Recent voter surveys say between 14% and 22% of under-30s would vote for the far-right Alternative for Germany party in the upcoming European elections. But who are these potential voters?
At an Alternative for Germany (AfD) European election campaign in Berlin, two of the far-right party’s candidates, Dr Alexander Sell and Mary Khan-Holoch, discussed national pride and how the AfD hopes to make Germans proud of being German again.
The crowd was largely made up of pensioners. However, there were also quite a few young people in the mix.
Khan-Holoch herself is 30 years old, and she did not hesitate in her answer to the question of what makes the AfD so attractive to first-time and young voters.
“Germans feel afraid of becoming strangers in their own country,” Khan-Holoch told Euronews.
Ich lebe in Amerika. Ich lerne Deutsche sprechen, aber das kostet Geld. Vielleicht wollen die Migranten Deutsche lernen, haben aber nicht das Geld dafür?
Sorry if the above is poorly worded; I’m still new to the language. My point is that there are lots of reasons that someone might not know a language well, including a lack of money, or a lack of time from needing to work full time to support one’s migrant family on a low wage.
Mexican immigrants to the US are wonderful, but their culture is very different from non-Hispanic US culture. I don’t expect them to learn English. They work like 60 hours per week to support their families. Like the person you’re replying to has said, though, their children learn English and integrate into, but also uniquely contribute to, US culture. Rather than expecting the first-generation immigrants to learn English, I’ve learned Spanish specifically to speak with them. It’s not like there are many more immigrants to Germany than there are immigrants to the US–even discounting the fact that the US has always been a country of immigrants, Hispanic and Latino/a/e Americans (the majority of which are Mexican Americans) are expected to exceed 50% of all Americans within a couple of decades. In some states, they are already the majority.
Diversity is a good thing, and we shouldn’t require immigrants to become like us culturally or linguistically before accepting them.