“60% growth” seems large, but there are almost 85,000,000 people in Germany, so we’re talking about growing from ~0.03% to ~0.05% of the population here.
You’re saying this now but they’re on course to leave the left in the dust and are likely to compete with greens in terms of members and votes by election sunday next year.
How relevant is that in terms of government leadership?
They start getting seats
Is that politically significant?
Yes, to some extent. More seats means more pressure
So they wouldn’t have significant political power, but they would have a political presence at all, which feels threatening?
They already have a presence, and are shaping the politics of Germany indirectly. As our leading conservative party (and our socialdemocatric middle -left party to some extent) makes the same error as in US as trying to cater to those extremist views. Which is frightening as fuck, as more and more fascist views are being adopted and normalized