Germany appears to be on the brink of going full fascist:
The Alternative for Germany party was officially classified as a “proven Right-wing extremist organisation” by the German domestic intelligence agency on Friday.
The announcement by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) means Germany’s main opposition party is no longer just under suspicion of extremism after an investigation lasting months.
AfD is the most popular, or at worst the second most popular, party in Germany. The German establishment is closing ranks to protect its privileges–in the name of “democracy!”
The AfD is expected to take legal action against the reassessment, which makes it easier to use surveillance methods, including recruiting informants, audio and video recordings, and financial probes. Authorities can monitor party communications with parliamentary authorisation.
These actions are being taken on the basis of a secret report that will not be made public. Nothing says “democracy” like spying on a leading opposition party on the basis of a secret intelligence report. That could never happen here. Could it? No, wait. It actually did happen here.
JD Vance and Marco Rubio criticized this attack on AfD, prompting a response from Germany’s government:
Germany’s foreign ministry replied to Mr Rubio on X, saying that the country had learnt from its Nazi history.
It wrote: “This is democracy. We have learnt from our history that Right-wing extremism needs to be stopped.”
Germans have never been noted for their sense of irony.
For what it’s worth, AfD’s platform is lengthy, detailed and generally what we Americans would consider center-right. AfD is “far right” in European parlance because it opposes mass immigration, especially from Islamic countries, a position held by most Germans.
What the German establishment is trying to do to AfD is appalling. On the other hand, to be fair, they haven’t indicted AfD’s leaders on transparently fabricated, indeed laughable, charges, and tried to put them in prison. So they have a ways to go to catch up with our Democratic Party.
