German news outlet Der Spiegel is “losing touch with reality” after its political editor penned an article calling for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to have public funding it is entitled to cut off by other parties in order to “strengthen democracy,” a German mayor has claimed.
Boris Palmer, mayor of Tübingen and a former member of the German Green Party, accused Der Spiegel’s Ann-Katrin Müller of being irresponsible by backing proposals to stifle support for the AfD, which is soaring in popularity among the electorate, particularly in the eastern German states.
“The demand that AfD should be fought through targeted disadvantages, rules of procedure, withdrawal of party funding and, best of all, by a ban is truly dangerous,” Palmer wrote in a lengthy Facebook post.
Der Spiegel believed that by refusing to give the AfD the party funding to which it was entitled, it could prevent its looming election victories in Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony next September. The headline itself read: “Act before it’s too late!” The paper called on the German traffic light coalition to turn off the money tap for the opposition party “soon.”
Palmer, once a member of the Greens, slammed the article and said it was effectively saying: “The people are stupid. If they don’t want to vote properly, we’ll just change the rules until the result suits us,” and warned that such a move would shake the “foundations of the constitution.”
Instead, he called for Germany to “make policies that solve problems and take people seriously.” The 12 percent increase in citizens’ income, including for Ukrainian citizens, would “only cause outrage among many working people,” he warned.
Even today, low earners who work full-time are “left with only €300 to €500 more at the end of the month than what (Ukrainians) receive with their citizen’s allowance, housing benefit and other benefits,” he explained, claiming that work is no longer worthwhile and current policies “simply do not work in the long term.”
Palmer also cited the “disaster in schools,” migration policy, and inclusion legislation as examples of the German establishment not listening to the electorate.
The trains “no longer run when it snows” and if it doesn’t snow, “they don’t run either,” he wrote. He also slammed the Constitutional Court for declaring “the most important budget funding null and void, and the government cannot find an answer.”
“And then you wonder why people turn away in horror?” he asked.