Rather than chalking up the AfD’s success to the same neo-Nazi sympathies that helped fuel the NPD, however, experts instead see a reflection of the voter disenchantment that is sweeping the West.
“It’s a similar phenomenon as Trump,” said Heinrich Oberreuter, political scientist at the University of Passau. “People are angry at the political establishment, and they feel they are not being taken seriously. Political elites are the targets. Alternative for Germany is an expression, an articulation of this imprecise feeling of dissent.”
“They are a mix of rather moderate conservatives and people more to the right, with some members flirting with being even further right,” said Jürgen Falter, professor of political science at Mainz University. “But together, they are no further to the right than the tea party.”
“The AfD is a party that doesn’t unite society and that doesn’t offer appropriate solutions for the problems but one that stokes prejudice and divides,” Merkel told the German news outlet Bild last week.
Sounds like Germany has a tea party and "Trump" of its own.
= new reply since forum marked as read
