Germany took an expected turn to the right electing a conservative businessman to lead the country while an upstart far-right party, the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), claimed second place thanks in part to its unconventional leader, Alice Weidel, a hardliner on immigration who wants to close Germany’s borders and favors what she calls “remigration,” a euphemism for mass deportation.
An attractive blonde who has made turtleneck sweaters her trademark, Weidel and her party advocate for the traditional role of marriage as between a man and a woman. At the same time, the former investment analyst with a Ph.D. in economics is open about her wife, Sarah Bossard, a Sri-Lankan born filmmaker, and the two sons they are raising together.
Weidel is heralded for giving her party a new more modern and cosmopolitan look. Her unconventional lifestyle is seen as an attribute, attracting young people to a party that most Germans recoil from, fearing an incarnation of the bad old days. A New York Times profile describes Weidel, 46, as someone who can be alternately charming and biting, and who speaks clearly and fluently “even if it is without much empathy,” German political scientist Werner Patzelt told the Times.
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She is the future of the extreme right movement in her country, and once you know more about her, it makes perfect sense that Vice President JD Vance, while in Munich earlier this month, chose to meet with Weidel rather than the then German chancellor who was on his way out. They are kindred spirits. Two right-wing white leaders whose personal brand of wokeness welcomes diversity when it comes to picking a soul mate. They just don’t want it mandated anywhere.
When Vance was in Munich making his first foreign trip as vice president, he had his wife, Usha, and their three young children accompanying him and attracting lots of oohs and ahs at the lovely family portrait. Reporters noted the children were already in their pajamas for the overnight flight to Europe, no doubt thanks to Usha.
The daughter of immigrants from India, Usha Chilukuri was born in San Diego, California, grew up in an upper-middle-class suburb, attended Yale University and then Yale Law School, where she met Vance. Together they organized a discussion group on “social decline in white America,” a topic that Vance, having come from a dysfunctional family in rural poverty, knew firsthand.
Usha’s presence in the public eye, though rare aside from the Munich trip, showcases a marriage that helps make the case that Donald Trump’s party isn’t against all diversity, just the kind that undercuts white America. In other words, it’s good for business if you’re in the business of politics.
“For whatever reason in this day and age, people attracted to this conservative movement don’t really care if the leader is in on the deal or not,” says Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow and the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings. She credits Trump with forging the trail, noting his unwavering support from evangelicals in three straight elections despite his marital history and lack of churchgoing.
“In no way does he live up to the evangelical ideal. He’s the one who started all this,” Kamarck told the Daily Beast, referring to the disjunction between a leader’s lifestyle and what their supporters think they’re supposed to have.
As for Weidel, her grandfather was a Nazi party member and military judge in occupied Warsaw, but he died when she was 6. She claims to not know much about him. Her party, the AfD, more than doubled its support from the last elections, but remains something of a pariah. Weidel lives in Switzerland most of the time to keep herself and family safe from death threats.
Even so, she has not backed off on the issues that drew support from Vance and from Elon Musk, who endorsed her for chancellor. They are on the same page in denying climate change and wanting to dismiss professors who teach gender studies and closing Germany’s borders to immigration.
Asked before the election how many nights she had spent at her German address, Weidel ended the interview rather than answer. Clearly, it’s a sensitive subject for her while we here in America barely blinked a collective eye when we learned that Melania Trump will be spending the majority of her time as first lady between New York and Florida, returning to the White House only for big events. (Including the famous annual White House Easter Egg Roll, which, she announced in a rare statement on Thursday, will be held on April 21.)
No word on whether she will pick up her “Be Best” anti-bullying agenda—and who cares? This isn’t what we’re accustomed to, but it is modern. “She has no intention of being a first lady,” says Kamarck. “Who knows if that’s a reflection on her husband or the job—maybe both.”
Other things Trump is doing that evade categorization and potentially attract new voters, he is bringing Alice Marie Johnson to the White House as a “pardon czar.” At the suggestion of Kim Kardashian, Trump pardoned the now 69-year-old Black woman in 2020 for a first-time nonviolent drug offense, and now he wants her to find others like her to pardon. Who can say no to that?
Adding to the colorful cast of characters in the Trump White House is Rev. Paula White, who preaches the prosperity gospel, as head of a newly resurrected faith-based office at the White House. The future of the extreme right in America shares more than ideology with what’s happening in Germany and elsewhere. Everybody loves a good show.
