Germany’s political establishment just received the electoral equivalent of a brick through the window, and responding with another lecture about the neighborhood’s declining manners probably won’t repair the glass.

The Alternative for Germany, commonly known as AfD, won a commanding 43.8 percent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt’s state election, more than doubling its previous showing. It captured 39 of the new parliament’s 83 seats, leaving it only three short of an outright majority. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, which has led the state for 24 years, collapsed to 17.2 percent and 15 seats. Turnout reached 77.8 percent, indicating that this wasn’t merely an organized fringe prevailing while everyone else stayed home. A great many citizens deliberately showed up and demanded a different direction.

AfD may still be prevented from governing by Germany’s political “firewall,” under which the other major parties refuse to cooperate with it. But after a victory this large, the establishment can no longer dismiss the party as a temporary protest movement hiding in the corner of German politics. The corner now occupies nearly half the room.

When the Protest Vote Becomes the Popular Vote

Saxony-Anhalt is a largely rural eastern state with approximately 2.1 million residents. It lost about a quarter of its population after German reunification, and although its economy has improved considerably since then, many residents still feel overlooked by national leaders. Economic stagnation, high energy costs, anxiety about pensions, dissatisfaction with immigration, and frustration over Germany’s approach to Russia and Ukraine all contributed to the result.

According to an Infratest dimap survey reported by Reuters, 87 percent of the state’s voters were dissatisfied with Merz’s national government. Voters trusted AfD more than the other parties on social insecurity, peace in Europe, and their own economic circumstances. The party also performed strongly among workers, younger voters, and men while drawing many people who hadn’t voted in the previous state election.

That’s important because it challenges the comforting establishment story that AfD succeeds primarily by hypnotizing a few aging reactionaries with angry Facebook posts. When a party wins nearly 44 percent in an election with exceptionally high turnout, blaming the result on ignorance, prejudice, or misinformation becomes intellectually lazy.

Some AfD voters undoubtedly hold objectionable views. That can also be said about voters in practically every political coalition assembled since Cain proposed a new land-use policy for Abel’s field. Millions of people don’t necessarily endorse every statement made by every party official. They may simply believe that the governing class has ignored their concerns, broken its promises, and labeled them extremists for noticing.

A Border Isn’t a Hate Crime

AfD’s strongest issue remains immigration. Its candidate for governor, Ulrich Siegmund, called for a “deportation offensive” targeting people in Germany illegally and for eliminating incentives that attract migrants who exploit the social-welfare system. The party also advocates what it calls “remigration,” although that term has become controversial because different activists use it to describe everything from enforcing existing deportation laws to removing naturalized citizens whom they consider insufficiently German.

There is nothing inherently immoral about a nation controlling its borders, enforcing its laws, deporting people who have no legal right to remain, or expecting newcomers to respect the country receiving them. Government has a God-given responsibility to preserve order and protect its citizens. Compassion doesn’t require administrative chaos, and “welcome the stranger” was never intended to mean “abolish the immigration office and hope for the best.”

The political establishment has too often treated every concern about mass migration as disguised racial hostility. That strategy may earn applause at conferences, but it doesn’t reassure families who believe their communities have changed without their consent or workers who think they’re being asked to absorb the financial and social consequences of policies they never supported.

Still, legitimate border enforcement must be distinguished from ethnic nationalism. A person’s ancestry doesn’t determine their moral worth, and citizenship can’t responsibly be reduced to bloodlines. Scripture teaches that every human being bears God’s image. Civil government may distinguish legally between citizens and noncitizens, but Christians must never confuse that legitimate civic distinction with the belief that one ethnicity possesses greater human dignity than another.

Some Warning Labels Are There for a Reason

This is where conservatives should resist the temptation to treat every criticism of AfD as establishment propaganda.

Saxony-Anhalt’s domestic intelligence service has classified the state AfD organization as a confirmed right-wing extremist movement. The agency says party figures have promoted an ethnic conception of German identity, demeaned immigrants and Muslims as groups, attacked the legitimacy of democratic institutions, and pursued a society defined by ethnic homogeneity. AfD denies those allegations and argues that the designation is politically motivated.

A government intelligence agency isn’t an infallible oracle. State institutions can become politicized, and Germans—of all people—should understand the danger of giving bureaucrats excessive power to decide which political opinions are acceptable. The classification therefore shouldn’t be treated as a substitute for examining actual statements and policies.

But neither should it be waved away merely because the accused party opposes immigration and rainbow flags. The official report cites specific examples of party representatives describing migrants in dehumanizing terms, promoting an ancestry-based definition of the German people, and portraying the democratic system as an enemy that must be overthrown. Those are substantive accusations, not simply complaints that AfD forgot to place pronouns in its email signature.

We should be especially cautious here. We should oppose the progressive habit of branding ordinary patriotism as fascism, but that doesn’t obligate us to pretend genuine ethnic nationalism never exists. Loving one’s country is natural and honorable. Idolizing one’s race is neither.

The Surprisingly Conservative Parts

AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt program includes several proposals that understandably appeal to social conservatives. The party wants to permit homeschooling, which Germany generally prohibits. It opposes schools officially displaying the rainbow flag, arguing that it symbolizes the devaluation of the family, and wants schools to fly the German national flag instead. It also promises stricter immigration enforcement and challenges the ideological conformity of the public broadcasting system.

Those positions shouldn’t be dismissed merely because AfD supports them. Parents should possess meaningful authority over their children’s education. Schools should teach rather than serve as billboards for the fashionable sexual politics of the moment. Public broadcasters funded by compulsory fees should be held accountable for bias. A nation shouldn’t be embarrassed to display its own flag.

The establishment’s refusal to address such reasonable concerns has created an enormous opening for AfD. When supposedly respectable center-right parties spend years retreating on cultural questions, voters eventually search for someone who appears willing to stand their ground. If every ordinary conservative position is condemned as “far right,” people may eventually conclude that “far right” simply means “the only people willing to say it out loud.”

Yet agreement on several issues doesn’t require political canonization. Christians should judge every party by the whole of its conduct, not merely the portions of its platform that produce the most satisfying social-media clips. A party can be right about parental authority and wrong about human dignity. It can correctly diagnose media bias while spreading distortions of its own. Politics rarely offers us the convenience of a spotless hero and a mustache-twirling villain.

The Bear in the Coalition Room

AfD’s friendliness toward Moscow deserves far more scrutiny than it often receives from Western populists.

The party opposes German aid to Ukraine and wants sanctions against Russia lifted, even though those decisions belong primarily to the federal government rather than a state administration. AfD could potentially cooperate with the hard-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, because both parties oppose immigration and favor closer relations with Russia. BSW won five seats, making it a possible kingmaker.

There’s room for serious disagreement over the extent, cost, and objectives of Western involvement in Ukraine. Christians should desire peace, question open-ended commitments, and refuse to treat every demand from Kyiv as engraved on tablets from Mount Sinai.

But skepticism toward Western policy must not become sentimentality toward Vladimir Putin. Russia isn’t a guardian of Christian civilization simply because it occasionally uses traditional language while crushing dissent and invading neighboring countries. A sound conservative foreign policy should be realistic about both Western failures and Russian ambitions. Trading one propaganda package for another isn’t independent thinking; it’s merely switching subscriptions.

The Firewall Has Become a Furnace

Germany’s mainstream parties now face an ugly governing dilemma. AfD is three seats short of a majority, but every possible coalition excluding it would require an awkward collection of the CDU, Social Democrats, Greens, the Left Party, and possibly BSW. Such an arrangement may be constitutionally legitimate, but it would look to many voters like every establishment party joining hands to prevent the election winner from exercising power.

That perception would probably strengthen AfD further.

In a parliamentary system, winning the most votes doesn’t automatically confer the right to govern. A government must command a legislative majority, and parties aren’t morally required to enter coalitions with anyone whose principles they consider dangerous. AfD received 43.8 percent, not 50 percent plus one. The firewall is therefore not the cancellation of an election.

Nevertheless, the other parties should recognize what perpetual exclusion communicates. If AfD voters believe that no level of electoral support will ever give them meaningful influence, they may conclude that the system is designed to permit every opinion except theirs. Telling nearly half the electorate that democracy must be protected from the consequences of their votes is a rather curious advertisement for democracy.

The firewall may keep AfD out of the governor’s office for another term. But it can’t substitute for competent government, secure borders, affordable energy, economic growth, cultural confidence, or public trust. You can’t coalition-diagram your way out of popular anger forever.

A Verdict Without Rose-Colored Glasses

The strongest message from Saxony-Anhalt isn’t that Germany has suddenly become a nation of Nazis. It’s that Germany’s governing establishment has exhausted the patience of a great many ordinary citizens.

Voters are tired of economic drift, poorly controlled immigration, cultural scolding, and leaders who respond to public dissatisfaction by questioning the character of the public. AfD recognized those grievances, addressed them directly, and was rewarded handsomely. The CDU and its allies should stop blaming the political smoke alarm and start looking for the fire.

At the same time, conservatives shouldn’t allow justified rebellion against progressive governance to suspend their discernment. AfD contains policies worth considering and elements worth condemning. Its defense of national sovereignty, parental rights, border enforcement, and cultural stability deserves a fair hearing. Its ethnic-nationalist tendencies, reckless rhetoric, and indulgence toward Moscow deserve serious opposition.

Christian political judgment can’t be reduced to “Who makes the people I dislike the angriest?” That may be an entertaining way to operate an X account, but it’s a poor foundation for government. Our principles must remain anchored in truth, ordered liberty, justice, family, national responsibility, and the equal dignity of human beings made in God’s image.

Saxony-Anhalt’s voters have made one thing unmistakably clear: the old political arrangement is failing. Germany’s establishment can continue building its firewall higher, but unless it addresses the problems driving voters toward AfD, it may discover that walls work better when they haven’t already lost the gate.