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I agree with your reasoning.
The whole affair is just very slightly unusual in how hitherto-respectable politicians and functionaries ended up going to an event with Sellner. Did they not know in advance that the Identitarians would be there? Did they expect perfect secrecy to hold up? How the media would spin it seems obvious, and I don't mean in retrospect.
I wanted to type out my opinion of the whole thing just to add a German sorta-nativist perspective and some details regarding the media coverage and "public" reaction to the affair, but as I set to it it turns out to be too tiresome. The goodthinking people of Germany have promptly held several rallies to denounce the participants and their ways of thinking, but no more than that because what more can they do that they haven't already, the initiatives to ban the AfD have been underway long before this event and there's just not much more that anyone can do in that direction. The overblown reactions I'd say are part AfD Derangement Syndrome and part a performance of the rites of the German Civil Religion.
Ah, I think I don't really have anything to say. It's all very tiresome and mostly just more of the usual.
The interesting thing to me is that this has created the fuss it has, when the AfD itself contains people who are arguably more radical on these issues (particularly Höcke and his wing) than Sellner is.
You're right, but frankly, it doesn't matter. The German anti-right is on a hair trigger because of the AfD's recent growth to the point where, if their polling numbers hold up in the upcoming state elections, it will no longer be possible to exclude them from all high offices as before. Since the political methods of keeping the AfD from regional power are about to fail, there are instead redoubled efforts on other levels - in the media, via legal measures, and through public rallies. Many people who genuinely believe that the AfD is a blight on the country are very on edge at present, and will react more strongly than before to anything related to the matter.
Wait, I don't understand. The AfD's polling #1 in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, but it's not polling more than Die Linke + SPD + CDU, and they already did a "Die Linke and CDU work out a confidence agreement" thing to keep the AfD out the last time Thuringia had an election. Are they fearing AfD will continue to gain to the point where it has an outright majority? Is someone threatening to break the cordon?
Wagenknecht is probably enough of a wildcard to throw it out of whack.
Eh, not necessarily. I mean, I'm no lawyer or political expert - I don't actually know how it works in the nitty-gritty. What I look at is just how media and people around me act. And Wagenknecht doesn't really play any noticeable role in their fear of the AfD. But sure, when it actually comes to elections, she may have an effect.
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