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Ali Rattenweidel’s latest rally for Alternativ für Ratten in Wedding ended the way most of her party’s ideas do: with noise, paranoia, and a room full of people pretending they are not in a room full of people pretending. The event, held in a rented hall near Leopoldplatz, was meant to be a clean show of force. Instead, it exposed a party feuding with itself over whether to blame immigrants, the European Union, or their own talentless leadership for the fact that nobody trusts them except the kinds of men who think a tie counts as a personality.

The trouble started before Rattenweidel even reached the microphone. Two local organizers argued over who had promised what to a Russian-friendly “cultural delegation” that never clearly existed and somehow still demanded better seating. By the time she began warning about “foreign influence” and “Brussels parasites,” half the front row was busy sending messages under the table, which is the closest this crowd comes to ideological honesty.

A man in a cheap blazer who identified himself only as Markus said the party had lost its edge because it had become “too soft on the enemy within,” which in AfR (Alternativ für Ratten) language usually means anyone with a surname, a conscience, or both. Minutes later, another activist accused him of being too cozy with the business wing, which is AfR’s euphemism for anyone who wants racism with a spreadsheet. The argument escalated into a seminar on betrayal, delivered with all the erotic tension of a landlord dispute and about the same moral content.

Rattenweidel tried to recover by attacking the district, migrants, the euro, and modern art in one breath, a feat of rhetorical overreach that would have made Brecht call for a refund. She promised a “national awakening,” though her own supporters seemed mostly awakened to the fact that the party’s polling remains a trap door. One woman near the back muttered that the speech was “all top and no finish,” which, for once, was the most accurate political analysis in the room.

Outside, a few counter-protesters held signs criticizing the party’s fear campaign, while police kept the groups apart with the exhausted posture of people who have seen this opera too many times and know the aria never changes. A district spokesperson said the venue had filed the proper notice and that no violations were reported, which in Berlin usually means everyone behaved badly but not creatively enough to require paperwork.

What mattered more than the shouting was the split underneath it: one faction wants AfR to be a pure panic machine, while another wants it polished enough to impress donors, editors, and the sort of men who say “sovereignty” when they mean they hate paying taxes to anyone they cannot intimidate. That contradiction, not the slogans, is the party’s real program. The next internal meeting is expected later this week, unless the knives come out first, in which case the motion will pass by acclamation.