Similarly, when East Germans joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, they expected to live in the democracy they had pushed for – a system where they, the people, wouldn’t be ignored, looked down upon and viewed with suspicion by a political class that considered itself morally superior to them. For some, this hope was disappointed. They feel that the main political parties take no interest in their concerns, and that this fact doesn’t change no matter which of them they vote for.
Many West Germans feel like this, too, as indeed do many people in other parliamentary democracies around the world. A survey in Britain last year showed that six out of ten people here felt politically homeless, and the same proportion of Americans said in a poll in 2016 that neither of the political parties represented their views.
What makes East Germans different isn’t a special aversion to the political offering – they share that with millions of people in the West – but an unwillingness to accept the shortcomings of parliamentary democracy. Their ‘dictatorship experience’ hasn’t blinded them to democracy but rather sharpened their sensitivity for its failings. In 1989, they had enacted democracy – the rule of the people – in a way other than voting: through street protest, grassroots-level organisations and by complaining loudly to their bosses, local politicians, police officers and state officials. But many now feel that the change they had helped bring about didn’t seem to gift them more agency. In a way, some say, there was more of a feeling of participation then than there is now in a democracy with formal voting. The AfD is very good at exploiting this feeling, using slogans like ‘The East rises up’, ‘Complete the Peaceful Revolution,’ or ‘We are the people’ (which was used by protesters in 1989).