Germans under 25 gave the AfD 16% of their vote in the European elections, with particular support in the east
Paul Friedrich, 16, could not wait to cast his first ballot and had no doubt which German party had earned his support in the watershed European elections.
“Correct, I voted AfD,” he said proudly in the bustle of the commuter railway station in Brandenburg an der Havel, an hour from central Berlin.
The far-right Alternative für Deutschland made particularly stunning gains on Sunday among young voters. For the first time in a national poll, 16- and 17-year-olds could cast their ballots – a reform that had been strongly backed by left-leaning parties.
After overwhelmingly supporting the Greens five years ago, Germans under 25 gave the AfD 16% of their vote – an 11-point rise – helping place the party second behind the opposition CDU-CSU conservatives and well ahead of the Social Democrats of the chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
The AfD tapped deep wells of support in the former communist east, winning in every state including Brandenburg, where it claimed 27.5% of the vote.
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And his concerns echo those of many teenagers and twentysomethings in town: fears of war spreading in Europe, inflation, economic decline, “unchecked” immigration and, above all, violent crime, which they say is rampant when they use public transport or hang out in public spaces at night.
Reactionary policies are always a bad attempt at solving the problem and it’s hard for many folks to see that, much less deeply understand it enough to guide their decisions. People see something they don’t and they want it gone, not to study it to banish it.
It’s part of the appeal for right wing parties. Authoritarians use force to squash the problem and it feels good to see toxic equivalency meted out to those who hurt us. The goal isn’t to stop crime from happening, it’s to cause crime to know what it is up against and that will stop most petty crime. But organized crime will rise up and become a second government to those who wanted strength over study, brawn over brains.
Let them live in their cage. They made it, let them enjoy the fruits of their labor.