Left-wing anti-liberal firebrand Sahra Wagenknecht has sharply criticized calls from politicians and journalists inside Germany’s globalist establishment to ban the Rightist, sovereigntist Alternative for Germany (AfD), proposing instead that AfD voters ought to be won over fairly, with rational, persuasive policy positions.
In an interview with the public broadcaster Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), Wagenknecht, who late last month officially announced the formation of her new party to “restore rationality” to German politics, said: “I think the call for a ban on the AfD is completely wrong and I find the discussion about it dangerous.”
Wagenknecht declared that “banning unpopular parties because they become too strong is incompatible with a free society,” and added that she found “fighting a political competitor with unconstitutional ban proposals incompatible with democratic aspirations.”
Rather, the 54-year-old, with her new party, Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht, hopes to attract AfD voters through sound policies that appeal to broad sectors of working-class Germans who have witnessed their standard of living and quality of life rapidly diminish over the years due to liberal-globalist policies.
“I would be happy if AfD voters choose us in the future because they find our offer more serious and convincing. Because they notice that the AfD’s economic and social policy ideas would make our country even more unfair,” she told RND.
Both noteworthy and unexpected, Wagenknecht also praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s sovereigntist policies, saying: “I don’t have to like Orbán to say that what he’s doing is in the interests of his country.”
Regarding Die Linke (The Left), which she quit back in March, Wagenknecht expressed that she feels no ill will toward her former party, but stated that it is in terminal decline due to its leadership’s drift away from its roots toward a left-liberal ideology.
The Left party, she began, is “not my political opponent.”
Continuing, she said:
I wish the party would find itself. However, in my opinion, there are not enough potential voters for the current policies of the party leadership, which are also represented by the European lead candidate Carola Rackete—open borders and the right to stay for everyone and radical climate activism.
Wagenknecht explained how she often receives letters from Left Party voters who are “disappointed that [she’s] left” the party, and who hope that it can someday return itself to a more “sensible course.” But while acknowledging that their longing is understandable, she told the broadcaster that, unfortunately, she herself no longer shares this feeling of optimism.
In addition to calling for “unchecked migration” policies pushed by the old parties—which she previously criticized for aggravating pre-existing “problems in [German] schools and especially in poorer neighborhoods”—to be done away with, Wagenknecht reiterated her desire to enact economic policies that benefit the working and middle classes.
She argued that a minimum wage of €14, which is “still a very low wage in light of today’s prices,” is necessary, and called for “assets and inheritances in the hundreds of millions or even billions” to be taxed more heavily to relieve the burden on working and middle-class people.
Wagenknecht also suggested the top tax rate could be raised significantly if it were to target the “real top incomes” and not, as does today, the “more highly qualified skilled workers.”
“The top tax rate used to be 56%, but it only applied at a multiple of the average salary, today it is one and a half times. That is absurd. Where I would increase taxes would be on capital income. There is absolutely no justification that people who receive dividends pay much less tax than someone who works.”
