Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), currently serving as the junior coalition partner in Berlin’s center-right-led government, last week voted unanimously to begin efforts to outlaw the reich-y Alternative for Germany (AfD), which took a fifth of the vote last election, CNN reports.
It’s precisely that share of the vote – the highest ever for a far right party since the 1930s – that has painted a target on the AfD’s backs. The more explicitly Neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany has survived ban attempts in 2003, 2016 and 2021 because it simply isn’t popular enough.
The AfD’s rise carries with it “potentiality,” meaning that because so many Germans are fans, they’re a threat to democracy in the country as they could take power and end it.