s runs East-West. In both countries, these geographic divides overlap with differences in class, religion, education, and access to economic opportunity. Trump exploited America’s division to appeal to voters who felt ignored by the political establishment. The AfD has done much the same in East Germany, appealing to the German identity of those who have felt left behind after Germany’s reunification–which for many has solidified as resentment towards West Germany. Both campaigns successfully motivated people who had grown disillusioned with the current political systems, with the AfD capturing the votes of 170,000 people in Saxony-Anhalt who had stopped voting.
Further, Trump has been known to scapegoat immigrants for America’s economic and social problems. He has blamed them for rising housing prices, portrayed them as a strain on public resources, and blamed them for violent crimes and drug-trafficking. Germany is home to the largest refugee population in Europe after accepting almost a million Syrian refugees after the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. This has given the AfD the opportunity to borrow directly from Trump’s rhetoric and immigration policy promises–though the AfD has rebranded “deportation” as “remigration.” The AfD’s willingness to scapegoat the immigrant population, specifically those from the Middle East, was on full display in their response to the terrorist attack on Berlin Pride in July, which focused on the perpetrator’s potential migrant status and blamed Germany’s current migration policies for the attack (Abdul Ballout, the attacks’ perpetrator, was born in Germany).
I spent a portion of my summer living in Halle (Saale), the second-largest city in Saxony-Anhalt, where the presence of Syrian refugees is impossible to miss. Many of the businesses in the city’s small downtown area are immigrant-owned. While walking through the area with my Arabic teacher, himself a Syrian refugee, he pointed out entire sections that had once sat empty until refugees opened up shops and restaurants. They hadn’t displaced anyone, they had reinvigorated a failing economy that was trying to support an aging population.
The parallels between the two parties extend into other social issues. Both have used inflammatory language and supported policies that restrict the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2019, for example, the AfD filed a motion to overturn Germany’s legalization of same-sex marriage. This is especially ironic given that one of the AfD’s most prominent national leaders, Alice Weidel, is married to a woman. This cognitive dissonance is almost entirely matched by Trump’s marriage to Melania, an immigrant from Slovenia, as he champions aggressive anti-immigration policies.
A win for the AfD is not necessarily a win for Trump–not despite the similarities between the two movements, but because of them. Both preach national interests above all else, which is a strategy that does not promote or particularly value strong allyship (see Trump’s repeated agitation of long-term allies like Canada). While Trump has spent much of his administration asking NATO signatories to contribute more funding to the alliance as a means of reducing the burden on the U.S., the AfD have repeatedly expressed an unwillingness to comply and have made it clear that they would prefer a stronger relationship with Russia. The AfD has also endorsed China’s Belt and Road Initiative, signaling a willingness to work with one of the U.S.’ greatest competitors and threats.
Who would have thought that Germany First might occasionally conflict with America First?