In this country, many on the Left blithely toss off comparisons between President Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. Their rad comrades in Germany also have a nominee for the top leadership position in the coming Fourth Reich: the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. A Nazi replay is really not the goal of the right-wing AfD — which features a lesbian, former Goldman Sachs banker with an immigrant partner as its leader. But unlike in the United States, at least their critics have a direct acquaintance with those who have a political preference for a psychopathic dictator, Polish invasions, Auschwitz, and Swastika T-shirts. 

In the current issue of the Atlantic, one of the newsletters imagines what might happen in a future election if the AfD took power in one of Germany’s 16 states:

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“The interior minister announces an emergency remigration program: abolishing asylum, revoking the residence permit of any foreigner convicted of a crime, pledging to review all naturalization decisions made during this century, and incarcerating those designated for deportation.” In addition, “The government authorizes vigilante groups to act as an auxiliary police force in regions with high crime rates.” 

I’d call that a reasonable conservative program, not Nazi, nor the death rattle of democracy. Yet it must be admitted that the AfD frequently gives its critics plenty of ammunition needed to fire away. For example, one of the founders of the AfD, Alexander Gauland, told a party gathering in 2018 that the 12 years of Nazi rule from 1933 to 1945 were “mere bird s*** in over a thousand years of successful German history.” After fouling his own nest, some in the party leadership distanced themselves from him, but he remains an important figure in the AfD. Two years later, in 2020, the party toughened up a bit,........

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