Alice Weidel and the AfD

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is a right-wing, anti-islam, anti-immigration and Eurosceptic party, using conservative ideals and a populist rhetoric. In Germany’s last elections the party celebrated a huge victory, winning 12,6 percent of all the votes, making the party third of the country (Eijsvoogel, 2017). In this article, it will be discussed how party leader Alice Weidel constructs her online and offline message as a speaker for the party and if her persona aligns with the agenda of her political party.

Message, image and issue

The party’s leader, Alice Weidel, has a huge contribution to the image of the party. However, Weidel’s personal background does not seem to match the issues of the party addresses very much. The party itself is strongly anti-globalization, homophobic and conservative, yet Weidel is a lesbian, has worked as an investment banker in China for several years, and has a PhD in economics. Weidel gives off the impression to have embraced certain progressive values, which we see happening a lot in the so-called New Right. Whether we look at Fortuyn in The Netherlands or Milo in the US, the New Right often adds certain progressive values to their political agenda to use for their own conservative purposes (Maly, 2018). The progressive values change when put in a different discourse, and are purely instrumental.

Weidel’s main goal as a politician is to get her message across to the public. Message in politics is not only what she explicitly tells her public (namely, how she will tackle the issues, and specific numbers and policies, and so forth) – ‘message’ in politics refers to how people view the politician’s identity and personal values in combination with the discourse of the politician. It is a carefully constructed identity that is created by how a politician deals with political issues (Lempert & Silverstein, 2012). The more a politician talks about the issues the more his or her identity is created. By discussing the issues, the politician is constructing an image of themselves and what he stands for.

In Weidel’s case, she often gives off the message of being a calm, moderate woman. “Instead of ranting about the refugee crisis or Islamist terrorists, Weidel opts for a calm tone”, Kathleen Schuster describes in a portet of Weidel. “In interview after interview, she smiles, relaxed and confident. No insult or accusation describing her party as populist, racist or xenophobic unnerves her” (Schuster, 2017).

Also, her personal identity, as she is a lesbian woman, contributes greatly to maintaining her image and also aids to soften the image of the AfD. It serves as ‘proof’ that she and her party not homophobic and even support the LGBT community, even though some of their ideals suggest otherwise. For example, the AfD opposes same-sex marriage and thinks that gay couples should not be allowed to adopt (Staudenmaier, 2017). Because of her sexuality, Alice Weidel does not have to prove that she is tolerant to the public, because how could a lesbian woman be discriminating and homophobic? And how could she be a member of a discriminating, homophobic party? Having her as leader of the AfD is a very strategic move, as now they are even getting votes from LGBT people.

To strengthen her rational, moderate image even more, Weidel often talks about the issue democracy and also portrays herself as a democratic politician. In an interview with Von Mayntz and Rathcke (2017) she said the following: “Es ist eine große Gefahr für die Demokratie, wenn das Versammlungsrecht immer weiter eingeschränkt wird” (Translates to: “It is a great danger for the democracy when the assembly right is being more restricted.”). Here, she shows she cares about “democracy”. She and her party call in their program for more direct democracy, in which the voice of the people is heard. But Weidel’s definition of democracy is not the traditional definition. It is a way of interpreting democracy that is often used by populistic politicians, where “democracy has become characterized as politicians uttering ‘the voice of the people’” (Maly, 2016). Israel describes this as the following: “their [the politician’s] chosen political tool was that of democratically elected representation as a means of both democratizing and lending proper direction to republics, representation held in a new kind of balance between authority to legislate and accountability to the electorate” (Israel, 2011: 813).

Weidel and the populist communicative frame

The populism communicative frame, is a frame that politicians use to present themselves as the ones that speak in name of the people, against an all-powerful elite (Maly, 2016). The concrete modalities of that voice can differ – from ‘rude and controversial talk’ to seemingly ‘rational and intellectual’. Whereas Farage and Trump talk in a simplified way, we see that other politicians use a different style in the construction of their populism.

Even though Alice Weidel at first seems to communicate in a rational, moderate way, this turns out to be misleading. When you look at the issues the party addresses, and the opinions about these issues, it turns out that Weidel and her party communicate a lot within the populist frame. The intellectual and rational style of Weidel’s discourse is still framed as a voice that speaks ‘in name of the people’.

The populist voice of Weidel is visible in form and content. The party calls for instance for a more direct way of democracy (AfD, Wahlprogramm n.d.), in which ‘the Germans’ get their voice back. In this classic populist rhetoric we see that the AfD – just like Forum voor Democratie in the Netherlands, Front National in France and Vlaams Belang in Flanders - frames its discourse as  the voice of the people by pleading for direct democracy. The refusal of other parties to engage with that proposition is then framed as the elites being scared of the voice of the people.

The current chancellor Angela Merkel, who is seen as a stereotype member of the elite, is accused from everything that goes wrong in Germany. More women getting raped in Germany? Merkel’s fault (Weidel, 2017c). People are more scared of terrorism today than ten years ago? Merkel’s fault (Alice Weidel Tweet, 2017). In this way, Weidel and her party make a very sharp distinction between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, in which the people are portrayed as victims of the elite.

Weidel’s famous moment

Weidel caused quite some commotion when she walked out of a debate launched on TV channel ZDF last 6th September (ZDF, 2017). Weidel appeared to be disturbed and agitated when she was attacked by multiple politicians. She did not receive much attention from the other politicians. She was repeatedly cut off by her opponents to the very end wherein she abruptly left the debate.

Weidel has gotten the image of ‘AfD’s rational voice’. Walking out of the debate, might at first sight look quite irrational. But when you see her walking away, she looks very calm and confident about her action. This attitude is part of Weidel’s message. Her action therefore might look irrational at first, but because of this calm attitude, it does no harm to her rational image.

Afterwards, Weidel replies to this event by posting a video on Facebook that shows a different view of what happened (Weidel, 2017a). In this video she creates the impression to be relaxed, intelligent, well-expressed and in charge of the debate; thus, a strengthening of her rational image. Besides, in her own video, it is pictured that her opponents do not have a response to what she says (they are mainly listening). Therefore, by walking out of the debate Weidel constructs the role of AfD as a victim of the elite (Martin, 2017).

On- and off- message

The AfD regularly reveals information that is negative for their political enemies: for example Merkel’s CDU (#lautgegenmerkel). The goal of Weidel’s campaign team is to publish as much information that is ‘on message’ (information that is consistent with the party and their standpoint, and enforces a feeling of ‘realness’ and reliability (Lempert & Silverstein, 2012)) about her and her party, and as much information that is ‘off message’ about their opponents.

It can be a real blow to the party and to Weidel’s image when information that is ‘off – message’ is published. Therefore message is both positive and negative, because it can be used to brand the opponent. This was the case when it became public that she had paid a Syrian refugee to clean her house illegally (Mortimer, 2017). There is no hard evidence that this was true, but when asked for a response, her lawyer declared that the time they were given to come up with an answer was ‘too short for the elaboration of relatively complex legal issues’ (Connor, 2017). He later stated that Weidel had a ‘friendly contact’ with a Syrian woman, but that she was definitely not employing her. Weidel simply called the accusation ‘fake news’. Fake news is a term that is used to describe false information that is published and disguised as news reporting, often to make large audiences believe the stories, which can be damaging to a person (Hunt, 2017). A lot of her supporters believed Weidel, but it really questions her reliability for a great deal of people.

For her loyal supporters this is ‘on message’, because it only supports their view that other politicians and the media are corrupt and against the AfD no matter what, and that this is an example of the hate campaign against them. Her supporters do not believe information that is ‘off message’ for the AfD, because it only strengthens their belief that she is anti-establishment. The image above shows a supporter that thanks her for her clarification about the news. The supporter immediately believes her and does not question her clarification.

Reaction on Weidel’s tweet from Sirius Java "Wie könnte Fr. #Weigel auch eine Asylbewerberin beschäftigen? (...)" ("How could Mrs. #Weidel also employ an asylum seeker? Did they not get shot right at the borders? #AfD #idiotsparty")

Alice Weidel Twitter

In the images above, opponents express that they think Weidel is a hypocrite and that they do not believe her denial of this story. The ‘mainstream’ political parties and their supporters see this as a confirmation of how hypocritical populist right - wing politicians are, in that they only want others to live the way they prescribe, and in the meantime continue their comfortable lives.

An example of information that is ‘on message’ for Weidel, is a picture on her timeline of her shaking hands with a religious person (Weidel, 2017b). Weidel is holding flowers, obviously one is thanking another. It looks like the two have a respectful and warm meeting. This is perfectly 'on message' for her image as party leader of a conservative Christian party. The fact that she shares this picture implies that she wants to promote this image of herself.

Weidel and social media

Most politicians nowadays have to be active on social media to get their voice out there. By tweeting, posting and sharing things, an online message is constructed. This is also the case for Alice Weidel.

Looking at Weidel’s social media, she appears to be active on mainly Twitter and Facebook, where she has 23.000 and 125.000 followers as of December 12th, 2017. On both platforms, she portrays herself as a friendly, yet professional woman. She does so by, for example, not posting online about personal issues, but solely about politics. Another example is her Twitter name, which is Dr. Alice Weidel. Her calling herself Dr. gives people the association that she is a smart and professional woman. In her Twitter bio she introduces herself as the Group Chairman of the @AfDimBundestag and as a member of the AfD federal executive committee. Again, a very professional online message is constructed by Weidel.

This also shows that there is somewhat of a clash between Weidel’s content and the stylization of her social media accounts. Both on Facebook and Twitter we see that her posts are solely about politics and all fit the strong right-wing ideals of the AfD that are part of her message, yet she still appears to be this friendly and professional woman. This shows the power of stylization. While the posts construct the identity of a strong right-wing politician, the stylization of her online profiles still makes her able to portray herself as a friendly person.

Besides this, Weidel also constructs an online message as ‘the voice of the people’, which again shows that she fits in the frame that is populism. Her Twitter header is an example of this. It shows the German people, holding their flags. She thanks them (“Danke, Deutschland!” - “Thank you, Germany!”) for their votes in the last elections. We can also see eagle on one of the flags, which celebrates Germany and nationalism.

Online movements

Weidel and other politicians try to reach an audience through social media in order to spread their message, construct ‘the voice of the people and in this way create an online following. To accomplish this, they need some type of support group. According to Castells, these (online) social movements “are the producers of new values and goals around which the institutions of society are transformed to represent these values by creating new norms to organize social life” (Castells, 2015: 8).

Nowadays, there are tons of these online support movements on both global and local levels. An example of an online support movement for the AfD and Weidel on a local level is Reconquista Germanica: a Facebook account created by Nikolai Alexander with almost 15.000 likes. Reconquista Germanica has now also spread to YouTube and Twitter and has created a huge online following. The goal of RG is to ridicule other German parties like the CDU and SPD and to spread the voice of the AfD in a positive way. To do this, they make use of memes that are often full of satire and sometimes even offensive.

Comparrison with Nazi propaganda made by Steward & Mason (2016) for The Guardian.

In the picture above we see an example of of these RG memes. It shows the leader of the CDU, Angela Merkel, and the text “Vom Integrationskurs direkt zur Kraftfahrerausbildung (Mit unserem Darlehensprogramm)” (Translates to: ‘from the integration course directly to the drivers training (with our loaning program)’). In this way, RG tries to ridicule Merkel, the CDU and their ideals. They make fun of immigrants coming to our country, saying that once they do their integration course they will just become a bus driver anyway, get a maintenance loan and not make anything better of their lives.

At the same time this also good publicity for the ideas of the AfD. By ridiculing the ideals of the CDU, they shine a better light on their own ideals and saying these are the right ones to believe and follow. This meme is about immigration and as the AfD is so anti-immigration, this meme states that immigration does not have any good promises for Germany.

Weidel's discursive battle for anti - Enlightenment ideas

Even though Weidel and the AfD seem to bring about a new, alternative and democratic message, they speak in an old tradition that is essentially undemocratic. This starts with demonizing Muslims, and not accepting them as legitimate inhabitants of Germany:

facebook.com/aliceweidel

Here, Weidel promotes a view of Germany as a homogeneous entity with a homogeneous culture, and a nation that is weakened by other cultures. This type of discourse is part of an attack on Enlightenment values. Enlightenment thinkers strived to improve society by means of reason. To do this, freedom on all domains is a universal right and is at the base of a society (Maly, 2012: 95). The Enlightenment ideology is fundamental to what is today considered a democracy:  an institution that is based on equality and freedom, and that uses representatives to represent the people in government (Maly, 2012: 98). Weidel obviously prioritizes other things: for her and her party, the German nation and identity need to be preserved. This ideology resembles the ideology of organic nationalism, an important feature of anti-Enlightenment. In organic nationalism, the nation state is seen as an organic and ‘living’ thing, with a unique identity and soul (Maly, 2012: 124). People should cherish and preserve the nation state, and not change it: in this view, the nation is placed above the individual (Maly, 2012: 104 – 105).

Weidel, like all politicans, engages in a discursive battle to persuade the people to believe in her interpretation of words like nation and democracy: 

“This discursive battle is waged over the definition of words, the interpretation of facts, the understanding of the ideology or the general image of the party” (Maly 2014, as quoted in Maly 2016).

In other words, Weidel gives another meaning to words with a positive connotation like democracy, and uses it to spread her ideology of organic nationalism. Weidel wages a discursive battle in which democracy doesn’t stand for freedom and equality for all, but for binding referenda and other populist measures of direct democracy, like she does here in an interview with Klaas Heufer: 

"We demand a separation of authority and mandate. Then the democracy needs to be completed by referenda. That is something very important, in order to revive the democracy”. 

By using Enlightenment concepts like democracy in an anti-Enlightenment and therefore undemocratic context, the representative democracy is undermined and Weidel can attack the Enlightenment concept of democracy without clearly stating that she does it.

Conclusion

The strong political image of being a rational, moderate woman that Weidel creates for herself through her political discourse and attitude often works in her advantage in justifying her opinions and actions. Also, having her as a leader to the AfD attenuates their image, for example of the party being homophobic, so it even works as a justification of the party’s statements. On social media she successfully carries out this professional image as well by making good use of stylization.

Due to her image, she does not immediately come off as a populist. However, if you really listen to the issues that she and her party address you notice that it actually is very populistic, as they continuously make a distinction between the ‘elite’ and ‘the people’. It is also the reason why, online and offline, she is often referred to as ‘the voice of the people’. She receives online support to maintain this image in the form of online movements, such as the Facebook-page called Reconquista Germanica. This page tries to start meme-wars to get the radical right-wing ideas of the AfD across and make them a bit more accessible for outsiders. Moreover, Weidel’s tradition of speaking, with anti-Muslim and anti-refugee statements, is clearly anti-Enlightenment and anti-democratic. While attempting to save the homogeneous nation state, the group is placed above the individual. To persuade the people of her ideas, Weidel engages in a discursive battle for the meaning of Enlightenment concepts like democracy, and gives it a twisted and undemocratic meaning.

The moment when Weidel walked out of a debate last september creates an example of an action of hers that is justified by her political image, as it was irrational, but was accepted by many as people think of her as professional and friendly. Also it worked well with her statements where she puts the elite in a negative light, as she got the chance to portray herself as a victim of the elite here.

The fact that Alice Weidel, being a lesbian woman with high education, is leader of the AfD is often confusing to many people. However, we can say that her personal and political image of a moderate, friendly and rational woman works very beneficial for her and her party.

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