In recent months, a new party has entered the German left. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), headed by two women with immigrant roots in the Middle East and North Africa (Sahra Wagenknecht and Amira Mohamed Ali), takes a hardline approach to immigration in service of protecting ostensibly progressive values — specifically social welfare.
Six years ago, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party launched a similar strategy on the radical right. Lead candidate Alice Weidel, an out lesbian banker, also took a punitive approach to migration in service of traditionally progressive values. Weidel claimed to be protecting gay and lesbian Germans from the alleged threat of homophobic Islam, despite her own party’s opposition to LGBTQ rights. And yet, the strategy worked. The party managed to become the first far-right party to enter German parliament since 1961.
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