The main consequence of AfD’s rise is likely to be the fracturing and polarisation of German politics and society along the lines we are seeing in many other developed countries. AfD did well in all three German Länder where elections took place, but the fact that it achieved its best result by some margin in an Eastern German state suggests the East-West divide could be exacerbated in future. Furthermore, with the party strictly off limits when it comes to coalition building, its rise could mean that, for the foreseeable future, neither the CDU nor SPD will be able to govern with their preferred partners, the FDP and the Greens respectively. This in turn is likely to make grand coalitions the new norm in German politics, thereby ironically opening further space to insurgent parties like AfD and Die Linke who will seek to claim the mantle of the "real" opposition.