Part 5: Can Liberal Democracy Survive in Europe?

[0] So at this point, we're on the train platform in Warsaw.

[1] We've been traveling together for a few weeks now.

[2] Yeah.

[3] And we've been going from country to country to sort of check what people are thinking ahead of these European elections, which are now upon us.

[4] So we pack up...

[5] Berlin!

[6] And head to the train station in Poland.

[7] and get on the train back to Berlin.

[8] Is this it?

[9] Yeah.

[10] You know, we started this trip, thinking that these liberal values that are so fundamental to the founding of the European Union coming out of World War II that they're now being rejected by all these movements across Europe as no longer relevant to people's lives or even as threats to their national identities, as impositions.

[11] Speaking with Danuta, the Polish law and justice politician, I think I understood a little bit better what this was about and what kind of Europe the populists wanted.

[12] They don't want to throw away democracy.

[13] They want to throw away liberalism.

[14] They want a democracy that responds to them, that answers to them, that represents the will of the majority.

[15] And this is the battle they're kind of bringing to the EU parliament.

[16] So these elections, the second biggest democratic process in the world, this is about how many of these people with a different vision of Europe get into the parliament.

[17] This is Germany?

[18] And so we're crossing the border back into Germany, this country at the heart of a liberal Europe, where the story began, but where nationalism has also gained traction, and where now there is this far -right party, the AFB, We wanted to see, to what extent, this other view of Europe, that rejection of liberalism, had taken hold in Germany too.

[19] From the New York Times, I'm Katrin Van der Leyen.

[20] This is the Daily.

[21] Today, back to Germany.

[22] It's Friday.

[23] June 14th.

[24] So for the last three days, voters across the European Union have been going to the polls.

[25] And on this last day, we drive something like 45 minutes to the outside.

[26] of Berlin to basically spend the election night with the AFD, Germany's far right party.

[27] So we get out of the car and we're just hit by this wall of sound.

[28] There's maybe two dozen protesters there.

[29] They have banners.

[30] They have megaphones.

[31] They're chanting.

[32] They're shouting.

[33] There's police trying to sort of control them.

[34] It's not a big crowd, but it's a very noisy crowd.

[35] They're basically equating the AFD to Nazis.

[36] So we're trying to find the entrance to this party and we're making our way around the building.

[37] And there's the sort of security control at the back.

[38] We shore IDs, walk past a parking lot.

[39] And what is this place?

[40] So this is, it's actually a dance school.

[41] They've rented out a dance school because they were going to have their election party at a restaurant.

[42] And the restaurant owner received so many threats from like anti -AFD people that They had to move the location.

[43] It was all like hush -h -hush, and we only found out yesterday.

[44] But on any other day, you can learn how to dance tangle here.

[45] And finally get to this dance school, which is tonight's venue for the AFD's party.

[46] So this isn't like a sort of U .S. style raging election party with balloons and music.

[47] This is fairly kind of German.

[48] Only men, look at that, or mainly.

[49] There's a lot of men in suits, drinking beer, eating pretzels.

[50] as people kind of wait for the first real results of the evening at 11 p .m. In English?

[51] Ah, okay, okay.

[52] And then there's York Moitin.

[53] I'm York Moitin.

[54] I'm the chair of the AFD of Germany.

[55] So York is the main candidate of the AFD running in these elections.

[56] He's already in the EU Parliament, but he's running for re -election.

[57] I'm in European Parliament.

[58] He was kind of the star of the evening.

[59] And I want to ask him, what does he make of the state of German democracy?

[60] And what does he make of this idea that we heard in Poland that Germany is less democratic because it adheres to these liberal values?

[61] Do you think German democracy today is healthy?

[62] So I asked them.

[63] No, it's not.

[64] It's not at all.

[65] Is democracy working in Germany?

[66] For example, there are so many people fighting against us.

[67] They say we are Nazis, we are racist, we are anti -Semitic.

[68] and all these things.

[69] It's completely, really, completely wrong.

[70] And York said, no, democracy is not working.

[71] And they do not accept, for example, that we have our election party here today.

[72] They try to get us out from here by using violence.

[73] He said, look, look where we're at.

[74] We're in this dance hall, on the outskirts of Berlin, because we were threatened in this other place.

[75] And they fight against us by burning down our cars, by fighting with a physical kind of violence against persons.

[76] And that's not a healthy kind of democracy.

[77] I need bodyguards, a large number of bodyguards.

[78] Is that your bodyguard behind you?

[79] For example.

[80] Another one there, no?

[81] Some of them are here.

[82] And it's necessary, because if I go out, it's dangerous for me. Why?

[83] I just have an opinion.

[84] And I can accept that others do not accept my opinion.

[85] And he said, look, we can't even say what we think.

[86] You know, I would always fight for the left side to have the right to say what they want to do, because that's democracy and that's freedom.

[87] But from the left side, they do not accept us.

[88] He says the tolerance that liberals pride themselves on ends with opinions like his, opinions that they don't like.

[89] It's difficult to have a democracy where free speech is getting more difficult every day.

[90] This frustration is voiced a lot here.

[91] In Germany, you say I'm from the AFD and you don't get in an apartment?

[92] You don't get an apartment?

[93] Yeah.

[94] You can't rent an apartment if you say this.

[95] In Hamburg today, if you want to be in teacher, you must make a signature that I don't in the RFD.

[96] That's not free.

[97] You know, whether or not you agree with the policy of the government or not, are you opposed it completely?

[98] In a democracy, it should not be a problem to address those problems in public.

[99] And you don't have to be afraid of, you know, losing your job, you know, getting attacked or something.

[100] Especially in Berlin, a lot of people, older people like me, that they came from East Germany, feels today like coming home.

[101] It's the same system, it's the same pressure, at work, you look over your shoulder, what you're saying, and this is new.

[102] So you're saying this reminds you of communism?

[103] Absolutely.

[104] The same pressure.

[105] It's smarter and it's in color.

[106] But it's the same shit like in the communism.

[107] And this isn't an entirely wild idea in the sense that Germany, because of its history, again, has some special circumstances.

[108] I mean, in Germany, hate speech laws are extremely strict to the point where to an American, this may almost seem like censorship.

[109] You can, for example, show a swastika in public.

[110] That's a...

[111] crime.

[112] So freedom of speech is more curtailed in Germany because of hate speech laws than it is in a lot of other democracies.

[113] So they see themselves as unfairly targeted.

[114] So what is it that they want to say that they feel like they can't?

[115] And so what is it that you would like to say at work and you feel your colleagues don't let you say?

[116] I want to talk what I feel.

[117] We asked this several times and people sort of talk.

[118] And people sort of talk.

[119] around it.

[120] Safety, education, border security.

[121] And one thing that came up a lot is their views on Islam.

[122] If you have a certain opinion about the immigrants that come here from all different countries, if you say, well, I believe they do not have the legal status to stay here.

[123] You're classified as a right -wing person.

[124] There's a sort of sense that if you express, for example, you dislike of immigration or of Islam that you run the risk of being called a Nazi.

[125] And they're saying, it's okay for us to be proud to be German.

[126] It's okay for us to want to celebrate our culture.

[127] It's okay to be opposed to immigration.

[128] That doesn't make us Nazis.

[129] They kind of want what Danuta, that Polish law and justice politician from the Nationalist Party in Poland, told us about, they want the majority to basically get the last word.

[130] But we'll be more democratic when we have an AFD government because we want the people to decide certain things.

[131] They argue that the rise of populism across Europe, far from being a threat to democracy, it's actually a sign of a healthy, vibrant one.

[132] But when you give all the power to the majority, you also take protections away for minorities.

[133] And so I'm wondering, at what point is this a problem?

[134] What if the people then vote in favor of the death penalty?

[135] One issue that to me, as a German and as a European, felt like a good pressure test, is the death penalty.

[136] Across the political spectrum, including the AFD, everybody here in Germany is against the death penalty, which has been illegal in democratic Germany since World War II in the Nazi era.

[137] Then you think, well, if the majority of the people say we want the death penalty back, do you think that actually maybe the government needs to bring death penalty back?

[138] When I asked, That's penalty back?

[139] It's not possible in Germany, I think.

[140] They would just say this would never happen.

[141] It would never happen.

[142] But if it did...

[143] But I said, what if they did?

[144] Should it be?

[145] I mean, is that what you're saying?

[146] A referendum?

[147] If the people say something, it should happen?

[148] I hope the education and experience...

[149] Memory or the experience?