http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/images/de_polls_since_sep_2013.pngThe PEGIDA groups still march in Dresden on Mondays against "Islamization" but are overshadowed nationally by a party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), not so openly thuggish as other far-right groups, but all the more dangerous. At their recent conference their demands in "fighting Islam" aimed at easy targets like the face-covering burka and niqab -- hardly ever seen in Germany -- and against muezzins, minarets, and new mosques. Their slogans and demands recalled those heard during the GOP nomination campaign in the USA; much like Donald Trump, they seek support among people whose livelihoods are insecure, whose jobs are precarious, whose future is uncertain, and who blame this on all established parties but also on victims suffering more than they. Far less emphasized, hardly even mentioned by the party, are the AfD's demands for a return to the military draft, a build-up of German armed forces, lower taxes for the wealthy (no inheritance taxes), an increase in police snooping, a tougher penal system, making twelve-year-olds as accountable as adults, with "no pampering" of those in prison, no special treatment for addicts or "psychiatric felons," no improvement in gay rights, and opposition to abortion. Women would do best to stay at home and care for bigger families so as to achieve an increase in the "German" population. As with Trump, this program is also combined confusingly with some acceptable social demands, a call for a better relationship with Russia, and a rejection of both the European Union and the euro -- for all the worst, nationalist reasons. Yet the main trend of the AfD is more than clear and its menace all too reminiscent of Germany 85 years ago. Xenophobic traditions are truly long-lasting in some minds. Today, however, Muslimophobia is far more useful than anti-Semitism, in older or newer forms, if only for the relative numbers of targets to victimize. With next year's elections approaching, all other parties are hunting for lost voters, frightened by the strength of the AfD in state elections in March, with 13% and 15% in two West German states and a startling 24% in the East German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The changing polls now give the AfD overall 14%, in third place and ahead of Die Linke (Left) and the Greens. The worrisome results recall the tea party in Alice's Wonderland, where everyone kept moving one seat further along -- and only the first in line got a clean tea set. In today's German version, fear of the AfD led to each party moving a seat to the right.

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