Yes, it is somewhat true that the AfD addresses people’s problems - at least they make it seem that way. But their rhetoric also ensures that people blame the wrong groups for these problems.

More than that, they target the consequences instead of the cause.

The conservatives in the USA do the same, as do the right-wing populists in other countries. The Nazis in the Third Reich also did exactly that - it’s nothing new.

All these are consequences of something else, not the cause.

AfD rises because people see problems that the other parties did not even aknowledge to exist and not because they create the problems.

Believe me, I have tried to understand why so many people don’t see through these simple tricks and even allow themselves to be misled into voting against their own interests.

That's easy. People are more worried of the day by day problems than some hypothetical future problem so they voted for the side that at least say they will resolve it.

However, I am not prepared to abandon a fact-based political discourse just because some particularly loud and snivelling people make life too easy for themselves. So I don’t think that the left should also spread lies, rely on sub-complex explanations and blame some make-believe enemies. Nor do I think that is even possible.

Fine, but the fact-based political discourse should be on both sides. Currently the only one looking at the facts are AfD. Granted that they then bend them to their agenda, but the Left simply ignore the facts as for now.

So I must honestly say that I have lost faith in the functioning of democracy.

That is something that it is always said by the people that think to be better than the other when they lose, I am sure you are better than that.