After the joint vote by the CDU and AfD in Thuringia, there is great outrage from the SPD, the Greens and the Left. But the furor is nothing more than cheap calculation if the CDU is not shown any solutions. Worse still: In the worst case scenario, it will drive the Merz party further into the arms of those who despise democracy.
The CDU’s insincerity is regrettable. On Thursday in Thuringia, with the approval of its federal chairman Friedrich Merz, it decided to make a fundamental change of course: If the AfD helps its laws gain a majority, that will be acceptable for the CDU in the future. That hasn’t been the case so far, and that’s why this far-reaching shift would have required a comprehensive explanation – regardless of the question of whether the approach is viewed as collaboration with the right-wing extremists or not. But what the other democratic parties are doing with the vote in the Erfurt state parliament is no less problematic: the talk of Friedrich Merz maliciously tearing down a “firewall” is cheap, exaggerated and dangerously counterproductive.
The reduction in property transfer tax jointly decided by the CDU, AfD and FDP is clearly a contentious and desperate attempt by the Christian Democrats to find a way out of the stalemate in the East that is dangerous for them. With the rise of the AfD, the Christian Democrats have lost their previous dominance, although the majority in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia are politically conservative. Instead, in the course of forming a bloc against the AfD, it is now helping the Greens to participate in government in all three federal states – a party that is met with vehement rejection, especially in the rural areas of the new federal states. Anyone who doesn’t want to see the party in government in the east thinks they have to vote for the AfD there.
Being against the AfD is easy from Berlin
The vast majority of East German Christian Democrats have stayed away from the brown dirty children for a long time, despite overlaps in content with the AfD, which also exist. Although this was unpopular with his own voters and not easy to maintain. That kind of attitude deserves respect. Anyone who is a Social Democrat and has their voters in a major West German city has a much easier time saying “Firewall!” to call, as a CDU MP in Saxony. At the same time, the SPD, the Greens and the Left have never explained how the CDU should find its way out of this strategic impasse. Cheap speeches from Berlin about how Germany needs a conservative but steadfastly democratic party are just as cheap as cries of “Nazis out” if the CDU is not given a helping hand in this difficult balancing act. Instead, the SPD and the Greens also have the conflict fueled to mobilize their own camp.
And there lies the problem: the CDU’s normalization of the AfD, which is particularly right-wing extremist in Thuringia, is potentially dangerous and can be criticized. But what else did the CDU have to do? Should she tell the conservative people in the East that their attitude to migration, climate protection and social policy is wrong? That’s the programmatic task of the SPD, the Greens and the Left – and that doesn’t mean they can get majorities in the East. It is a democratic problem that the majority in these federal states do not feel politically represented – neither in the state nor in the federal government. The “firewall” strategy, the distancing, the observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and various investigative media research have all failed to prevent the AfD from being stronger than ever today. But the traffic light parties and the Left can’t think of anything better than to pin the problem solely on the CDU and place the responsibility for a solution on the Christian Democrats.
The CDU is closing its ranks
The CDU’s reaction to the harsh criticism? She closes ranks. Even loud and decisive AfD opponents within the CDU, such as Schleswig-Holstein’s Education Minister Karin Prien, are rushing to Merz’s side: Assuming that the federal party leader is intellectually close to the AfD is “infamous,” says Prien rightly. Bringing the CDU and AfD into line tends to undermine the efforts of upstanding Christian Democrats not to allow formal cooperation with the AfD within their party. This is dangerous because parts of the CDU could show the same reflex that many voters have already succumbed to: “If they all think we are Nazis anyway, we no longer need to keep our distance from the AfD.”
In the end, the ever-increasing polarization of the discourse is the business of the right-wing extremists, who are already triumphing over the failure of the “firewall”. However, a little recognition for the CDU’s dilemma, for its efforts to date and for the fact that traffic light parties are met with decisive rejection by large sections of the population, would help to weld the camp of democratic parties together. Because they are ultimately in the same boat in the struggle with the AfD. Simply rocking the boat does not lead to progress – but to capsizing.