The AfD, from day one when they were purely the anti-Euro party....has been an umbrella group with mostly unusual characters showing up to be part of the top level.
Bernd Lucke, the original guy who designed and built the party, gone since the summer of 2015. When he walked out...it’s said that roughly 20-percent of the membership packed up and left with him.
All of the 5.3 million votes for the AfD? It’s safe to say that over half of the votes were merely frustration votes given to them because they were the only major party with an anti-immigrate theme. If any of the five other parties had picked up the topic and had solutions listed out...they would have picked up the votes instead.
Shades of Milton Friedman vs Ann Rand. Where Ann hated Milton over that one issue.
The Free Democrats picked up some of AfD’s positions. For example, the Euro. Both of them did well, and especially in eastern Germany. The eastern Germans continue to see the influx of immigrants as taking away jobs and driving down wages. Since reunification, the Left Party tapped into their anxieties. Now, the Free Democrats and AfD are. Similarly in this country, Donald Trump connected with working class whites on jobs and wages; and, I think, he will have a great opportunity to connect with working class minorities when he runs for re-election.