The political success of Donald Trump in the United States and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is not a democratic accident but a stress test that exposes the weak spots of societies in transition. It is the story of countries where economic transformation, rising inequality and cultural upheaval collide with a political class that is increasingly distrusted to keep these conflicts in check – and of actors who systematically turn that collision into political capital.
A Shared Configuration, Different Stages
At first glance, the contexts could hardly be more different: on one side, the presidential superpower with a majoritarian electoral system; on the other, a parliamentary republic with proportional representation and coalition governments. In the United States, a narrow shift in the Rust Belt is enough to capture the White House. In Germany, the AfD’s success proceeds through percentages, parliamentary groups and state legislatures, slowly insinuating itself into the routines of political life. And yet the narratives that emerge in both places are strikingly similar.
In each case, the starting point is a sense of disconnection. Segments of the population experience themselves as losers of globalization, deindustrialization and digitalization, without anyone convincingly explaining what comes next. In the United States, hollowed‑out industrial regions in the Midwest or Appalachia; in Germany, structurally weak areas – especially in the East – are told, year after year, that things will get better “eventually,” even as affordable housing, bus lines and medical services disappear. What grows out of this is not revolutionary fervor but a slow, grinding humiliation: apparently, you no longer count.
Economics: Not Just Poverty, but Fear of Falling
It is tempting to frame the success of Trump and the AfD as a revolt of the economically left‑behind. But the picture is more complicated. The core constituencies are often not the very poorest, but those who feel themselves on the edge of downward mobility: small business owners, skilled workers, lower‑middle‑class employees without college degrees, regional middle classes. Their firms still run, their paychecks still arrive, but the next shock – a plant closure, an illness, another wave of automation – seems perpetually imminent.
At this point, economics turns into psychology. The driving force is less sheer destitution than a pervasive fear of social descent – the worry that one’s children will move downward, not up; the perception that others – big cities, the highly educated, global elites – are effortlessly reaping the gains. And the sense that political decisions are locking in these inequalities rather than correcting them. For those repeatedly told their region is “not future‑proof,” democracy begins to look like a theater where other people always win
Culture: Rearguard Battles in a Changing Society
On top of this economic uncertainty comes deep‑seated cultural change. Societies grow more diverse, big cities more cosmopolitan, life paths more plural. Rights for women, LGBTQ people and ethnic minorities are – at least normatively – better protected. Many see this as progress. Others experience it as the erosion of a familiar moral universe.
This latter group exists in both countries: older, more often male, more rural or small‑town milieus who feel their world under pressure not only economically, but culturally. Their discomfort often crystallizes around issues such as immigration, gender debates or climate policy – not always because these policies directly dominate their daily lives, but because they symbolize a society they no longer recognize as their own. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and the AfD’s language of “taking our country back” give voice to the same impulse: to stop time, or to reverse it.
The Craft of Talking Democracy Down
Right‑wing populist actors do not merely tap into these moods; they shape them. At the core lies a deliberate strategy of delegitimization: the claim that not just individual decisions, but the entire democratic system is fundamentally rigged.
Trump is the textbook case. Since his defeat in 2020, the story of a “stolen election” has become the identity‑defining core of Trumpism. Institutions that, in liberal‑democratic logic, exist precisely to constrain power and secure procedures – courts, election administrators, the media – are recast as arms of a “corrupt elite” that divests “the people” of its voice. For those who embrace this narrative, accepting an electoral defeat would mean abandoning their entire worldview.
The AfD pursues a German version of the same script. Parliaments are dismissed as mere “talking shops,” public broadcasters derided as “state media,” courts and security agencies cast as either too soft or politically manipulated. The message is unambiguous: the problem is not this or that policy, but a system that allegedly acts against “the people.” Empirical errors, wild exaggerations or outright falsehoods are not embarrassing slip‑ups; they are calculated escalations that help sustain the impression of a permanent crisis.
Media Logic, Scandal and a Second Public Sphere
This strategy meets a media environment almost tailor‑made for the populist style. Legacy newsrooms are driven by a logic of conflict and drama: those who provoke, get airtime. Trump understood early on that every broken taboo, every attack on journalists, every crude insult would draw the cameras. The AfD has adapted this mechanism: orchestrated breaches of decorum in parliament, carefully staged outrages on social media, sound bites honed for talk shows.
Simultaneously, second publics emerge: digital counter‑worlds of semi‑private groups, channels and platforms where “alternative facts,” conspiracy theories and endlessly recycled narratives of national decline circulate. In these spaces, the republic is already in advanced decay; “the people” are said to be systematically dispossessed; “replacement” or “civil war” is supposedly just around the corner. Those who get most of their information here experience political reality as a constant onslaught. The emotional result is often radicalization – a state of permanent alarm in which factual rebuttals reach fewer and fewer people.
Real Problems, Misplaced Blame
And yet it would be a mistake to dismiss this parallel universe simply as irrational fantasy. Its persuasive power rests on a hard kernel of truth: there are real, sometimes severe problems – rising inequality, regional divides, overburdened infrastructures, strains associated with migration, the climate crisis – that were, in many cases, inadequately addressed over years. The “middle” of society has been celebrated as a moral reference point but not always substantively protected.
That is precisely why the right‑populist answer resonates. It takes the diagnostic proposition – “something is fundamentally off” – and redirects the anger at other targets. The culprits are not structural misallocations, weak social policies or a lack of industrial strategy, but “those up there,” migrants, “Brussels,” “globalists.” Instead of tracing complex chains of responsibility, the world is sorted into villains and victims, traitors and betrayed.
When Critique Becomes a Question of System
Criticism of democratic institutions is not only legitimate in a democracy; it is indispensable. It becomes dangerous when it tips over into a fundamental question of regime. In this logic, a political loss can no longer be accepted as the legitimate outcome of a fair contest; it can only be read as proof that “the system” is rigged. Citizens who embrace this view still operate under the formal umbrella of democracy, but in cognitive terms they have already stepped outside.
Here the Trumpian narrative and the AfD’s rhetoric converge. Their supporters are significantly more likely than average to distrust elections, to hold parliaments in low regard and to see the media as antagonists rather than intermediaries. Once this attitude hardens, democracy’s traditional instruments – debate, compromise, gradual correction – begin to look like blunt tools. Politics is no longer perceived as a messy process of trial and error, but as a moral showdown: those who truly represent “the people” cannot compromise with “the others.”
Exits: More Democracy, Not Less
What follows from this? The obvious temptation is to fight right‑wing populism with its own weapons: more moral clarity, sharper us‑versus‑them rhetoric, more theatrical outrage. Yet this only reinforces the underlying logic in which the only thing that matters is whose side you are on – not how effectively a problem is actually solved.
A serious response would have to move in three directions at once. First, material foundations. Societies that leave inequality largely untouched, that continue to defer investment in declining regions, and that normalize precarious work provide the right‑wing populist script with a steady flow of raw material. The goal is not to resurrect a supposedly golden industrial past, but to pursue an active politics of transformation: investment in infrastructure, education, public services and reliable social safety nets, so that the shift to a digital and climate‑neutral economy is not experienced as an individualized fall from grace but as a collectively managed project.
Second, democratic responsiveness. In both countries, a widespread perception has taken hold that politics happens “somewhere else” – in Washington, Berlin, Brussels – while local realities are, at best, an afterthought. Cosmetic listening tours and symbolic “dialogues” are not enough. What matters are visible decisions that take those realities seriously: when, for instance, shrinking regions do not just get town‑hall meetings, but lasting commitments that keep public transport, healthcare and schools available.
Third, a different story about democracy itself. As long as democracy is presented primarily as a technical procedure – elections, committees, legal checks – it remains vulnerable in times of uncertainty. What is needed is a positive narrative that does not pit conflict, pluralism and security against each other. In that narrative, democracy is not the grim compromise one grudgingly accepts for lack of alternatives, but the only system that allows deep economic and cultural shifts to be negotiated without condemning the losers to lose forever.
Education, Public Life and the Willingness to Learn
Such a narrative will not write itself; it requires learning, especially among democratic elites. That includes acknowledging where promises were not kept, where reforms generated insecurity without opening up future prospects, where entire regions and milieus were seen primarily through the lens of indicators and growth targets. The capacity for self‑critique is not a weakness but a democratic resource; it is precisely what distinguishes open systems from those who claim infallibility.
In the long run, much hinges on education, both civic and media. It shapes how attractive simple lies are compared with complex truths. Citizens who understand why institutions are designed as they are, what the separation of powers accomplishes, why independent media must sometimes be uncomfortable, do not become immune to demagogues. But they are less easily persuaded by those who run down democracy in order to bend it to their will.
In that sense, Trump and the AfD do more than reveal how vulnerable liberal democracies can be. They mark out the terrain on which the coming battles will be fought: over economic justice, political responsiveness and a democratic culture that embraces conflict without letting itself be blackmailed by those who turn every disagreement into a question of regime.
Kommentar schreiben