Just weeks after far-left candidates have won surprising victories in Democratic primaries for Senate and House in the United States, in Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Colorado, and New York City, the Alternative für Deutschland party has won a widely predicted victory in the election last Sunday for the legislature of Sachsen-Anhalt, one of Germany’s 16 federal states. 

Most Democratic officeholders have rallied around their far-left nominees even as the Democratic Socialists of America national platform calls for abolishing police, prisons, and immigration enforcement agencies. In contrast, Germany’s long-established parties — Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Free Democrats, and Greens — have promised to continue to regard AfD as a “right-wing extremist” group and not to support any coalition with it.