The German Right in the MAGA Trap

Dancing to Washington’s tune

Karl Richter contends that the German right is deluding itself with transatlantic rhetoric while willingly submitting to a new phase of American dominance.

Editorial Note: This article reflects a German nationalist perspective. Compact, founded by Jürgen Elsässer, is a patriotic German magazine critical of globalization, NATO expansion, and EU supranationalism.

Compact publisher Jürgen Elsässer is right: the Trump intoxication prevalent in large parts of the patriotic camp is naive, dangerous, and devoid of historical awareness. After a year of Trump, anyone still in full command of their faculties should recognize that his administration—without this being a reproach—places American interests above all else and expects everyone else to dance to Washington’s tune. Those who resist, as ever, risk carpet bombings, sanctions, annexation, or nuclear destruction. Even AfD leader Alice Weidel, who only last year was elevated onto the international stage by Elon Musk, has recently experienced this firsthand. Together with her co-chair Tino Chrupalla, she criticized Trump’s Wild West policy towards Venezuela and Greenland, and was sharply reprimanded for it by George Weinberg, chairman of Trump’s overseas organization “Republicans Overseas” (“simply stupid”).

And anyone who sees Israel pulling the strings behind Trump is not mistaken—something evident even prior to the Epstein files. The United States functions as Israel’s extended arm, no less under Trump than under Obama, the Bushes, or Biden. That alone makes Uncle Sam a serious danger to the rest of the world. None of this is new.

It is extraordinarily short-sighted—and anything but in Germany’s interest—to throw oneself at Trump’s feet simply because he strikes patriotic notes and, most recently at the Munich Security Conference through Secretary of State Rubio, warns against Islamization and mass immigration. A responsible European ought to recognize such matters independently. Above all, one must keep the core of the transatlantic liaison firmly in view: Washington is merely replacing its vassals. Instead of CDU [Christian Democratic Union], SPD [Social Democratic Party], and the Greens, perhaps the AfD [Alternative for Germany] in the future—that is entirely realistic. But it comes at a price.

One should not ignore that the right-conservative resurgence in Europe is, to a considerable extent, an American elite project. The groundwork has long been laid by MAGA-aligned think tanks and the relevant NatCon conferences¹ of recent years. American AI, Big Tech, and Big Data giants such as Tesla, Amazon, and Palantir are thereby securing more favorable operating conditions than under leftists and Greens. Now Europe’s vassals are being brought into line. Their subordinate status changes not in the slightest—as Meloni’s case illustrates. NATO enthusiasts such as AfD Colonel Lucassen,² who admittedly does not represent his party as a whole, are scarcely more palatable than CDU war hawks Kiesewetter and Wadephul.³

Elsässer is right:

The [U.S.] resource imperialists want to instrumentalize right-wing forces such as the AfD for their seizure of power, just as the Greens previously served as the battering ram for the deindustrializers. The question, in Germany as everywhere else, is whether patriots discern which power they are helping into the saddle—and whether they detach from it in time.

Given the current circumstances, skepticism is warranted. A consistently pro-German alternative worthy of the name is nowhere in sight. If appearances do not deceive, the AfD is presently being rendered U.S.-compatible at high speed—if it has not already reached that point.

(Translated from the German)

1. Translator’s note (TN): The NatCon conferences refer to the National Conservatism Conference series organized by the Edmund Burke Foundation under the intellectual leadership of Israeli political philosopher Yoram Hazony. Bringing together American and European conservative politicians, thinkers, and activists, these gatherings advocate national sovereignty, cultural cohesion, and resistance to supranational governance, and have become key networking forums for the transatlantic nationalist right.

2. TN: Rüdiger Lucassen is an AfD Bundestag (German parliament) member and former Bundeswehr colonel who serves as the party’s defense policy spokesman. He has been associated with a comparatively pro-NATO line within the AfD, leading to tensions with more sovereigntist elements of the party.

3. TN: Johann Wadephul serves as Germany’s Federal Foreign Minister under Friedrich Merz, while Roderich Kiesewetter is a prominent CDU foreign and security policy expert known for his strong pro-NATO stance.