{"id":20284,"date":"2025-11-14T03:39:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T02:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/?p=20284"},"modified":"2025-11-24T13:35:51","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T12:35:51","slug":"wie-dumm-ist-die-afd-eigentlich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/wie-dumm-ist-die-afd-eigentlich\/","title":{"rendered":"How Stupid Is the AfD, Actually?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \"\"\n\n<\/a>\n\n\n\n

There are political promises so bold that one could at least acknowledge the courage behind them. And then there is the AfD, which distributes campaign pledges with a mix of cluelessness and chutzpah that would make even a fairy tale forest slam its door in indignation. Ulrich Siegmund, the lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, promises to abolish the \u201cGEZ compulsory fee\u201d as his \u201cfirst official act\u201d \u2013 that familiar fantasy project that functions like a magic spell in certain corners of the country, even though it does not possess the legal stability of a soap bubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One has to give the AfD credit for one thing: it has a talent for making grandiose claims without ever looking into the law. Or even into a Wikipedia article. The broadcasting fee is not a button a state politician can press and poof! \u2013 ARD turns off the lights, the Tagesschau unplugs everything, and editors at the Leipzig broadcasting center sit helplessly in their empty studios. That is not how this works. The fee is based on a state treaty of all 16 federal states, embedded in state laws, reviewed and upheld by the Federal Constitutional Court. Anyone who wants to abolish it needs: the approval of all state governments, all state parliaments, and a constitutional court that has repeatedly ruled the fee constitutional and necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short: the AfD could win 120 percent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt and still not abolish a single cent of this fee. Anyone who spends five minutes on the subject knows this. Or at least asks someone at MDR, who already witnessed in 2020 how Saxony-Anhalt failed when it could not even block a fee increase. Karlsruhe waved it off with fatigue back then, reminding the state that populist sabotage is not a constitutional category. And still the AfD marches out with this promise as if it were about to unscrew the Berlin TV Tower with its bare hands. The trick is simple: promise something legally impossible and hope no one notices. And if someone does ask, simply declare reality the enemy. Reality, the constitution, the constitutional court \u2013 all part of some supposed conspiracy against the \u201ctrue voice of the people,\u201d which for some reason appears in a poorly made Facebook meme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The absurdity grows when one realizes what the AfD is actually selling its supporters: that it could topple the media order of an entire country from one eastern German state. That a single state premier, with the grandiosity of an absolutist ruler, could swing an axe at a system built on federal structures, constitutional rank, and European media law. It is political fireworks for those who do not know the difference between state law and federal law \u2013 or do not want to know it. One could laugh, if it were not so transparent. This promise is not politics. It is a cheap mechanism, a repetition of their same old pattern used to mislead voters and scrape together cheap votes, a scheme the AfD has been recycling for years: ignore facts, deny complexity, shout loudly, and hope no one notices how brazenly they take people for fools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, there remains a party that loves to present itself as a fighter against \u201ccoercion,\u201d yet never hesitates for a second to bait its supporters with outright lies, hollow slogans, and unrealistic miracle cures. That some people fall for it is unfortunate. That the AfD believes no one will notice the obvious nonsense is almost touching. And while Ulrich Siegmund grins in front of a blue background, declaring that he will abolish the \u201cGEZ\u201d as his first act, one cannot help but wonder: does the man truly not know he cannot do that? Or does he simply think people are too stupid to notice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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