Study: High level of anti-democratic and antisemitic attitudes among AFD voters

Many AfD supporters vote for the party apparently not despite but because of their anti-democratic positions. This emerges from a representative survey published by the University of Leipzig on Tuesday. In no other group of voters are extreme right-wing attitudes and hostility to Muslims more widespread than among AfD voters, explained the extremism researcher and head of the study, Oliver Decker. She also had clearer antisemitic attitudes.

Overall, according to the study, the AfD voters showed significantly higher approval ratings for anti-democratic attitudes than the supporters of other parties. According to this, 80.6 percent of AfD voters stated that they felt “strange” in their own country because of “the many Muslims”. More than 70 percent thought that Muslims should be prohibited from immigrating to Germany. In addition, according to the survey, one in five AfD supporters is ready to use physical violence to assert their own interests. More than half of the AfD voters find resentments against Jews at least partially understandable

Decker explained that those Germans who had long shared extremely right-wing attitudes - be it chauvinism, advocacy of a dictatorship, antisemitism or xenophobia - but voted for the SPD or CDU until 2014 were now voting for a party that implemented a program based on their attitudes. "You have found a political home in the AfD," said the scientist. Against the background of the events of the past few months, the murder of the Hessian politician Walter Lübcke, the assassination of the synagogue in Halle and the subsequent murders as well as the recent racist terrorist attack in Hanau , "this clear position against democratic cohesion should be viewed with concern" Decker said.

Source: uni-leipzig