In the ZDF summer interview, AfD co-chairman Jörg Meuthen repeatedly evades important issues and reveals the contradictions of the extreme right-wing party.
It’s that time again: Politicians of all stripes can stage themselves in the annual ZDF summer interview in leisure mode. Of course, every color also includes the blue-browns aka AfD. On this Sunday (July 18th, 2021) it is co-chairman Jörg Meuthen who, a few weeks before the federal election, tries to portray himself as the little wolf in sheep’s clothing once more.
It is in the nature of things that Björn Höcke, who is openly extremely right-wing, is not invited into public law. He would say what’s going on, but you’d rather talk to Meuthen. After all, he is known for his efforts to chatter the AfD into the so-called bourgeois center – as if he believed it himself.
AfD boss Meuthen in the ZDF summer interview: “Weather conditions as you sometimes have in summer”
Survey values currently give the blue-browns 10 percent, which would be 2.6 less than in 2017. One reason is likely to be the corona policy, which is still euphemistically described as chaotic, which combined the incapable with a lack of planning. But the country is currently worried about another thing: the devastating storm. And of course the AfD wants to make a name for itself here, even if the disaster, as you already guessed, should logically have nothing to do with climate change. “Out of respect for the victims, any appropriation of this catastrophe for climate propaganda is forbidden,” said parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel on Facebook.
What does Jörg Meuthen have to contribute to the cause in a summery conversation atmosphere? “First of all, I see a stormy weather situation like one sometimes has in summer, this time it turned out to be particularly blatant”, and furthermore one does not know “to what extent climate change phenomena have reinforced this story or not”. Oh no? Do “we” not know that? Or does that just not fit into the AfD agenda, which, on the one hand, finds everything from the left-green, filthy corner, and on the other hand, does not want to spoil the ideal of society from the thirties with the disdainful reality of its German people?
Radicalization development at the AfD: Meuthen’s contradictions in the ZDF interview
Claus Kleber from Lügenrundfunk has summarized the knowledge that we allegedly do not have, easily understandable for everyone. Lows like “Bernd” have always existed, but: “The fact that they are becoming more frequent is due to the fact that the Arctic and the air above it are getting warmer and drawing power from the jet stream, which drives the weather.” sometimes climate – and not weather. You’re welcome, Mr. Meuthen.
| Surname | Jörg Meuthen |
|---|---|
| Political party | AfD |
| Born | on June 29, 1961 in Essen |
| job | Graduate economist |
| Positions | Co-chair of the AfD |
| Member of the European Parliament |
Then it comes quickly to the “radicalization development” of the AfD. Journalist Shakuntala Banerjee gets into the subject with pictures from the past. Meuthen at the wine together Höcke and Alexander Gauland, Meuthen at the Kyffhäuser meeting, where he called the “wing” an “integral part of our party”, Meuthen when he was still defending Andreas Kalbitz, whom he later pushed out of the AfD. In 2019 he had “never heard anything extremist” from the latter, in order to call for a “firewall to the far right” in 2020.
Shakuntala Banerjee’s ZDF interview with Jörg Meuthen: “You are sending these people to the Bundestag”
However, Meuthen has no desire to “the old stories”, after all, it is written in the year 2021. It is of course part of the AfD that it has fundamentally problems with the past, especially when it reveals the contents of the party too clearly. In addition, Meuthen’s job is that of a clean man who distances himself from provocations – at least since he has stopped making speeches at “wing” meetings (“refugee hadists”, word creation Meuthen). In retrospect he wanted to have an “integrative” effect.
Aha. Allegedly he just had the “information stand only since autumn 2019” about the Kalbitz case. Probably not even his wife will believe him. Banerjee does not give up and holds the extreme right-wing list candidates of the AfD for the Bundestag election under Meuthen’s nose: “They send these people to the Bundestag.” Past that he doesn’t want to talk about.
Self-portrayal as the guardian of morals: The dangerous thing about AfD boss Jörg Meuthen
Then there is another reality, of all things in the form of Hans-Thomas Tillschneider at the AfD party conference in November 2020. After Meuthen dismissed the “Corona dictatorship” equation as nonsense, Tillschneider countered that he would “continue to follow the Corona dictatorship in the future as a Corona dictatorship ”. Another cheek from ZDF to bring in the AfD as it is. The man tries to smile away from the fact that he is the co-chairman of a party that produces these patterns itself.
Conclusion: Shakuntala Banerjee has already done pretty well. She did not let Jörg Meuthen off the hook, and reacted humorlessly to his attempts to discredit her interview. Nevertheless, the question of the content of such conversations remains. The times are over when you have to “expose” the AfD, as it was once so naively called. How this party ticks is known, and also that Jörg Meuthen is able to give the blue-browns a harmless paint job. The references to his past could not prevent his self-portrayal as the guardian of AfD morality. And that is exactly what is dangerous about Meuthen. (Katja Thorwarth)
