Extreme Right | The AfD eats chalk

It's quite possible that a chalk shortage will soon be identified in German specialist retailers. This would be due to large orders from the AfD. At a closed meeting, the AfD parliamentary group's leadership issued a few rules of conduct intended to give the far-right party a less repellent image in the Bundestag. Members of parliament are expected to act moderately, whatever that may mean. Polarizing racist and nationalist terms like remigration and dominant culture were removed from the latest position paper. Furthermore, rules for the "prevention of bribery" were introduced.

What this is all about is clear: The largely right-wing extremist party, which is clearly the second-strongest force in polls after the CDU/CSU and occasionally comes close to it, wants to present itself as more appealing to the masses and suitable for government. Like the wolf in Grimm's fairy tales, the AfD wants to soften the vote. But no one should be fooled by this. The party's entire political model is based on division, exclusion, provocation, and the transgression of norms of democracy and decency. Staff are recruited from the right-wing extremist scene; there is a lot of abuse in the Bundestag—with a record number of reprimands from the presidium—and agitation on social media. Nothing will change the repulsiveness of this party if its leading figures assume the role of polite uncles in the future.

Party and parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel immediately demonstrated the value of any rules of etiquette. She said the SPD party conference's decision to prepare proceedings to ban the AfD reminded her of Hitler's rise to power. "That's exactly what happened in 1933," when Hitler was the first to ban other parties, Weidel said. Now she has already demonstrated her historical expertise when she claimed during the federal election campaign that Hitler was a communist. To paraphrase Max Liebermann's quip on the occasion of Hitler's rise to power: The AfD can't eat as much chalk as it wants to complain.