People in (former) East Germany believe that they are forgotten by all the traditional political parties. And that nobody attempts to take care of them. So most of them see it as a protest vote.

As an aside, about two thousand billion euros have been invested in the former Eastern Germany by the country and EU since the reunification.

Meeting the AFD at their terms ("inhaltlich stellen") is exactly what the CDU tried, and look where that got them.

Answering facism with "well okay maybe we do have too many outsiders and queer people" doesn't solve facism, it simply creates more. And at the end of the day people still vote for the OG facists, so you lose across the board.

What we really need is to stop offering populists and facists the stage. We have to place the issues that are actually important instead of this fucking fear mongering. People don't vote AFD for their legitimate policies! People vote facists if they're uneducated, poor, and desperate. We need to offer education and realistic opportunities of economical advancement and happiness. Want to guess which party doesn't offer that at all and instead will make all three significantly worse for working people? THE FUCKING AFD.