How Germany’s far right learned to put on a smile to win elections

Five years ago, the Alternative for Germany’s campaign posters in Saxony-Anhalt carried a single bleak word: “Enough.” This month, the far-right party won a historic landslide in the eastern German state by offering something different: “Everything is Possible.” Arguably, it was an AfD version of Barack Obama’s 2008 rallying cry: “Yes We Can.” That change — from grumbling exasperation to upbeat optimism — helps explain why the AfD has surged at the ballot box, putting its first state government within reach earlier this month in Saxony-Anhalt and setting it up to hit historic highs in two further state elections on Sunday, in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.