If you worded the question...into several paths....among the 20-to-22 percent of the public that says they might vote for the AfD in a national election...I think you'd get several answers which don't make much sense.
Most support presently comes from the five eastern states of Germany.....less so in the eleven western states.
A one-issue party? Well...that comes into play as well. The party (since 2015) has capitalized on being the anti-migrant, anti-immigrant party...mostly because of the failures or limited success of either the CDU (right-of-center....Merkel's old party) or the SPD (left-of-center, today run by Chancellor Scholz) in handling issues that pop up.
If you eyeballed the present discussions.....these lead to four characteristics:
1. If you apply and fail on asylum....deportation is difficult to carry out, and passed onto each state to be responsible for the action. Back in September 2023, the gov't said in the official capacity....around 255,000 folks were on a failed application-and-must-leave deportation order.
If this number were just into 5,000 range....no one would say much.
Resolving this? Police mostly shake their heads because the current system envisioned by politicians in Berlin isn't functioning.
2. The industry and commerce requirement for 'warm' bodies? Walk around....in any major city...literally hundreds of announcements for jobs open.
Back at the end of 2023.....employment folks noted 46.1-million residents of Germany are currently employed (most since WW II) and probably in the range of half-a-million vacant jobs or apprentice spots sitting there.
The idea that AfD has....displacing or hauling off all migrants? There's little logic to the concept.
3. The idea of failed integration? Having been around various groups in the German language class experience....I'd say various people arrive and find that things in Germany are a bit more complicated than they expected. Most rise to the occasion....doing the best to grasp the logic of German 'design'.
I would make the assessment that you have different levels of integration, and if you wrote passing scores or expectations.....you might find that ten-million authentic Germans (actually born here)....might not easily pass some integration 'test'.
Having taken the German integration test myself....I'll just say I found it odd that ten-percent of the questions led back to old DDR (East Germany) and at least one entire class-day was wasted on detailing the defunct East German gov't.
4. Finally, you come to crime, drugs, and public perception....that there seems to be more crime than existed in the 1990s.
Assigning all of this to migrants? Probably unfair, but then the crime clan business are all non-German in nature. You just don't have German mafia organizations.
Those 10,000 new police positions that Merkel created....to reverse public perception? It had a huge cost factor. Achieving success? Inch, by inch....most were positioned in high urbanized areas....to show enforcement.
If you look at typical German chatter....they perceive more crime and connect it to migrants....whether facts or numbers exist or not.
Prior to Covid, this issue would have drifted around in the top three issues for most Germans, and thus....the primary reason that AfD could get public attention.
Since Covid? Well....the recession, taxation, energy costs, and the Ukraine-Russia war have gotten a lot of negative attention.
AfD ever able to get 50-percent of the vote? NO. That won't happen.
AfD able to win an election (with say 28-percent of the vote)? That's a possibility but zero ability to form a coalition. But this would mean the 2nd place winner has to build a fairly weak coalition with partner two, and partner three.
As much as this might get serious chatter....AfD is fairly stuck....never to get enough votes to carry out their threat.
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