Whither Europe in the years to come?

The results of Sunday's German elections reinforce the conviction that the Western imagination has lately been gripped by a toxic combination of alienation and false consciousness.

- MAHIR ALI

Opinion polls had accurately predicted the outcome. The fascist-leaning Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) may not have benefited much from the endorsements provided by Elon Musk or J.D. Vance, the US vice-president, but it nonetheless doubled its vote in four years. A party whose leader, Alice Weidel, described Adolf Hitler as a communist in an interview with Musk, attracted more than onefifth of the electorate. She wasn't asked to explain how her description might square with the fact that Hitler's regime dispatched communists and socialists to concentration camps before Jews, Roma and homosexuals.

The US endorsement may not have mattered as much as Friedrich Merz's willingness last month to accept the AfD's support in passing a retrograde resolution against immigration. The reprimands he received included one from his predecessor as Christian Democratic Union leader, Angela Merkel. Following the election, Merz, whose party attracted fewer than 29 per cent of voters, has said that Germany and Europe must work out a defence strategy that excludes the US.

That would be unobjectionable.