In August, I visited the town of Zenfenberg, a couple hours outside of Berlin.
It has this really picturesque town square, and on the day that I visited,
that square had been transformed for a summer festival.
That's Emma Taukhoff.
They're one of the producers on our show, and this summer they reported from Germany.
There were these long picnic tables where people were drinking big glass smugs of beer.
There was a bouncy castle set up for kids.
There was someone grilling bratwurst.
And at one end there was a temporary stage where politicians were greeting everyone and giving speeches.
It was this really lovely afternoon scene, almost a storybook setting.
But if you listen to what was actually being said in these speeches,
they painted a very different picture.
According to these local politicians, Germany is on the brink of collapse.
In their speeches,
these politicians talked about a laundry list of things that they see going wrong.
They talked about immigrants overrunning small towns and wind turbines destroying the natural beauty of Germany and wanting to burn pride flags.
Basically,
this general sentiment that the country is going downhill and they alone have the solution to that.
This was a political rally for the Alternative for Deutschland,
or the AFD, which is Germany's far-right populist party.