Given my recent forays into East German identities, I feel compelled to write a little bit about last Sunday’s AfD victory in Saxony-Anhalt. So much has been said about it–but perhaps it’s good to record my own feelings and look at this post in a few years.

This was a slow-motion train crash: We all saw it coming, the polls were quite clear, and still there’s a big shock to see a party with overtly fascist positions gain more than 40% of the vote. The outcry in Germany and the world is understandably big. How can one react to this?

Saxony-Anhalt is close to where my family is originally from. My sister lives across the Elbe in Wittenberge, my great-uncle a few kilometers into the state in Neuhausen. Apart from the occasional transit and a short stopover in Magdeburg en route to the Harz, though, I have not seen much of Saxony-Anhalt myself.

Structurally, a lot of the state shares similar traits with the Prignitz, with which I am more familiar with. Marginalized, peripheral, disadvantaged, “strukturschwach”, all of these words characterize the socioeconomic situation. Steffen Mau’s “Ungleich Vereint” helps pin some objective numbers to these visceral images of “Ostdeutschland”, and Saxony-Anhalt undoubtedly is the leader in many of the indicators representative of East Germany’s predicament.

Ultimately there is no lack of analysis of the why and how this could happen here. There are lots of opinions as to what ought to happen next. Should the AfD assume responsibility, take over governing one of the federal states and in the process lose its anti-establishment credentials? Fail amid the institutional jungle, checks and balances, budget constraints?

I am skeptical. Any screw-up at the subnational level can always be blamed on national politics in Berlin. Track record in power does not seem to faze their supporters too much, as they often remain unfazed by broken campaign promises.

Deal with the problems of the people? Put people with charisma into positions of power, not pale bureaucrats?

Of course, it would help to get gasoline prices down. The problem with AfD voters is often that it is their subjective economic position that bothers them, while in reality they’re not worse off than their non-AfD voting peers. I find this self pity hard to tolerate, especially if it leads people to vote for the radical right out of a desire to “shake” the system.

I also sympathize with some who say that the AfD can field a broomstick for an election and win. I just don’t think you will get many of the voters back on policies or charisma. I don’t know what can, to be honest with you.

This article here from a few weeks ago was widely cited as a prelude to what might happen when the AfD is actually in charge–it portrays an AfD mayor in a small municipality in Saxony-Anhalt. I thought it’s hard to extrapolate from a hyperlocal to a regional or even national level. Extreme political positions usually soften at the smaller scale, when you have to look your electorate in the eyes.

The impersonal, faceless and fascist talk of concepts like “remigration”, thought about in not-so-secret-anymore meetings with Austrian far-right spin doctors is of course scarier at the national level, and that’s where we are now moving to with the AfD polling near 30% nationally, ahead of ALL other political parties.

My big questions remain unanswered: Are AfD voters fascist or racist by virtue of voting for this party, known to have many right-wing extremists in their ranks? Do policy positions and plans actually matter? How can we save our democracy from these people?

I am going to think about these questions over the next couple of years, as I see my (non-white) children grow up and visit their grandparents in an area where more than one in two makes their tick next to a party that openly advocates using the military to kick out “Passdeutsche”. Where in some naive dream, I thought of one day perhaps spending at least part of my retirement.

I am also going to think about what I can do to help change that. Cas Mudde suggests that democratic forces should forget their policy positions and focus on their shared commitment to democracy. This is a global fight, and we cannot afford to duck away from this.