Just a hair over a week ago – ten days to be exact – an official arm of the German government declared the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party – now polling as Germany’s most popular party in the country – a ‘right-wing extremist’ group.
Yeah, right – so big deal, no? I mean, they’ve been calling them that forever.
Actually, it was a big deal. It made the epithet an official label, opening the party and every last one of its members to constant, sanctioned (instead of surreptitious) government surveillance. It was also the first necessary step in the process of banning the party from politics/existence completely.
In other words, a patently obvious scheme to remove the competition.
People on the ground there believe the surging popularity of AfD panicked the government into the authoritarian move to save their own butts.
This morning, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) officially reclassified Alternative für Deutschland as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organisation. The BfV is Germany’s primary domestic intelligence agency; it is subject to the Ministry of the Interior and tasked, among other things, with policing the democratic respectability of ordinary Germans and their political parties. The upgraded AfD classification is supported by an extensive and totally secret 1,100-page assessment of AfD activities and beliefs, which BfV analysts have been preparing since last year.
Everybody expected the BfV to do this. Leading Social Democrats in particular have been urging the BfV to release their new assessment for months. They see it as a political justification for initiating ban proceedings against the party. As I wrote last week, it is now likely that the new CDU/SPD government, or the new Bundestag, or both, will ask the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe to weigh an AfD prohibition. This new assessment matters mostly because it is the first concrete move in that direction.
The only thing that is really surprising about this news, is the timing: I and everybody else expected the BfV to wait until the CDU and the SPD form a new government and appoint a new Interior Minister. Instead, the sitting Interior Minister Nancy Faeser appears to have forced this assessment through in the final four days of her tenure. This, and not AfD poll numbers (as some have speculated), is the reason this is happening now.
Unsurprisingly, that very same day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance both brutally tore into the still-as-yet-unformed German government for the move.
What happened to all your BS about democracy, clowns?
Rubio flat-out told them to turn the ship around, and his ‘tyranny in disguise‘ comment really struck a nerve.
The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it.
The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt—not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment. https://t.co/Un6suHtSNJ
— JD Vance (@JDVance) May 2, 2025
…What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.
Germany should reverse course.
You know Friedrich Merz, Christian Democrat (CDU) leader, was just itching to shoot his mouth off at the US officials, but he was in a bit of a bug tussle himself at that moment as he still hadn’t been officially voted in as chancellor. And even that didn’t go quite the Old Magoo master’s way, after all of the backstabbing he’d done from the election forward.
Europe was literally shocked as Merz became the first designated chancellor in German history to lose their first round coronation vote, with his own party members voting against him.
It was a literal nail-biter whether the slimy toad could pull off a victory in a second round, and he only did so by cozying up to the Communists who pulled him across the finish line.
Whoever shivved the presumptive heir to the chancellor’s throne on that first ballot sent a yuge signal to all of Europe that things were not right in Berlin and weren’t going to be even after Merz squeaked by on the second attempt.
…These events were far more than a passing curiosity. As we’ll see, they almost certainly arise from a conspiracy within Merz’s own coalition – a conspiracy that struck again after Tuesday’s vote and that in the worst-case scenario may persist for the entire government.
The response to these conspirators was moreover highly intriguing. The SPD used the debacle to further humiliate the Union parties, while Alternative für Deutschland extended Merz surprising (and little-noticed) backhanded support, rather than exploiting an obvious opportunity to harm his candidacy.
We can only speculate about their reasons. What we need not speculate about, is the significance of this storm in a teacup. This was an early sign of serious instability within the not-so-grand coalition, and a hint at the forces that will push the Union parties further left and further away from their own voters in the months and years to come.
Obviously with his head on a swivel now, looking constantly behind him, Merz felt it incumbent upon himself to act tough quickly, and so he decided to throw a little shade at the United States over their chiding on AfD’s behalf.
German leader to Trump team: Stay out of our politics https://t.co/Xarwaq6Wqz
— POLITICO (@politico) May 7, 2025
‘None of your damn business what we do here, puny Yanks. So piss off,’ is basically what the new chancellor said.
Germany’s new conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he would urge Trump administration officials to stop meddling in German politics.
“I did not interfere in the American election campaign and take sides for one or the other,” Merz told public broadcaster ZDF in a TV interview. “I would like to encourage and exhort the American government to leave German domestic politics to Germany and to largely stay out of these partisan considerations.”
After Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency classified the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a “proven” extremist organization last week, the party received backing from some of the highest-ranking members of Trump’s Cabinet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who referred to the decision on X as “tyranny in disguise.”
…Asked whether he would deal with Trump by using charm or straight talk, Merz said he would “openly represent” German and European positions.
“Together, we are even bigger than the U.S.,” Merz said, speaking of the European Union. “The number of consumers here is greater than in America and Canada combined. So, we have something to offer here. We can do something. We are united, to a large extent anyway, and that will be my message to the American government.”
Americans kept up the pressure.
I asked @DNIGabbard to ensure that no American intelligence agencies cooperate with German authorities involved in surveiling domestic political opponents.
These police state tactics are more suited for Russia or Communist China, not Western Europe’s largest country.…
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) May 7, 2025
And the Germans just kept saying, ‘suck a stone’ as far as what makes an extremist and extremist worth suspending all their civil rights for.
German government refuses to publish secret ‘proof’ that AfD is an extremist organisation
Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has determined that the opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is “definitely” an extremist organization or, more precisely, an organisation of the “far-right”. But where is the proof? In announcing the finding on May 2, outgoing Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser claimed it is contained in a 1,100-page report, citing evidence from party officials and members, and that shows, more specifically, that the party employs a discriminatory, “ethnic” conception of German nationhood.
But a first problem with this is that the 1,100-page report has been kept secret. It appears to have somehow been “leaked”, or simply provided, to selected media, which have cited what are said to be examples from it. But (a) a few, possibly cherry-picked, examples are not necessarily representative, and (b) the cited examples hardly represent flagrant examples of “ethnic” racism in any case.
The government had planned on the usual suspects being out in force this past weekend making the anti-AfDS point for them, but something sort of remarkable happened on the way to the protests – no one showed up, at least not the crowds they’ve been accustomed to when they order them up.
A view of the strategic situation:
CxU: would benefit from cooperation with AfD, but barring that, a ban might prove beneficial. Many of their voters however harbour AfD sympathies, so they have to be delicate here.
Left parties: would not benefit from a ban, they need the…
— eugyppius (@eugyppius1) May 12, 2025
…Left parties: would not benefit from a ban, they need the firewall to split the right. It makes sense that as a ban looms, CxU starts to lean into it, and the left begins to put on the brakes.
They need a ban to always be under discussion but never quite happening. This props [sic] up firewall but causes unstable unpredictable situation.
In an interesting aside on the protestors, there is speculation that, with Rubio and DOGE’s gutting of USAID, guess who might not have the funds to pay the street people on weekends for these mass demonstrations anymore?
Yup. The NGOs who organize these things are looking at very lean checkbooks at the moment, as far as money from the States goes, and there is heightened scrutiny on Brussels about who and what they’ve been funneling billions to NGOs for over the past decade.
It could get really tough to pull a paid crowd.
And then, suddenly yesterday, all the air came out of the Merz bluster balloon.
HUGE WIN 🏆 🏆🏆 Credit to @SecRubio, @DNIGabbard, @SenTomCotton and others from US statecraft for successfully getting Germany to halt its new domestic spying program on AfD https://t.co/Vw5aiehyDG
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) May 11, 2025
Cotton’s request to Gabbard got traction and eyeballs.
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has walked back its designation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a “proven far-right extremist organization,” halting the surveillance activities tied to that classification while a legal challenge from the party proceeds.
This decision comes amid heightened transatlantic tensions and mounting concerns over political surveillance practices.
The move follows a formal request by US Senator Tom Cotton, who called on the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to suspend intelligence cooperation with Germany. Citing what he described as the misuse of intelligence tools for political targeting, Cotton emphasized that actions such as monitoring, infiltration, and surveillance of opposition parties are reminiscent of authoritarian regimes, not democratic allies.
PSSSSSSSST went the witch hunt.
And AfD head Alice Weidel knows exactly who to thank, with the AfD lawyer noting the ‘complete surrender’ of the German domestic intelligence agency was due to one reason.
…The developments have also caused a major stir in Germany. Alice Weidel, co-chair of the AfD, said American pressure was behind the BfV’s withdrawal of its designation label on the AfD. In addition, Joachim Steinhöfel, a lawyer defending freedom of speech, told NIUS that the move by the BfV is “a complete surrender by the German domestic intelligence service.” He also noted that U.S. influence was vital.
“We also have to thank the Americans for exerting massive pressure,” he added.
We know democracy when we see it.
The difference now is that we have an administration chock-full of folks who are unafraid to speak up when they don’t see it.
What a continuous shock it has to be.
