GERMAN politics, especially in the eastern part of the country, appears to be swinging to the right. Last week, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party came within a whisker of winning the state election in Brandenburg, where it won 29.2 percent of the vote, just behind the ruling Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which got 30.9 percent. The AfD won the vote in Thuringia, and even won by a landslide in Saxony.

This is startling