Elon Musk has endorsed the AfD in a guest opinion piece for Welt am Sonntag, prompting its opinion editor to resign in protest. The Times has more.
In the article the tech billionaire explained why he had posted on the social media platform X last week that “only the AfD can save Germany”.
He wrote: “The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka. Does that sound like Hitler to you? Come on!”
Weidel, 45, has served as joint leader of her party since June 2022. She is in a civil partnership with Sarah Bossard, a film producer who lives in Switzerland and is originally from Sri Lanka. Weidel has extensively criticised Germany’s immigration policies and despite her own sexuality has stated her opposition to same-sex marriage in favour of protecting the “traditional family”.
Shortly after the opinion piece was published, Eva Marie Kogel, the editor of the paper’s opinion section, wrote that she had submitted her resignation.
In a post on X, which is owned by Musk, she said she had “always enjoyed heading the opinion department” at the newspaper. “Today a text by Elon Musk appeared in Welt am Sonntag. Yesterday I submitted my resignation after printing.”
Jan Philipp Burgard, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief designate, and Ulf Poschardt, the incoming publisher, appeared to criticise the resignation in a joint statement. “Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression. This includes dealing with polarising positions and classifying them journalistically,” the pair told Reuters.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: In the Telegraph, Katja Hoyer says the publication of the op ed in such a respectable, mainstream publication has broken a taboo, bringing support for the AfD within the Overton Window.
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Germany’s problem, of course, is that like a number of other Western countries it’s afflicted with a ruling group that has a profound death wish, a death wish which manifests itself as a profound yearning for national suicide. Since the only way to destroy the nations of the West is to destroy the peoples of West, it’s no coincidence that population replacement is now the fundamental project of the rulers of so many Western countries. And from this follows the laughable tripe that anyone who doesn’t go along with national suicide must be another Hitler. Which proves that our rulers have entered the berserk phase of their spiritual illness.
According to the theory of Cliodynamics the period between the end of the old elite and the start of the new elite is chaos. Now the various Western countries may not be in step with each other but you have to wonder if we are going through the period of ‘chaos’ before ‘populism’ produces a new elite.
Germany’s problem, like the rest of Continental Europe, is they have never had democracy in the sense the UK has had (until recently) as imperfect as it was. They have always had some sort of centralised, authoritarian regimes.
Germans have a tendency to like being told what to do.
The key to stoking a preference cascade is to “give permission” to people to think outside of an existing template. I don’t know how much notice Germans take of outsiders, but perhaps a genuine tech genius will have influence in a tech-focussed country such as Germany.
You are assuming the capacity for thinking at all… a rarity these days after 70 plus years of indoctrination via State education discouraging individual thought.
Yeah, for the woke illuminati anybody with an even slightly different opinion is a fascist. We are used to it.
You don’t think immigration is an unalloyed joy? You are just like Hitler.
You don’t think a man can turn into a woman just by declaring himself to be one? You are a nazi.
You think there might be reasons other than racism for certain ethnic groups to underachieve? You are a fascist.
You think the AfD might have a point about Islamic migrants being just a tiny bit more responsible for terrorist attacks than Buddhist monks? You are scum.
It’s OK, guys, we are used to it.
Actually Hitler was a huge fan of immigration – into Czechoslovakia, Poland, for example, sights set on Russia.
Of course in those days immigration (good) was called colonisation (bad).
The authoritarian left have lost their minds.
How do you lose something you never had?
So the editor of a paper’s opinion section resigned because it printed an opinion that they didn’t agree with?
Sounds like a case of dummy and pram to me, but no doubt they’ll claim it was their high moral standards.
If those on the Left weren’t accusing everyone who disagrees with them of being Far Right, or “literally” Hitler, and proclaiming they are protecting democracy, what would they have to say?
“… she said she had “always enjoyed heading the opinion department” at the newspaper.”
Correction:-
“… she said she had “always enjoyed heading the my opinion department” at the newspaper.”