To save all that is Right and Good about Our Democracy, the cartel parties of the Federal Republic have erected a massive firewall round the Evil Fascist Nazi Hitlerites of Alternative für Deutschland.
According to this highly democratic arrangement, which effectively disenfranchises one-fifth of the German electorate, none of the cartel parties may achieve any parliamentary outcomes with AfD votes. Nobody may so much as approve the purchase of single-ply toilet paper if doing so requires AfD votes. This is because Evil Fascist Nazi Hitlerism is a contagion, and anything Evil Fascist Nazi Hitlerites might vote for – even if it is just toilet paper – immediately becomes Evil and Fascist and Nazi and Hitler by association.
Some valued readers have noticed that the firewall would seem to grant AfD unusual powers. If everything the AfD touch is fascism, then they should be able to drive the Defenders of Our Democracy before them merely by threatening to taint the perfectly reasonable and democratic and upstanding things these Defenders already want to do with their fascistic support. The risk has become so grave that the virtuous antifascist politicians of the Federal Republic are forced to exert untold effort behind the scenes, coordinating every last vote to avoid accidentally achieving some outcome with AfD support purely by accident. The stronger the AfD becomes, the greater the risk grows.
Alas, the AfD has become so strong, especially in East Germany, that it is not always possible to avoid committing the odd accidental fascism. It can happen to the best of people, even the very best of people, as it did to the Greens in the state parliament of Saxony on Wednesday.
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