Today I have the pleasure of talking with Professor Adrian Daub about the recent elections in Germany, where we saw a surge in votes for the Far Right AfD party, which is now the second-most powerful party in the country. We discuss the significance of this rise in popularity, and the ways the elections reveal a number of shifts in German politics, as the various parties stake out positions which align with not just a center-right orientation, but, more dangerously, a far right one. We speak of the parallels to the recent election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, and what it says about the entrenchment of both neoliberalism and a faux populism based on xenophobia, and not serving the actual material interests of everyday people.

Adrian Daub teaches German and Comparative Literature at Stanford, where he directs the Clayman Institute for Gender Research. He is the author most recently of The Cancel Culture Panic (2024), and co-hosts the podcast In Bed With the Right.”