German has always had laws allowing this, for the extremely obvious reason that Germany once fairly elected a fascist government that ended democracy, created a totalitarian dictatorship, started the most destructive war in history*, and committed genocide. Understandably, the designers of (West) Germanyâs post-war constitution wanted to stop this happening again. These laws have been used to ban neo-Nazi parties at least 4 times since 1945, so even the idea of actually using them is not a new panic response to the AfDâs popularity. If the laws make Germany a flawed democracy now, then arguably it always has been. Incidentally hardcore communist elements in Die Linke have also been surveilled by the German security services for suspected opposition to the democratic constitution, so itâs not true that only right-wing extremism is restricted in Germany. (Die Linke were cleared because it was decided the Stalinists were only a small % of the party with little influence.)
In fact of course, it is at the very least not clear the laws are bad even from a purely democracy-centric perspective and ignoring the substantive badness of Nazism. It is true I think that an election where you can vote for anti-democratic fascists is more democratic in itself. But it is of course also true that âfair elections except fascists are bannedâ is more democratic than âfascists dictatorshipâ. If the risk of the later is high in a completely free election, them a mildly restricted election that bans the fascists can easily be the democracy-maximizing move in the medium term. I think it is fair to say that in early 50s West Germany, a country where a decently-sized % of voters had been enthusiastic Nazis, the risk of fascist takeover at the ballot box was more than theoretical. (Though admittedly the result would probably have been an American military takeover of Germany, not a revived Nazi dictatorship, but that would also have been a very bad outcome.)
Now, maybe what you think is outrageous isnât that banning parties is allowed (or isnât just that), but that the accusation that the AfD are anti-democratic extremists is obviously false and pretextual. Two points about that.
Firstly, they havenât been banned yet! (And personally I suspect they wonât be, and Iâm fairly strongly inclined to think they shouldnât be, though Iâd change my mind on that if Hocke or his faction captured the leadership.**) German law doesnât allow the government to just decide a party is extremist and ban them. They have to provide evidence in a court of law that they really do count as dangerously extreme by specific standards. Now maybe that process will in fact be a total farce with terrible standards of evidence, but since it hasnât happened yet, I donât see any strong reason to think it will be right now. Of course, it is possible that the legal definitions of anti-democratic extremism are badly drafted and could be used to ban a non-fascist party in a procedurally fair way. Maybe that is true, I am not an expert on the laws. (But frankly I have some doubt that you know whether this true either.)
Now you might say it is anti-democratic for the government to threatening the AfD with a ban if they are clearly not a fascist threat to democracy, even if there is little chance of the ban getting through court. And yeah, I agree with the conditional claim here: that would be a very bad violation of liberal and democratic norms. But I donât think it is clear that the antecedent is true. Bjorn Hocke the AfDâs leader in Thuringia seems to have been a neo-Nazi in a very literal sense 10 or 15 years ago, and Iâve never seen any evidence that his views have changed. In particular, he was filmed chanting at a neo-Nazi rally in Dresden in 2010: https://ââwww.theguardian.com/ââworld/ââarticle/ââ2024/ââaug/ââ29/ââthe-trial-of-bjorn-hocke-the-real-boss-of-germany-far-right I think this sufficient evidence to show that Hocke was very probably a real Nazi in 2010, and that Nazis generally want to abolish democracy. (If you doubt The Guardianâs word that it really was a Nazi rally, note that Hockeâs supporters donât themselves seem to deny this. The defence of him quoted in the article is that he only went to the rally âto observeâ, not that it wasnât a Nazi rally.) On the other hand, Hocke doesnât currently lead the AfD, Alice Weidel does, and I think she has tried to kick Hocke out before. I havenât seen any evidence that she is anything more than a very conservative but democratic politcian. So I think it might not currently be correct to class them as Nazis as a whole, and for that reason, I think a ban is probably wrong. But I think the presence of a significant Nazi faction downgrades suggesting they should be banned from outrageous to merely not correct.
*Technically you could argue the Japanese actually started it when they invaded China, I suppose.
**If you care about track records, I am a Good Judgement superforecaster, and I gave Trump a higher chance if winning the popular vote than most of the other supers did.
Iâve seen the term militant democracy used to describe how democracies will have laws that curtail political expression and representation when it threatens the survival of liberal democracy. Another articulation is that the marketplace of ideas is not enough to keep anti-democratic players out of a critical mass of power (not necessarily a representative majority, just enough to erode democratic norms/âguardrails), thus the society has made the tradeoff of empowering some subjective but hopefully impartial institutions of government to gatekeep the political arena from the most dangerous actors to democracy.
German has always had laws allowing this, for the extremely obvious reason that Germany once fairly elected a fascist government that ended democracy, created a totalitarian dictatorship, started the most destructive war in history*, and committed genocide. Understandably, the designers of (West) Germanyâs post-war constitution wanted to stop this happening again. These laws have been used to ban neo-Nazi parties at least 4 times since 1945, so even the idea of actually using them is not a new panic response to the AfDâs popularity. If the laws make Germany a flawed democracy now, then arguably it always has been. Incidentally hardcore communist elements in Die Linke have also been surveilled by the German security services for suspected opposition to the democratic constitution, so itâs not true that only right-wing extremism is restricted in Germany. (Die Linke were cleared because it was decided the Stalinists were only a small % of the party with little influence.)
In fact of course, it is at the very least not clear the laws are bad even from a purely democracy-centric perspective and ignoring the substantive badness of Nazism. It is true I think that an election where you can vote for anti-democratic fascists is more democratic in itself. But it is of course also true that âfair elections except fascists are bannedâ is more democratic than âfascists dictatorshipâ. If the risk of the later is high in a completely free election, them a mildly restricted election that bans the fascists can easily be the democracy-maximizing move in the medium term. I think it is fair to say that in early 50s West Germany, a country where a decently-sized % of voters had been enthusiastic Nazis, the risk of fascist takeover at the ballot box was more than theoretical. (Though admittedly the result would probably have been an American military takeover of Germany, not a revived Nazi dictatorship, but that would also have been a very bad outcome.)
Now, maybe what you think is outrageous isnât that banning parties is allowed (or isnât just that), but that the accusation that the AfD are anti-democratic extremists is obviously false and pretextual. Two points about that.
Firstly, they havenât been banned yet! (And personally I suspect they wonât be, and Iâm fairly strongly inclined to think they shouldnât be, though Iâd change my mind on that if Hocke or his faction captured the leadership.**) German law doesnât allow the government to just decide a party is extremist and ban them. They have to provide evidence in a court of law that they really do count as dangerously extreme by specific standards. Now maybe that process will in fact be a total farce with terrible standards of evidence, but since it hasnât happened yet, I donât see any strong reason to think it will be right now. Of course, it is possible that the legal definitions of anti-democratic extremism are badly drafted and could be used to ban a non-fascist party in a procedurally fair way. Maybe that is true, I am not an expert on the laws. (But frankly I have some doubt that you know whether this true either.)
Now you might say it is anti-democratic for the government to threatening the AfD with a ban if they are clearly not a fascist threat to democracy, even if there is little chance of the ban getting through court. And yeah, I agree with the conditional claim here: that would be a very bad violation of liberal and democratic norms. But I donât think it is clear that the antecedent is true. Bjorn Hocke the AfDâs leader in Thuringia seems to have been a neo-Nazi in a very literal sense 10 or 15 years ago, and Iâve never seen any evidence that his views have changed. In particular, he was filmed chanting at a neo-Nazi rally in Dresden in 2010: https://ââwww.theguardian.com/ââworld/ââarticle/ââ2024/ââaug/ââ29/ââthe-trial-of-bjorn-hocke-the-real-boss-of-germany-far-right I think this sufficient evidence to show that Hocke was very probably a real Nazi in 2010, and that Nazis generally want to abolish democracy. (If you doubt The Guardianâs word that it really was a Nazi rally, note that Hockeâs supporters donât themselves seem to deny this. The defence of him quoted in the article is that he only went to the rally âto observeâ, not that it wasnât a Nazi rally.) On the other hand, Hocke doesnât currently lead the AfD, Alice Weidel does, and I think she has tried to kick Hocke out before. I havenât seen any evidence that she is anything more than a very conservative but democratic politcian. So I think it might not currently be correct to class them as Nazis as a whole, and for that reason, I think a ban is probably wrong. But I think the presence of a significant Nazi faction downgrades suggesting they should be banned from outrageous to merely not correct.
*Technically you could argue the Japanese actually started it when they invaded China, I suppose.
**If you care about track records, I am a Good Judgement superforecaster, and I gave Trump a higher chance if winning the popular vote than most of the other supers did.
Iâve seen the term militant democracy used to describe how democracies will have laws that curtail political expression and representation when it threatens the survival of liberal democracy. Another articulation is that the marketplace of ideas is not enough to keep anti-democratic players out of a critical mass of power (not necessarily a representative majority, just enough to erode democratic norms/âguardrails), thus the society has made the tradeoff of empowering some subjective but hopefully impartial institutions of government to gatekeep the political arena from the most dangerous actors to democracy.