Alice Weidel and the Fairy Tale of the Banned Antifa

There are politicians who stumble over their own words. Alice Weidel, on the other hand, builds entire speeches out of stumbles and sells them as reality. Her latest fairy tale: In the US and the Netherlands Antifa is banned, Viktor Orbán has already raised the iron fist anyway - and only in Germany, oh, only here, the CDU brazenly increases the funding of “left-wing extremist structures.” Anyone who argues like that does not live in reality but in the parallel universe of the high priestess in the Trump cult, German division.

Let us begin in the US, where Weidel apparently believes Trump can write laws by tweet. Fact: After the assassination attempt on Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump once again puffed up his cheeks and declared Antifa a “terrorist organization.” Legal value? Zero. There is simply no mechanism there to ban a loose network. Result: big words, no effect. A “ban” that exists like Trump’s tax returns - only in his imagination.

Detour to the Netherlands: Yes, Geert Wilders actually rammed a motion through parliament to ban Antifa. Sounds snappy, but it is political theater. Because: Antifa is not an organization, not an association with a board and statutes. It is a label, an attitude, sometimes a café in Utrecht, sometimes a banner at a demonstration. “Can one ban that?” asks a Dutch extremism researcher. Answer: No, you do not even know what you are supposed to ban. But for Weidel, just one motion is enough as proof of the great Antifa world conspiracy.

And Hungary? That is where it gets ridiculous. “Hard action against Antifa,” Weidel thunders. Which Antifa exactly? Orbán has steamrolled opposition so thoroughly that even harmless activists have to watch what they write in their diaries. An Antifa scene there exists about as strongly as the Hungarian navy in the North Sea. Orbán is fighting ghosts - and Weidel sells it as a hero’s saga.

That leaves Germany. Here the AfD leader practices her favorite craft: carving fictions out of facts. The program “Living Democracy!” supports associations, schools, initiatives against extremism, anti-Semitism, racism. In Weidel’s logic that means: “left-wing extremist structures.” If a youth club explains fake news, that is for her revolution promotion. If students talk about anti-Semitism, that is for her overthrow of the state. And if Friedrich Merz, that walking wooden beam in a suit, increases the budget a little bit, Weidel screams: betrayal! The result is a grotesque spectacle: an “Antifa ban” in the US that never existed. A parliamentary motion in the Netherlands that is practically not feasible. A Hungarian phantom that does not even exist. And a CDU that funds projects against hate and agitation - which Weidel screams about as “left-wing extremist.” Anyone who does politics like this is chasing ghosts and selling the cellar full of shadows as reality.

In the end Alice Weidel herself remains the ghost hunter who stumbles with a flashlight through empty rooms. Behind every wall she suspects an Antifa headquarters, every door leads her into the revolution. But what grins back is always only her own reflection: a politician who cannot breathe without lies, cannot think without Trump and cannot exist without an enemy image. Alice Weidel’s claims are a textbook example of fake news: In the US there is no Antifa ban, in the Netherlands only a symbolic motion was passed, in Hungary there is hardly a relevant scene - and in Germany the program “Living Democracy!” funds projects against extremism, not “left-wing extremist structures.” Weidel’s portrayal is therefore not only distorted but simply false.