On: Europe wrestles with impact of historic regional gains for Germany's AfD

Braintree, this 7th day of September, 2026

I read that in one part of Germany a party grown fat on grievance has taken more votes than any of the older ones, and the newspapers are all astonishment. I confess I have none. Discontent is audible in a kitchen long before it is counted at a poll, and no one thought to listen until the counting.

They will write long analyses of this - about borders, about the euro, about the dignity of nations. I note that few of these analyses will sit at any table where the heating bill doubled and the butcher’s prices with it. A woman there, as everywhere, does her arithmetic on Thursday and understands the country better than the editorial does on Sunday. When the men who govern speak only of abstractions - of unions and treaties and grand cooperation - and never of whether the flour can still be bought, the flour-buyer concludes the government does not govern for her. Then along comes someone who at least pretends to see her, and she votes for him, though he sees her only as an instrument. This is not virtue in the voter nor wisdom in the demagogue; it is neglect finding its price.

And here is what I would whisper to those who wring their hands: you cannot lecture people out of a resentment you helped build by overlooking them. If the old parties wish their voters back, they must speak of wages and bread and who bears the cost of every grand decision, and mean it.

I dread where this road leads. I have seen enough of angry majorities to fear them, whoever they anger first. Yet I observe the alarm comes rather late in the season - the frost was visible in September, as it were, while everyone praised the warm spring.