2024-04-11 04:44:12
After the media company Correctiv’s revelations about a meeting of radical right-wingers, hundreds of thousands took to the streets. Now it’s getting less. Over, over, checked off? Not quite, say experts.
The next few days will continue in Vilsbiburg, Jüterbog and Nienburg an der Weser. People in Buxtehude, Wismar and Roßlau also want to take to the streets again against right-wing extremism. But the huge demonstrations that began around three months ago with the revelations by the media company Correctiv about a meeting of right-wing radicals in Potsdam are visibly slowing down. “It was foreseeable that the protests would not be able to mobilize the masses in the long term,” says Berlin protest researcher Simon Teune. “That’s the logic of protests, that they don’t stay at this level in the long term.”
And now? What was the point of hundreds of thousands of people running in the cold and rain behind banners saying “Stand up for democracy” and shouting “Never again is now”? “The dimension of these protests cannot be ignored,” says Teune. “It is probably the largest protest mobilization since the founding of the Federal Republic.” Unlike the fairy lights of the 1990s, the actions were widespread – in hundreds of smaller towns in the East and West. Even Teune cannot estimate exactly what remains of it. But all of this will not leave Germany unscathed.
AfD is falling in the polls – but it has many new members
The AfD was the number one protest target for many demonstrators. The party was not the organizer of the Potsdam meeting on November 25, 2023 – that was the dentist Gernot Mörig. The AfD did not present its program there – it was the new right-wing Austrian Martin Sellner who, according to his own statements, talked about so-called remigration, i.e. how millions of people with foreign roots should be forced out of Germany. But several AfD members were there, including Roland Hartwig, personal assistant to AfD leader Alice Weidel. Weidel immediately threw Hartwig out. But otherwise the AfD leader went into attack mode. She spoke of “incredible lies” in the reporting and called Correctiv an “auxiliary Stasi” in the service of the government.
Despite or because of this, the AfD has experienced two different trends since January: According to the federal office, the number of party members grew from just under 40,000 at the turn of the year to now more than 43,000. On the other hand, the AfD lost in the polls. After nationwide highs of up to 23 percent, the party has now dropped to 16 percent. It is currently 18 to 20 percent. It is unclear what part the Correctiv research played in this and how much the new competition from the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance is responsible, which was founded at the same time at the beginning of January and is also aimed at AfD voters.
The AfD is unsettled, observes protest researcher Teune. “The protests have meant that the AfD no longer has complete control over the action.” That doesn’t mean that people are turning away from the AfD in droves. “But anyone who is not ideologically convinced could think again after the protests and stay at home in the elections instead of voting for the AfD.”
The green, educated middle
The fact that people took to the streets against the right was praised not only by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but also by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “This democratic center has achieved something with the demonstrations,” said Steinmeier in mid-February. “She banished indifference. She gave courage. We breathe more freely again.” And he combined this with an appeal: “Business, work, culture, civil society, clubs and associations, everyone is in demand. We need the Democrats to join forces. Not just today, but 365 days a year.”
There is now initial data on who from the “democratic center” took to the streets. Researchers at the University of Konstanz surveyed 500 participants in three demonstrations in the southwest, namely in Konstanz, Singen and Radolfzell. At least there: A majority (53 percent) classified themselves as middle class and a third as upper middle class. Six out of ten respondents had a university degree, 20 percent had at least a high school diploma. This results in “a demographic bias in favor of a more highly educated section of the population at the upper end of the middle class,” conclude the authors Marco Bitschnau and Sebastian Koos.
61 percent of those surveyed voted for Alliance 90/The Greens in the previous federal election, 18 percent for the SPD and 8 percent for the CDU. But they weren’t people who constantly demonstrate anyway: two thirds of those surveyed had never taken part in a rally with a similar content. Many had been worried about the strength of the AfD for a long time – the Correctiv research into the Potsdam meeting was the “final straw,” the study says.