MAGA embrace of Alternative for Germany; soon everyone in the GOP will be on board

The United States, at the direction of Donald Trump, has switched sides in the war Russia launched against Ukraine. Trump is partnering with Vladimir Putin. The president has attacked our European allies (and others: north and south of our border and across the globe) and NATO, the alliance that has kept the peace for three-quarters of a century.

Embrace of AfD

And the Trump administration has done a bear hug with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has diminished the significance of Hitler and the Nazi era, thereby prompting a rejection from every other German political party.

Elon Musk — among Trump’s closest allies — has urged Germans to “move beyond” guilt and told more than 4,000 rallying AfD supporters, “I think you really are the best hope for Germany.” Then JD Vance scolded American allies in a speech in Munich for not listening to voters “with an alternative viewpoint,” followed up by meeting with the leader of AfD, and afterward doubled down in a speech to CPAC.

Peter Wehner, addressing the MAGA embrace of AfD writes:

For Vance and Musk to go so far out of their way to support not just any rising radical movement, but this particular party, in this particular country, with its deep historical experiences with fascism, is quite telling. They are not just “trolling the libs”; they are giving their public backing to a movement that represents the core convictions of MAGA world. They see in the AfD an undiluted version of MAGA. What we’re witnessing from Trump & Company, as alarming as it is now, is only a way station.
And before you know it, virtually everyone in the Republican Party will be on board. Trump always changes them; they never change him. The AfD’s approach to politics—nihilism with a touch of Nazi sympathizing—is the model.

Yes, before you know it (no matter what came before, no matter what principles the Republican Party espoused previously), virtually everyone in the Republican Party will be on board. The men and women of this party inevitably follow their leader.