The AfD is at a poll high this summer. However, the party’s policy would primarily have negative consequences for its own voters.
Berlin – According to current surveys, 20 percent of those surveyed would currently vote for the AfD. But a new study by the Institute for Economic Research, or DIW for short, found that the main victims of AfD policy would be their own voters. The news magazine reported Mirror on Monday.
For the study, the political attitudes of the party in the Wahl-O-Mat of the Federal Agency for Civic Education for the 2021 federal election were compared with the concerns of the supporters of the AfD compared. The result, as the study authors wrote, was a “remarkable paradox”. Because in almost all areas, AfD voters would suffer from their party’s policies. This includes the sectors of economy, taxes, climate protection, social security, but also democracy and globalization.
According to the study: AfD policy would not benefit AfD voters
The study shows, for example, that AfD stand for an “extremely neoliberal economic and financial policy”. Two of their goals are to increase the power of the market and reduce the role of the state. The author of the study, Marcel Fratzscher, professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University and President of the DIW, wrote on X, the former Twitter, that no party wanted major cuts in social policy. But it also shows that AfD voters often have less social participation, wages and education are rather low to medium high.
The study states: “If AfD policy were to prevail, there would be a redistribution of income and social benefits from AfD voters to voters from other parties.” There is no other party when it comes to climate policy either , which rejects measures more systematically than the AfD, according to study maker Fratzscher. And in terms of social policy, the party differs from everyone else in that it wants to curtail the rights and freedoms of minorities in particular. Also the European Union should be abolished if the AfD has its way.
Video: AfD sees the EU as a “failed project” and wants to start a new one
Author Fratzscher asks on X: “How can it be that a fifth of the citizens* support the politics of a party that runs counter to their own well-being and interests?” The reason could be that many AfD supporters have a wrong self-assessment Suffer. They would not realize that they themselves would be negatively affected by a “politics of discrimination and exclusion”. For example, AfD voters in particular would be hit by poor infrastructure, fewer social benefits and job losses, the study said.
The conclusion of the study: “Not a few AfD voters are convinced that a reversal of globalization, a strengthening of nationalism and neoliberal economic, financial and social policies would give them better jobs, more security and better opportunities. Exactly the opposite would happen.” (fmü)
#AfD #voters #suffer #AfD #policies