Beyond anti-elitism and out-group attacks: how concerns shape the AfD’s populist representation on German TikTok during the 2024 European elections

TikTok is a pivotal platform for political communication, especially among younger users. This study examines how the German rightwing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) used TikTok to disseminate populist messages and engage users during the 2024 European elections. By analyzing videos posted by AfD politicians in the three months leading up to the elections, we identified the main populist messages and assessed their impact on user engagement compared to other parties. Applying LLM-enhanced topic modeling of video transcriptions, we identified twelve themes, grouped into three types of populist discursive strategies: (1) Protectionism against Horizontal Threats, with imagined enemies on the ‘eye level’ (e.g., migrants and ‘wokeists’), (2) Protectionism against Vertical Threats, with imagined enemies being in positions of structural power (e.g., anti-elitism), and (3) Concerns of the People, with diffuse and abstract roots of the problem (e.g., fears of inflation, security, or loss of individual rights). While horizontal out-group attacks and vertical anti-elitism garnered higher average engagement, most content focused solely on anti-elite and concern-related themes. Thus, going beyond theories of right-wing populism that emphasize identity-based exclusionary rhetoric, we show that the AfD also focused on users’ concerns. This suggests a strategy aimed at resonating with voters by combining divisive messaging with relatable issues, or even prioritizing such concerns. By mainly promoting anti-elitism alongside real-world concerns – thus obscuring the extremism of its agenda and key figures – the AfD generates significantly more engagement, outperforming all other German parties combined. Our findings raise questions about right-wing populist rhetoric in online campaigning amid growing voter insecurity.