New polling data just dropped in Germany and it’s a doozy. The Alternative for Germany party — the AfD, which every journalist in Europe has spent the last decade calling “far right” and “dangerous” and “a threat to democracy” — just hit 27% support. That puts them four points ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU party. The party the entire European establishment swore would never hold power is now the most popular political party in Germany.
But sure, tell us again how the populist wave is dead. We’ll wait.
Here’s the number that should keep every open-borders politician in Europe awake tonight: four out of five German citizens — 80% — say they are dissatisfied with how their government has handled immigration. Eighty percent. That’s not a fringe opinion. That’s not some shadowy corner of the internet. That’s basically the entire country minus the people who work for the government and the people who are too polite to answer honestly.
And yet, for years, the German media and political class treated anyone who raised concerns about mass immigration the same way. “Racist.” “Xenophobe.” “Nazi.” (Which is a particularly bold accusation to throw around in Germany, by the way.) They shamed people into silence. They refused to cover the crime statistics. They called the AfD a “threat to the constitutional order” and tried to ban them from running for office.
So how’d that work out?
The AfD just became number one in the country. Turns out you can’t gaslight an entire nation forever. People have eyes. They can see what’s happening in their own neighborhoods. They can see the budget numbers. They can see the crime reports that the media buries on page 47. And when every mainstream party refuses to address the problem, voters will find a party that will.
This is the same story playing out everywhere. Trump won. Milei won in Argentina. Meloni won in Italy. The Sweden Democrats surged. The Dutch went right. Now Germany — the country that spent the last decade lecturing everyone else about tolerance and open borders — is leading the populist charge.
Remember when Angela Merkel opened the floodgates in 2015 and invited over a million migrants into Germany in a single year? Remember when every world leader applauded her “compassion” and “moral courage”? TIME Magazine made her Person of the Year. She was the darling of the Davos crowd. Everyone was so proud.
Well, eleven years later, 80% of Germans think it was a catastrophe. The same voters who were told to shut up and be grateful are now putting the AfD at the top of every poll.
Merz — the guy who was supposed to be the “reasonable” center-right alternative — is hemorrhaging support because voters figured out he’s just Angela Merkel in a slightly cheaper suit. He talks tough on immigration during election season and then governs like a Brussels bureaucrat. The German people aren’t buying the act anymore.
(Honestly, can you blame them? We had our own version of that game for decades. “Vote for us, we’ll secure the border!” And then nothing. Sound familiar?)
The global media is going to spend the next six months writing panicked think pieces about “the rise of the far right in Europe.” They’ll interview each other. They’ll convene panels. They’ll furrow their brows on camera and wonder how this could have happened.
We can save them the trouble. It happened because you ignored the voters. You called them names when they raised legitimate concerns. You prioritized the feelings of people who showed up illegally over the safety and prosperity of people who were already there. And you did it for years.
Now the bill is due.
The populist movement isn’t some temporary tantrum. It’s a correction. From Washington to Berlin to Buenos Aires, regular people are done being told that common sense is bigotry. They’re done watching their tax dollars fund policies they never voted for. And they’re done being lectured by politicians who live behind gates and walls while preaching about how beautiful open borders are.
Twenty-seven percent and climbing. Welcome to the party, Germany. We saved you a seat.
