Sunday’s elections in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern saw the right-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) secure a comfortable second-place finish, mobilizing tens of thousands of non-voters and taking tens of thousands more from mainstream parties. With its fourth major victory this year, it seems that the AfD — and with it a national presence for the far right in Germany — is here to stay, and no one seems quite sure what to do about it.

Following the Alternative für Deutschland’s big victories in three state elections last March, their success on Sunday was anything but unexpected. Yet the numbers are troubling. The AfD won 20.8 percent and unseated Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) as the second strongest party in the state.

Their rise has been met by frustration and helplessness from the political center and even Die Linke (which received its worst election result in twenty-five years, 13.2 percent), underlining the depth of Germany’s political drift to the right over the last few years.