Donald Trump logged onto Truth Social Tuesday night to celebrate the electoral victory of a political party that Germany's own internal intelligence service has officially classified as an extremist group. He capped off his post with "MGGA!!!" — Make Germany Great Again, presumably — apparently unbothered by the fact that the party he's cheerleading would set off alarm bells in most functioning democracies. This is where we are.
What Actually Happened in Saxony-Anhalt
The Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, ran in regional elections Sunday in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt and absolutely cleaned up. According to results published by the state's election authority, AfD pulled in 43.8% of the vote, surpassing pre-election polling that had the party pegged at 40-41%, per The Guardian. That translated to 39 seats in the state's 83-member parliament.
To put that number in context: AfD won just 20% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt's 2021 elections. They more than doubled their share in five years. The Christian Democratic Union, which had been the state's governing party, collapsed — dropping 25 seats to end up with a measly 15. AfD's parliamentary co-chair Ulrich Siegmund was gracious enough to thank Chancellor Friedrich Merz personally for being, in his words, "a very good campaigner for us in this election campaign."
So AfD won big. That part is real. The question is what Trump thinks he's celebrating.
The Party Trump Just Called 'Populist'
Trump's Truth Social post described AfD as a "Populist Party" that "finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly." He is technically correct that they are anti-immigration. He left out some other details.
AfD's Saxony-Anhalt branch has been classified as an "extremist group" by Germany's domestic intelligence service, the BfV. This is not a fringe liberal characterization — this is the formal designation from the federal government's own security apparatus. CDU national general secretary Franziska Hoppermann told The Associated Press that AfD "wants to leave the euro," "works closely together with Russia," and "wants a completely different social model." She is not a progressive. She is a member of Germany's center-right governing party.
The CDU, the Left Party, the Social Democrats, and the Greens — every other party that won seats Sunday — have all publicly stated they will not form a coalition with AfD. German media has a specific term for this: the "firewall." Trump, meanwhile, sent them his warmest regards from Truth Social.
The Governing Problem Nobody's Talking About
Here's the practical reality that got buried under the celebration: AfD's 39 seats still leave them short of the 42 needed for an absolute majority in Saxony-Anhalt's 83-seat parliament. And every other party in the chamber has said, publicly and clearly, they won't touch AfD with a ten-foot pole.
The only conceivable coalition partner is the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, which picked up five seats. That gets AfD to 44 — barely a majority — if BSW is willing. But BSW is a left-wing populist party formed by a former member of the hard left, and that is one very awkward governing marriage. AfD's own defacto leader, Alice Weidel, struck a magnanimous tone after the results came in, telling supporters that the party's "hand is outstretched to all who want to make Saxony-Anhalt better." What she did not mention is that almost no one in the parliament wants to shake it.
Winning 43.8% of the vote and being completely unable to govern is a genuinely unusual situation. It tells you something about how seriously German political institutions take the extremism classification.
Trump and the Habit of Backing Europe's Hardest Right
This is not a one-off. Trump and his orbit have made a consistent practice of amplifying, meeting with, and publicly celebrating far-right figures across Europe. JD Vance showed up at a Munich security conference to lecture Europeans about free speech and implicitly defend AfD. Elon Musk did a live interview with Alice Weidel herself earlier this year. The pattern is not subtle.
What makes this particular post notable is the specific packaging. "Populist Party" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It's the same rhetorical move Trump uses domestically — rebranding whatever is furthest right as simply the voice of the people, as though the German intelligence service is just part of the establishment trying to silence folks who care about borders. Trump ended his post with "MGGA!!!" which he apparently typed without irony. Three exclamation points. The man is 79 years old and he is making Germany Great Again jokes on social media at midnight.
The Dingo Take
A sitting American president just publicly celebrated a party that his ally's own government classifies as an extremist organization, and he did it with three exclamation points and a MAGA pun. That's the sentence. Read it again.
You are supposed to believe this is just normal diplomatic commentary on a foreign election. It is not. There is no version of American foreign policy tradition — Republican or Democratic — in which the president of the United States logs on to his personal social media platform to cheer for a party that a NATO ally's intelligence service has formally flagged as extremist, that maintains documented ties to Russia, and that every other party in a regional parliament has collectively agreed to shut out. That's not populism. That's the United States president acting as an international hype man for Europe's hard right.
The worst part isn't even the politics. It's the casualness. No briefing, no context, no apparent awareness that what he just cheerled has real implications for a democratic ally trying to hold a firewall against something genuinely dangerous. Just "Wow! Really big night!" and an exclamation-point-soaked acronym, fired off like a sports take. The leader of the free world, rooting for the team his allies are desperately trying to keep out of power. MGGA indeed.
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