The tech billionaire is meddling in elections across Europe, and his latest move to support the AfD is proof he is determined to undermine democracy in a country that knows better than any what far-right dictatorship can bring, writes John Kampfner
Independent cousin
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When the Germans approached a year plagued with feelings, I remembered an episode ten years ago that I am absurd then and that today surprises me with their prescience.
I was chairing a conference about the internet in Berlin, sponsored by Google, when one of the participants suggested that the German government should establish a public internet company. Silicon Valley, she proffered earnestly, was the preserve of the American super-rich and could not be trusted to tell the truth or preserve democracy.
I didn’t care for the idea, even though I was too polite to say so. The means of their research was, and still is, incredibly outdated and ridiculous. State perception invoked to provide an online platform for observation and data – In the very land of Goebbels and the Stasi, stretches credulity. But I have to admit that the speaker foresaw Elon Musk’s malignancy long before I, or anyone I know, ever did.
Musk is driving a sledgehammer through politics in Germany, at its most sensitive moment, and he is basking in the fear he is stoking. The more colourful his insults become (delivered via X, his personal fiefdom), the more outraged the political class becomes. Which is his objective, and that of his boss, Donald Trump.
What position to undermine democracy than in a country obsessed with constitutional property?
Musk called Chancellor Olaf Scholz an “incompetent fool. ” In another post he referred to him as “Olaf Schitz”. He filed complaints against all the other dominant parties. But it was his latest recent attack on the head of state, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, that provoked the ultimate offense, calling the so-called father of democracy an “anti-democratic tyrant. “
In theory, everyone has the right to sue you. German law weighs freedom of expression against the right not to be insulted in public. The Penal Code includes an entire category of “honour killings”, which includes insults, slander, defamation and propagation of false statements that cause harm, monetary loss or emotional distress.
All this would play perfectly into the hands of Musk and his self-proclaimed “freedom of speech”. In any case, any fine would make an infinitely small brunette stay in your wallet.
What is far more dangerous is Musk’s open support for the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD). With the party running second in the opinion polls ahead of the 23 February general election, his endorsement in the pages of the usually respectable conservative newspaper Welt am Sonntag of the AfD and all it stands for – remigration, ethno-based nationalism and Europhobia – matters. Not because of Musk’s political perspicacity but because of his hold on social media.
The richest man in the world has a political and economic agenda in Germany. In his newspaper commentary a few days ago, he praised the AfD for its plans to “reduce government overregulation, lower taxes and deregulate the market”. A Tesla plant in the region of Brandenburg, east of Berlin, is his first electric car factory in Europe and would benefit from any deregulation.
“The election for Germany is the last spark of hope for this country,” Musk wrote in his translated comment.
He added that the extreme right party “can lead to the country towards a long term where economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation are mere desires, but a reality. “
Musk’s commentary quickly led to the resignation of the newspaper’s opinion editor, Eva Marie Kogel, while Lars Klingbeil, the chair of Scholz’s Social Democrats, who are trailing far behind in third, accused Musk of wanting to “plunge Germany into chaos”, comparing him to Vladimir Putin. “Both want to influence our elections and specifically support the AfD’s enemies of democracy,” Klingbeil said.
The less bloody situation is that musk exploits latent frustration with liberal democracy in Germany, just as he and Trump do in the UK
Scholz and Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the top most likely to succeed him as chancellor, criticized Musk. But they chose their words carefully. “You, the citizens, what is happening in Gerguyy,” Scholz said in his New Year’s speech. “It doesn’t count on the owners of social networks. “
Their measured tones mask a growing sense of alarm. The terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg demonstrated continued vulnerability to such incidents – although nobody is immune, as the latest attack in New Orleans attests. It also opened the door to yet more denunciations of immigrants, of “the other”.
And Germany, from all places, where that hostility can lead.
The AFD would have possibly gained around one percentage point, but it is still at 20 percent: good luck, but equally remarkable. The CDU remains above 30 percent, while the SPD, Greens and others languish.
A “firewall” agreed upon by the main parties remains in place, ensuring no cooperation or coalition discussions with the AfD or other extremist groupings at national level, though locally that has started to fray.
The positive situation is that the German electorate is not more willing than American marketing specialists telling them what to do a decade, and that Musk’s approach with AFD will make little difference. The maximum probable electoral result remains a MERZ/CDU Coalition with the SPD or the Greens, or with both.
The least positive is that Musk is exploiting a latent frustration with liberal democracy in Germany, just as he and Trump are doing in the United Kingdom, with Nigel Farage, and in France, with Marine Le Pen.
Germans are already petrified at the prospect of Trump’s inauguration in a fortnight’s time. The question then is how far the 47th President of the United States, a title that used to carry the tag of “leader of the free world”, will be prepared to go to undermine democracy in the country that knows better than any what far-right dictatorship can bring?
Since electoral campaigns in Germany tend to provoke surprises, there is enough time for Musk and those of their creek to damage a liberal democracy that during the last eight decades has been so laborious.
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