One question: Should arguments be made against AfD voters?

Last week, Baden-Württemberg's longest-reigning Prime Minister called for entering into a dispute of arguments with right-wing populists. The strategy of ignoring has failed, said Winfried Kretschmann, as has the strategy of exclusion (“Anyone who votes for Nazis is a Nazi”).

It's a shame, because condemning and excluding people is very popular, especially among us, because you can give the impression that you are getting involved by doing nothing - other than confirming AfD voters' assessment that liberal democrats despise them and that they are absolutely right with the AfD. “We certainly have to continue to insist that we don’t work with these people,” says Kretschmann, “but we have to enter into an argument with them. And that means arguing in public spaces.”

Yes. But (anecdotal evidence): If you talk to someone who is drifting away, they often immediately say that the big problem of the moment is “the foreigners”. They are becoming more and more numerous, having children like rabbits, while “we” hardly have any anymore, and so on. Now people argue that their “foreigners” are often Germans, second and third generation migrant children, and that society needs controlled immigration: doctors, nurses, skilled workers, people who will keep things running in the future and finance the welfare state and pensions. And then the other person says that the problem is “the foreigners” and that things can’t go on like this. Likewise with other questions.

What are you doing there? Kretschmann also sees the persuasive power of the better argument in the crisis, but he has always been of the opinion that liberal democrats have no choice but to argue. This doesn't work for party strategists, right-wing radicals and right-wing extremists, and probably not for some people who are totally contaminated by their media composition.

My hope is that a relevant part of the people who already vote for AfD or are about to do so are still reachable. Anyone who calls them Nazis will lose them, anyone who organizes demos “against the right” will also drive the right-wing conservative part of the CDU into illiberal-authoritarianism. That's not smart.

It is essential to keep two groups apart; let's call them a) nationalist and b) right-wing nationalist. And that brings us to Cem Özdemir, Kretschmann's successor as Prime Minister, and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD), who make exactly this distinction. Right-wing nationalism puts Germany above the rest, but could be compatible with the Basic Law if the concept of people is not purely ethnic. Völkisch, on the other hand, makes a clear distinction according to descent and not according to law, between people who belong and others who don't and are worth less. At the moment, Özdemir is looking for a majority in the Federal Council to initiate proceedings at the Federal Constitutional Court in order to examine those state associations of the AfD that, in his view, are “clearly ethnic”, that means Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. He needs 35 out of 69 votes, and there's a chance he'll get it.

I therefore advocate a dual strategy: talk to some, bring others to the Federal Constitutional Court. Of course, one can say that such a ban procedure comes far too late. But that doesn't help. So, let's try it. The same applies to my AfD voter. He has a point when he says that things “can’t go on like this”. I share that. But how then? We have to be able to talk about that.