Given my background and interests, I typically do not find myself writing columns about politics in Germany, and certainly not about German state elections. As of this week, however, everyone must start to pay attention, because the neo-Nazi party that has been growing in popularity there (known as the AfD) won a key election in a state in the former East Germany. The party did fall short of a majority, but the outcome is shaking European politics to its core.
I will have much to say below about lessons from the German election for all of us in the United States, but I should first provide a bit of essential context.
To begin, why is the outcome worrying leaders across Europe rather than in Germany alone? After all, despite the existence of the European Union, countries on that continent maintain their own unique and independent political systems. Unfortunately, however, what the French have called the cordon sanitaire -- a commitment by non-extremist parties to exclude extremist parties from power-sharing coalitions -- is becoming more and more difficult to maintain, to say nothing of the possibility that an extremist party could win an outright majority somewhere. (Italy's right-wing government is a coalition.)
Moreover, the AfD's rise has hardly been a homegrown affair. As The Guardian reported, the clodpoll who on any given day might or might not be a trillionaire "congratulated the far-right party on its election victory with a 'Well done!' on his social media platform X, prompting Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, to thank the nativist US tech billionaire for his support."
That same dullard, by the way, was a central player in the outbreak of race riots in Northern Ireland earlier this summer. A news article in Le Monde quoted Imran Ahmed, the founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), saying that the troll in question "used the Belfast tragedy to amplify anti-migrant narratives to millions of users, prompting endless calls for violence. While communities dealt with the consequences of brutality and disorder, no individual played a bigger role in spreading this content on X."
And of course, the rise of the far right in the United State has been largely fed by the same anti-immigrant disinformation and incitement that led to the election result in Germany this past weekend.
There is much to say about all of this, but I want to focus on something that Paul Krugman included in a recent column, "Neo-Nazis and the Impotence of Trumponomics," specifically his take on how the German political situation should inform the way we think about political priorities in the US. Krugman drew a telling lesson about the "working class voters left behind" explanation of Donald Trump's rise, which is unfortunately a story that American political types -- including many, many, many people in the center and left of US politics -- have taken as gospel.
Krugman's Substack pieces are relatively brief and always informative, and this one is definitely worth a full read, for those who have the time to do so. In particular, I was struck -- in a very positive way -- by this statement (and the analysis supporting it): "I should mention one more lesson from the AfD’s victory, one that has me reconsidering some of my own beliefs." Krugman does have a habit of reminding people that he sometimes changes his views, but his self-regard should not obscure the fact that an open mind is a virtue.
What is the lesson that he drew? That explaining the rising support of neo-fascist movements by pointing to the working-class's desperation in "left-behind regions" is nonsense. Why? Krugman points out that the usual exculpatory story about those who embrace the MAGA movement is tied to trade deficits and the loss of "manly jobs" in manufacturing.
He then says that, if that explanation were true, Germany would be a progressive paradise with no danger from the extremist right, because Germany runs trade surpluses that are larger than US trade deficits. Plus, macho jobs are much more plentiful there:
Even Germany has gradually become “deindustrialized,” but even now it is more of an industrial nation, as measured by where the jobs are, than the United States has been for at least 35 years. Has this insulated Germany from the bitterness and political extremism that many U.S. observers attribute to deindustrialization? Apparently not.
Krugman concludes: "What, then, is the moral of this analysis? Mostly it’s negative: Crude economic factors don’t explain the fascist shift in Germany. And Trumponomics, even if it worked (which it doesn’t) wouldn’t end the resentment feeding our own authoritarian movement."
This should change the way Americans who fear the rise of fascism think about US politics. Again, it is to his great credit that Krugman looked at the evidence in an innovative way and then very publicly reconsidered his beliefs. I was especially happy to see this, because I have in the past chided Krugman for buying into the claim that the US election in 2024 was determined by Americans' economic desperation.
In November and December of last year, I pointed out that the US left's conventional wisdom about that election -- an economic explanation that Krugman fully embraced -- is belied by the inconvenient fact that everyone felt the pain of post-pandemic affordability issues while only one demographic group swung toward Trump. In my November piece, I wrote:
If it were about feeling pinched in the pocketbook, why would it be only Latinos who shifted to Trump while no one else did? For that matter, why would Latinas not have "believ[ed] that he would deliver prosperity" as strongly as their male counterparts supposedly did? Is there some unknown social science research showing that Latino men are super-responsive to economic stress, that Latinas are kinda-sorta responsive to economic stress, and no one else cares about economic stress enough to change their votes?
Again, Krugman's analysis of the German election avoids the mistake that he (and so many others) have been making about the last US presidential election. He now focuses on a statistical distinction -- a massive one in this instance -- and says, "If Theory A were valid, we would see two very different outcomes in Countries G and U, but we don't." That is huge.
What are the lessons for US non-Trumpists? Most obviously, they should stop acting as though there is a good story that people fell for Trump because they felt bad about their economic lives. And almost as obviously, they should stop following the advice of people like Bernie Sanders, who all but fetishizes the narrative that American workers will abandon Trump and the Republicans more generally if Democrats and independents would only focus on economic issues.
To be clear, I continue to have a great deal of admiration for Sanders and the political movement that he has been an essential part of creating. Even so, I have for years argued that it is close to political malpractice to think of working Americans as powerless to stop themselves from falling for Trump's false promises. It is also insulting and condescending to those very voters. This is the same error that progressive Democrats made by elevating now-forgotten Graham Platner as the next great voice of the forgotten working man. (And I do mean man, because Democrats seem almost pathologically committed to chasing votes in the toxic manosphere.)
I should also state explicitly that none of what I have said here means that Democrats should actively avoid talking about economic issues. Obviously, pushing issues that people care about is all good, but it is nonetheless crucial not to confuse making people's lives better economically with trying to tempt unreachable people with the return of an economy that is never coming back. How can a candidate do that?
I am happy to have been wrong when I wrote in November 2024 that "[n]o one ... should ever expect that Ohio or Montana will elect a Democrat again, not when both states' very effective and popular incumbents could not stave off rather decisive defeats." The incumbent who lost that year in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, is now running for the other Senate seat from the Buckeye State, and he is apparently comfortably ahead in the polls. In a YouTube interview headlined "Sherrod Brown Is BETTING His Comeback on Working-Class Voters," Brown argues for things like a renewal of the child-care tax credit and other realistic things that would improve voters' lives and maybe tempt some people to come back into the Democrats' column.
But the larger lesson here is that the Democrats who have said that only economic issues matter are on shakier ground than ever. I was beyond pleased to see that Democratic voters in Massachusetts absolutely trounced Seth Moulton in his run against incumbent US Senator Ed Markey. Moulton was one of the people who most loudly argued in late 2024 and 2025 that Democrats should only focus on "real issues" and not what he airily dismissed as "litmus tests," by which he meant issues that he personally sees no reason to fight for, pointedly putting civil rights for trans people on the chopping block.
Because Massachusetts is a safe Democratic seat, Markey was able to attack Moulton head-on on the trans athletes issue. Moulton tried the "if anyone was offended" dodge but refused to back off of his claim that his party needs to throw inconvenient people overboard. Good riddance to him. Even so, I doubt that anyone is arguing that Democrats should change their nationwide messaging for the upcoming midterms to focus exclusively on trans rights. Understandably not. Even so, the point is that the old tactic of saying that Democrats lose by being too focused on non-economic issues is bad politics everywhere, not just on the Boston Common.
What should Democrats focus on, beyond Brown's attempt to be an economic populist without misleading people? Jennifer Rubin's columns recently have been addressing that very question, exploring what can unite people who want to defend democracy and the rule of law but who do not agree with each other about many other issues. Her column yesterday included one of her best arguments to date, which is that the key unifying issue should be the Trump-Republican spree of corruption that we have all been witnessing with increasing disbelief.
Drawing lessons from the wonderful and surprising ouster of Viktor Orbán in Hungary's elections this past Spring, Rubin wrote:
For our upcoming midterms, there is no issue more powerful and timely than corruption. As Gallup reported, “Americans’ perceptions of government corruption in the U.S. are at their highest level in 20 years, with 89% of U.S. adults [including 90% of independents] saying it is widespread.” That’s 10 points higher than last year. Plainly, Trump’s nauseating self-enrichment has hit home, giving Democrats the perfect opening to vow to end the orgy of corruption and to advance credible reform (e.g., claw back Trump’s ill-gotten gains, end crypto scams, ban building monuments to himself, and demand full financial disclosure and stock trading bans for all three branches).
One can easily picture the "It's the economy, stupid" Democratic crowd doing a spit-take and shouting Rubin down, saying that none of the anti-corruption efforts would resonate with Real People because it could never put money in anyone's pockets. Rubin's point, however, is that it would be stupid not to focus on issues that get people's attention, which can go well beyond the the creaky "pocketbook issues" that Democratic consultants of all political leanings insist upon privileging to the exclusion of "niche" or "litmus test" matters.
Returning to the German election, then, Krugman is right that anti-Trump politicians and pundits in the US have seen their case for economic essentialism suffer a death blow. That is good news, because it means that -- to the extent that the midterm election results will be respected at all, which is not at all guaranteed -- Democrats can now be even more confident in broadening their lines of political attack. And not a moment too soon.
- Neil H. Buchanan
Facts Only
* The AfD won a key election in a state in the former East Germany.
* The party did not achieve a majority.
* The success is described as shaking European politics.
* The rise of the far-right in the United States was fed by anti-immigrant disinformation and incitement.
* Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), quoted regarding social media amplification of anti-migrant narratives.
* Paul Krugman suggested that crude economic factors do not explain the fascist shift in Germany.
* Germany runs trade surpluses larger than US trade deficits.
* Krugman concluded that economic factors would not end the resentment feeding authoritarian movements.
* The author noted that Democratic voters' focus on economics is less effective when dealing with issues like immigration or civil rights, exemplified by the Massachusetts election context.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The narrative functions to shift the locus of political blame and strategy from economic determinism in US politics to systemic moral failures, specifically corruption. The core pattern involves undermining explanations rooted in material conditions—whether focusing on working-class economic distress or trade deficits—as sufficient explanations for political shifts, thereby discrediting certain analytical frameworks favored by progressive movements. This move is amplified by connecting the external European political shift (Germany) back to domestic US concerns, suggesting that ignoring deeper societal fault lines allows manipulation to persist. The analysis pivots from internal economic focus to external moral accountability by framing corruption as the most potent unifying issue capable of mobilizing voters and countering authoritarian appeals. The implication is that focusing solely on "pocketbook issues" is a tactic that fails when facing sophisticated narratives, suggesting that genuine agency requires addressing systemic distrust rather than just material wants.
STEP 1 — DETECT SOURCE TYPE:
SKEPTICAL MODE
STEELMAN — The strongest version of this narrative argues that the focus on economic explanations for political upheaval—whether in Germany or the US—is an inadequate lens for understanding extremism, and that focusing instead on systemic corruption offers a more powerful political strategy. It uses the German election as evidence to challenge the efficacy of economic essentialism in explaining the rise of far-right movements, ultimately advocating for Democrats to adopt anti-corruption as a central unifying message.
PATTERN SCAN — Distortion, False Framing. The article systematically frames economic explanations (e.g., "working class voters left behind") as insufficient and misleading, setting up a false dichotomy between economic focus and necessary social/moral focus. It employs the pattern of challenging established consensus (Krugman's views) to pave the way for a preferred alternative framework (corruption).
ROOT CAUSE — The narrative is driven by a need to re-contextualize political discourse away from purely material concerns toward values-based, systemic critiques. The underlying assumption is that political legitimacy hinges more on perceived honesty and integrity than on wealth distribution. Historical patterns suggest that when economic explanations fail to capture large-scale shifts, attention often turns to institutional rot or moral failings as the root cause of political volatility.
IMPLICATIONS — This implies that for political movements seeking mass cohesion against authoritarianism, focusing on verifiable institutional dishonesty provides a more potent and resonant rallying cry than debates over material wealth alone. It suggests that cognitive sovereignty is enhanced by demanding an analysis of underlying structures rather than accepting surface-level economic narratives as the sole determinant of political behavior.
BRIDGE QUESTIONS — If corruption is the key unifying issue, what specific, measurable reforms can Democrats enact immediately to counter perceived elite self-enrichment? How does this focus on corruption shift the balance between pursuing tangible economic policies and addressing intangible social grievances? What are the implications for internal party cohesion when shifting from economic populism to anti-corruption focus?
COUNTERSTRIKE SCAN — A bad actor attempting to push an economic essentialist narrative would use appeals to immediate, visceral financial hardship (Fear Appeal) and distract by pointing to complex international systems (like EU trade or global markets) to overwhelm nuanced analysis. The actual content counters this by introducing a higher-order grievance (corruption), which requires a different type of political engagement than mere economic management.