“The AfD will collapse like a soufflé”: Weimer wants a “culture war” against the far-right party

The decisive factor is a successful reform policy. “After seven years, we finally need an upswing. And of course it will completely change the social climate,” said Weimer, who admitted, however: “We are not making progress with the reforms as quickly as we would like.” However, referring to the former heads of government Gerhard Schröder (SPD) and Angela Merkel (CDU), he added: “The first year of a new government is always difficult.”

Weimer: The rise of the AfD has changed the character of the Federal Republic of Germany

Fighting the party, which is partly classified as right-wing extremist, is his “main political goal,” said Weimer. In this context he spoke of one “Culture war” against the AfDthat he wanted to record. “I think a lot of what they do is corrosive.” If “politics and the relevant milieus in the center of the republic” do not work together to repair the country, “then the country is in danger of slipping away.”

“The instruments of disintegration, polarization, Hate and the incitement“, their communication behavior, their content configuration – all of this is destructive and frightening,” said Weimer, referring to the AfD. The party’s rise has taken on “a republic-changing character.” “That is why it is the task of this government to rehabilitate the country in such a way that that they never get hold of any lever of power“.

The political center been in recent years “silent” said the independent politician. “We let the debate rage left and right and ducked away in surprise.” However, neither the locations nor the topics should be left to the AfD.

Weimer: The center must accept the culture war

“If Saxony-Anhalt now seriously wants to introduce Germanic holidays like Yule and abolish Christian holidays instead, I’ll go there and defend Christmas.” The AfD is waging “a culture war against the central values ​​of the republic, and one cannot duck away from that, but must accept this culture war.”

If he forgoes gender language in the Chancellery, actively fights anti-Semitism or no longer gives state money to three left-wing bookstores, part of the left will downplay it as a culture war, Weimer said: “But I would never support a ethnic festival either. Yes, I pay a price because there is public criticism for me. But part of the left is fighting an old culture war that we in the center would be better off not fighting anymore.“

These “minuet battles that are still being fought between old leftists and old conservatives” are “grotesquely insignificant compared to the huge culture war that we are actually waging – against an AfD that is now at 40 percent in the East.”

A new state parliament will be elected in Saxony-Anhalt on September 6th. The AfD, with its top candidate Ulrich Siegmund, which the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified as definitely right-wing extremist, is well ahead of Prime Minister Sven Schulze’s CDU in surveys. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, too, surveys show the AfD clearly ahead ahead of the election on September 20th. Several state interior ministers have recently warned of an AfD government in Saxony-Anhalt. (AFP, dpa)