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AfD Rise in Sachsen-Anhalt

18:59 recording · EN · 3 speakers

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Brief overview

Krumm warns that letting the AfD govern will not wear it out — America shows the damage lasts.

  1. Four years in power do not wear extremists outTrump still polls around 40 percent after one and a half years, and Krumm says the status quo ante does not simply return.
  2. A federal state is enough to do damageMigration, schools, culture, police powers and broadcasting are all state matters, so Sachsen-Anhalt could become the AfD's laboratory.
  3. Compete rather than exclude or banKrumm's American guests reject both the firewall and a ban, and point to Virginia and New Jersey as wins built on a concrete plan.
Executive Summary AI
  • Five weeks before the 6 September state election in Sachsen-Anhalt, around 1.8 million voters face an AfD polling 39 to 41 percent behind 35-year-old top candidate Ulrich Siegmund, while the ruling CDU sits at about 24%, the Linke at 13%, the FDP at 4% and the Greens at just under 5%.1:03
  • Reinhard Krumm of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Washington says the American politicians and campaigners he invited to Germany were astonished that Germans still debate a firewall, because you cannot solve the problem by simply not talking to the other side.3:49
  • He rejects the hope that a term in office would wear the AfD down: Trump's approval is low but still around 40 percent after one and a half years, and a party that rejects the institutions can always ask for four more years rather than hand power back.7:21
  • Krumm reads the AfD's Sachsen-Anhalt manifesto as an echo of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 — indiscriminate cuts to the civil service as under Elon Musk, longer asylum procedures, wider police powers, renamed streets and monuments, and a replacement for public broadcasting — expecting a bumpier but similar run in Germany.12:11
  • His one positive note is that neither a firewall nor a ban is the American answer but competition, and that Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey won by naming the top three problems and showing a short, medium and long-term plan.17:30
Key Quote
“We are making the way for a AfD government on a federal level. Ulrich Sigmund will be the first prime minister”
— Hans Thomas Tilschneider2:18
Key Quote
“They amazed me that we are talking about a firewall.”
— Reinhard Krumm3:49
Key Quote
“The values of Mr. Trump are low, but it's still around 40 percent after the one and a half years.”
— Reinhard Krumm7:21