What They Actually Want
The leaked WhatsApp messages from inside the Alternative for Germany are the kind of thing that makes you feel like you’re reading fiction, except they’re not. This is what these people actually want to do when they get power. Suppress the media. Purge journalists. Close critical newspapers and websites. Make it work like Russia, China, Turkey.
One local AfD official—a federal police officer, somehow—spelled it out in the group chat: When we take power, a committee has to review and cleanse all journalists and editors. Fire the bosses immediately. Ban anti-people media.
The media lies, so they need to infiltrate it. He even cited Joseph Goebbels like it’s a playbook.
The threads are full of it. Violence fantasies. Conspiracy theories. Petty infighting about whether they should distance themselves from the street-level extremists who’ve actually kept the movement alive. It’s absurd and petty and genuinely unsettling all at once.
What gets to me is how easily people dismiss this. Like it’s too stupid to matter, too cartoonish to be real. But we’ve watched it happen. Trump, Erdogan, Orban—these weren’t theoretical. Once you’re willing to say the quiet part out loud in a group chat, once people are nodding along, you’re already halfway there.
The AfD isn’t a political party with different opinions on economics. It’s a vehicle for people who want to decide what you read, what you watch, what you’re allowed to think. They’re not hiding it anymore. They’re discussing it like it’s already decided.
The worst part is knowing the conversation never stops. Different countries, different languages, same wish: power without criticism, order without anyone arguing back. The kind of clarity you only get when you’ve already decided half the country is the enemy.