Putin wins German elections

In 1928, the Nazis almost won the local elections in the state of Thuringia. In 1932, they did win them, with 43.4 per cent of the vote.

Such is the historical background to the triumph of the fascisoid AfD party in the same state a few days ago, when it came in first with 32.8 per cent. At the same time, AfD scored 30 per cent in the adjacent Saxony, coming within a whisker of carrying that province too.

This is the first time that AfD has won an election in a major province, or rather the first time since its typological progenitor did so all those years ago. This isn’t to say that AfD is a carbon copy of the NSDAP, far from it.

But its emotional make-up is similar, though the party takes great pains not to come across as a downright heir to you-know-who. That worthy effort doesn’t always succeed, which is why Björn Höcke, AfD leader in Thuringia, boasts two criminal convictions for using Nazi rhetoric. I suppose the party’s rank-and-file see that as a badge of honour.

Also making huge gains in the same provinces is another extremist party, BSW, a splinter group of the communist Die Linke. This parallels a similar tendency in 1928 and 1932, when the communists won 10.6 and 14.3 per cent of the Thuringian vote respectively.

Those two parties are coming in on the rail while the political mainstream is busying itself with climate, social inequality, decolonisation, gender-bender policies and other such matters that are taken more seriously by politicians than by the electorate.

The two extremist parties converge on their anti-immigration stand, which Thuringian voters seem to favour in preference to unisex lavatories. One can understand and share their feelings, but what often matters in politics isn’t just the face value of a policy but also the accent placed on it.

For AfD, as for its British, French and Italian counterparts, opposition to uncontrolled immigration is the axis around which its whole Weltanschauung revolves. While pretending to put forth a rational argument, the party really appeals to visceral xenophobia that’s sometimes dormant at the German grassroots, but never quite dead.

Voters everywhere often respond not to text but to sub-text, not to denotation but to connotation, not to semantics but to semiotics. The essence of political populism is its direct appeal to such deep-lying strata, bypassing reason altogether or racing through it on the way to the subcortex waiting to be tickled.

That’s the nature of my contempt for all populist demagogues, regardless of whether or not I agree with what they are saying. Often I do agree with much of it, but their real appeal lies elsewhere. It’s pointless to take seriously what they say because what really matters to their audience is what they don’t say.

We could discuss the similarities and differences between the Nazis and AfD, or between the communists and BSW, till the migrants go home. But their anti-immigration appeal isn’t all they have in common.

Both parties also act as outposts of Kremlin propaganda in Germany, and I’m sure, though can’t prove, that their affection for Putin isn’t entirely disinterested. AfD and BSW are both unofficial members of Putin’s anti-Western International, the European vanguard of his hybrid war on our civilisation.

The two parties are in favour of cutting all assistance to the Ukraine and forming close ties with Putin’s Russia. While seemingly sitting at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, they have joined forces in criticising the US, Germany and NATO in general for their involvement in the war.

When President Zelensky asked the Bundestag for greater support in June, many MPs from both AfD and BSW walked out in protest. Putin’s invisible hand grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and dragged them out of the hall where a victim of fascist aggression was begging for help.

What I find especially nauseating about Western Putinistas, and not just in Germany, is their abstract anti-war rhetoric. They shed crocodile tears for all those killed and maimed victims, then overcome the spasms in their throats and call for an end to this horrible war. Our own dear Peter Hitchens is a past master of such lachrymose displays, but he isn’t the only one.

Isn’t war just awful? they ask rhetorically. The implication is that any war is awful, and I’m glad those heroic RAF pilots weren’t so pacifistic in 1940.

Yes, wars are awful, but some wars are nonetheless necessary and just, a concept familiar to Western moral thought since Augustine of Hippo. What matters isn’t just that wars end but also how they end.

When those people call for an immediate ceasefire, one wonders whom they see as their target audience. If it’s Zelensky, then for him a stop to fighting is tantamount to capitulation. If it’s NATO countries, then for them a stop to supporting the Ukraine is also tantamount to her capitulation.

The only proper addressee for that message is the man who started this monstrous, unprovoked war: Putin. Yet one doesn’t hear any urgent appeals from Western Putinistas that the Russians lay down their arms and withdraw to their 2014 or even 2022 borders.

One can’t help feeling that the capitulation of the Ukraine is precisely the outcome they desire, which is to say the victory of the only aggressive fascist power in Europe. I almost wish they came out and said so outright, sparing us the gagging effect of pseudo-pacifist waffle.

I just hope more people realise that every victory for a pro-Putin European party, whether fascisoid right or fascisoid left, is a victory for Putin’s Russia – and a crushing defeat for whatever little is still left of Western civilisation. This ought to simplify the moral assessment of Western Putinistas. In my taxonomy, they sit next to skunks.

P.S. Hitchens keeps challenging Boris Johnson to a debate on the war in every piece he writes. I’d be happy to act as an outlet for his verbal pugnacity, but he wouldn’t stoop to taking on such a lowly opponent – especially one likely to wipe the floor with him.