In the days following a far-right electoral breakthrough in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt — where the Alternative for Germany party claimed nearly 44 percent of the vote — thousands of citizens gathered in Cologne to register their dissent. The demonstration was less a spontaneous outcry than a considered act of democratic counter-pressure, a reminder that electoral results and public legitimacy are not always the same thing. Germany now finds itself holding two truths at once: that a far-right party has won the allegiance of nearly half a state's voters through lawful means, and t