With the Brown Crystal Ball - What 25 Percent Say About This Country

Sometimes a glance at a poll is enough to make you wonder whether something hasn’t gone fundamentally wrong in life. 25 percent for the AfD. A quarter of the population is thus deliberately choosing a party whose leadership rejects climate goals, scorns international courts, brands childcare as leftist indoctrination - and whose media strategy increasingly relies on lamentation, conspiracy narratives, and the role of the victim. The Forsa poll from July 22, 2025, shows CDU/CSU and AfD tied at 25 percent. The democratic center is unraveling. But the real shock lies not in the height of that number, but in its depth.

A quarter of society apparently doesn’t find it troubling that a member of parliament like Alice Weidel, after a technical issue during the ARD summer interview, speaks of a “deliberate trap.” That Bastian Barucker, a system-critical publicist with close ties to the AfD milieu, publicly insinuates the choir was “mixed in,” the echo “intentionally created” - and all this with the applause of Beatrix von Storch, who sees no shame in declaring the whole thing an “ARD scandal.” No facts, no evidence, just a feeling - and that’s enough in the outraged milieu to once again pose as the victim of an orchestrated conspiracy. Barucker, in his long, jargon-laden post, allegedly quotes an experienced broadcast engineer and spins from it a conspiracy suspicion one would otherwise expect from Telegram groups. Terms like “N-1,” “phased soundscape,” and “intentionally looped echo” are used to turn a simple sound issue into an act of sabotage by public broadcasters. It reads like a textbook example of weaponized media skepticism - the goal: not clarification, but confirmation of one's own worldview.

Things become truly absurd when the media-savvy offspring of the outrage industry springs into action. Julian Adrat, an AfD trailblazer and favorite guest of right-wing platforms, filed a “criminal complaint for disruption of a public broadcast” – against the “Center for Political Beauty” and others who had gathered on July 20, 2025, for a peaceful protest during Alice Weidel’s ARD summer interview in front of the Reichstag building. Adrat alleges coercion and a violation of assembly laws. In truth, it was nothing more than a civil society intervention, firmly protected under the German constitution. The fact that someone like Adrat, who likes to present himself as a defender of “free speech,” is now filing charges against protesters seems not only contradictory – it is revealing. It shows that freedom of expression in these circles apparently only applies when it serves their own narratives. When directed at political opponents, criminal law becomes a PR weapon. There’s no other explanation for why the mere presence of a choir at a TV interview is perceived by this camp as a “disruption of broadcast.”

But the lamentation from the Weidel faction goes even further. Vicky Leandros uninvites Alice Weidel from a concert - a private, legitimate decision, as made by organizers every day - and suddenly it echoes on X: “I’m not a fan of this music anyway.” And: “I decided not to go myself.” The strategy is obvious: always provoke first, then scandalize the reaction. Applause from their own crowd is guaranteed, the loss of credibility long factored in. So while Weidel complains about microphones, Storch stages herself in front of cameras, and Adrat waves legal codes, something of far greater significance is happening at the other end of global affairs: On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice in The Hague declares that a “clean, healthy, and sustainable environment” is a human right. And that the 1.5-degree target is legally binding under international law - a strong signal to the global community that climate protection is not an option, but an obligation. For Maximilian Krah, AfD representative in the European Parliament, this is reason for fundamental criticism: “Law resides in the state, not outside or above the state,” he writes on X - thus revealing an authoritarian mindset incompatible with the principles of international legal communities. Krah places the nation-state above universal norms. What many see as progress appears to him as an attack on sovereignty.

It is a worldview pieced together like a puzzle of suspicion, distortion, and denial. A reality in which the sound of an interview matters more than its content, in which protest is equated with criminality, in which international rulings are perceived as “foreign domination” – and in which 25 percent of the population say: That is our voice. Perhaps it is time to confront these 25 percent not just with arguments, but with a sober diagnosis: that this is not simply frustration voting, but ideology. That trust in law, media, and facts is no longer a given – it is contested. And that democracy does not consist of elections alone, but of the ability to engage with criticism, contradiction, and reality. What remains is the sense that, as a society, we must seriously ask how 25 percent have drifted so far from the basic principles of democratic discourse – and why this number is not only tacitly accepted, but increasingly made socially acceptable. Why aristocrats like Gloria von Thurn und Taxis end up on far-right talk shows only to lose their audience in the end. Why no children’s carnival wants an AfD float – and with good reason. Why a summer interview turns into a crime scene visit, where the debate is not about substance but about the endless like-loop – with one sober conclusion: all reason has left the room. Perhaps instead of speculating about audio glitches or insulting musicians, we should reflect on the political and social tone that has led a quarter of the population to believe the real scandal is everyone else. When in fact, it’s the other way around – the scandal is already sitting in the Bundestag.

Investigative journalism requires courage, conviction – and your support.