AfD: Support from the US II

Foreign policy often serves only to generate attention at home. This is currently demonstrated by the AfD with its various trips to the US (we reported on this in our newsletter #10). The trip by Beatrix von Storch and Joachim Paul (member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament and unsuccessful mayoral candidate in Ludwigshafen) has now also been covered by tagesschau.de in an article that primarily tracked the media spin that sought to turn Paul's exclusion from the mayoral election into a scandal of global proportions.

Although the election committee's decision to exclude Paul on grounds of dubious constitutional loyalty has so far been upheld in court, prominent AfD figures and AfD-affiliated influencers claim that the politician is being persecuted for his political opinions and that Germany is no longer a democracy (e.g., Martin Sellner). Regardless of the truthfulness of many of these statements, it is clear what the international connections to the Trump administration are serving in this case: the global reach of the US right wing is pushing the AfD's domestic political agenda and is intended to put pressure on the German judiciary and administration. How convenient that the employee of the radical right media outlet NIUS can conduct his interviews directly at the meetings on site.

Redaction: Ulli Jentsch