Cooperation Between the CDU and AfD: Self-Respect

The firewall between Germany’s CDU and AfD has long been weakening. Increasingly, people and media on the right of the political center, including those close to the Christian Democrats, view the AfD as little more than a rougher, more vulgar or more uncompromising version of the CDU.

From this perspective, the argument for cooperation seems straightforward. If the two parties finally came together, the CDU could escape the pressure to keep making compromises to the left. It could return to its supposed true identity, supporters argue, and give many people outside the party what they want.

The AfD, in turn, could learn from the CDU how to behave properly, including how to eat with a knife and fork. Holding government office, this argument goes, would impose discipline. Office would bring dignity. That is ultimately what lies behind calls for the CDU to approach the AfD with only a few red lines, or to allow itself to be tolerated by the party.

The article rejects that logic. Its warning is that the AfD should not be treated as an uncouth version of the CDU that could be refined through responsibility. The description frames the issue ahead of the state election in Saxony-Anhalt and challenges those who say the AfD is not so bad. By now, it argues, the party already is.