Germany occupies a symbolic place in the ideological contest against fascism. After all, this is the place where both Liberalism and Communism came to bury the Nazi ideology and its weaponised racism; nationalist chauvinism, vulgar propaganda machines, violent censorship, industrial death camps, and so on. For decades, Germany has been praised for the way it reckoned with its totalitarian past, transforming into a democracy; keeping the hounds of nationalism at bay as the liberal centrists (CDU) and the social democrats (SDP) shared power.

However, the recent surge of far-right politics in Germany has sent shivers down the proverbial spine, evoking the blood curdling memories of fascist crimes. The far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) has made significant electoral gains in national (2017) and state elections (2019) since Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the borders for almost a million Syrian refugees, emerging as the third-largest political party in the country, and the first far-right party to enter the German parliament since 1961. This year also saw a spike in violent crime linked to far-right activist groups, pointing to a growing network of violent political groups emboldened by AfD’s successes.

What is driving this uptick in cultural anxiety and political violence? Needless to say, there are myriad factors – from global inequality and terrorism to public distrust in traditional forms of media – that have shaped the present reality. However, for the purposes of this article, I will be focusing on the relationship between class, ideology and the working-class support for right-wing populism.

The rise of AfD is often analysed in terms of its geographical and class dimensions. The party has strongholds in East Germany (formerly, the Soviet-influenced communist state of DDR). Historically, these areas have experienced cultural isolation, de-industrialisation, struggling economies and low migrant influxes. Many liberal West Germans would assert that these factors have rendered East Germany ill-equipped to adapt to dynamic globalised economies, and the resulting resentment has unleashed a political assault against the global ‘elite’. More left-leaning commentators would argue that the stark inequalities produced by liberal globalisation, and the abandonment of the working classes by traditional parties, is fuelling anti-immigrant and anti-democratic sentiment. Whatever the analysis – whether the working class is portrayed as exploited or incompetent – their choices are stripped of agency in popular discourse. However, it would be particularly pernicious to insist that xenophobia is determined by economic circumstances alone – as if throwing money at racists would cure them of their prejudice. It would also be a slap in the face for all the low-income voters who continue to vote for other parties, rejecting the xenophobia stoked by AfD. Alienation is not an excuse for far-right support.

According to the 2016 German General Social Survey, the AfD is popular among low-income, low-skilled workers but it also enjoys a fairly broad support. While the median income of AfD voters is low compared with other parties, it also has the broadest income distribution, with a substantial minority of high earners. Moreover, AfD has poached supporters from both left- and right-wing parties, and mobilised former non-voters. It doesn’t promise any fundamental reforms in the economic sector. Its criticism of the global ‘elite’ is focused on the cultural, rather than the economic – yet it enjoys the blessings of people who report a pessimistic outlook regarding their economic condition. How to explain the contradictions such a picture produces; the union of disparate interest groups, their myriad motivations? What does this lack of coherence and its growing number of patrons tell us about the political reality we find ourselves in?

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, ideological perspectives on economic issues have lost the traction they once enjoyed (except among some segments of the student population). Under liberalism, the economy was ejected out of politics; markets became the architects of social policy, predicting and dictating human behaviour and needs. Economic justice would get scoffed at for being the rallying cry of naive idealists and resentful ‘losers’ who couldn’t hack the realities of the free-market. Instead, social discourse shifted from economic justice to cultural integration, immigration and law-and-order. No wonder that’s what is on the agenda today. In such an environment, people tend to mobilise around their own problems rather than thinking in terms of the structural nature of the societies we live in.

It is not our economic conditions but the ways in which we interpret those conditions that influence how we relate to others. The stories that helped us make sense of our circumstances in relation to systems of power, work, welfare and means of production have collapsed in on themselves, turning into embarrassing scriptures associated with broken promises. In other words, many of us have lost the means through which we might have made sense of the economic mechanisms that govern our personal reality. The ideas that are filling this void represent a fundamental shift in the political consciousness of the precariat class.

While, no doubt, ideology runs into problems when it deems its ideas and goals non-negotiable – the purges, the coups and the failed utopias, for example – it is necessary to embed the markets back into social discourse. It may not end racism but it might help people see where their experiences intersect and overlap, possibly replacing a sense of alienation and isolation with solidarity and cooperation.