In some of the most unsurprising recent election news, Germany’s ruling coalition parties got hammered in state elections in Thuringia and Saxony on Sunday. The biggest beneficiaries were two parties — Alternative for Germany and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) — that oppose Project Ukraine and are therefore labeled along the lines of “Putin apologists” and “a threat to our democracy.”
Those warnings from a discredited establishment are increasingly falling on deaf ears. That’s because working class Germans have been seeing their living standards decline for the past two years while the government remains preoccupied with Ukraine and presides over the national humiliation that is the ongoing Nord Stream affair.
The ethnonationalist, anti-EU AfD, which has its share of Nazi admirers, took first place in Thuringia, with just under 33 percent. The pro-war, conservative flavor of neoliberalism Christian Democratic Union (CDU) came in second at 24 percent, while BSW — an essentially one-woman party that formed just eight months ago, came in third in both states — was third at 16 percent.
In Saxony, the CDU was first at 32 percent, AfD second with 30.6 percent, and BSW third with 11.8 percent. Die Linke, the former class-based party on the left that in recent years shifted more to pro-war identity politics, saw Wagenknecht abandon it last year, and the voters followed.
Compared to 2019, it lost 18 percent of the vote in Thuringia and six percent in Saxony.
The results are similar to the European elections in June — although on more fertile ground for the AfD and BSW — and polls showing record unpopularity for the ruling coalition of the Greens, Social Democratic Party of Germany, and Free Democratic Party What else is to be expected when the government seemingly does all it can to tank the economy while telling voters it does not care about their concerns (apologies, I use this video a lot but it’s so illuminating):
That has been the attitude of the government, and polls have consistently shown that voters want to give a raised middle finger to the coalition — increasingly voting for the parties the coalition fear and despise: AfD and the BSW.
And so they did — again. Similar results are expected in a third east German state, Brandenburg, on September 22.
I’m not going to write here about the dangers of the AfD. It’s a topic that is thoroughly — and with rampant blaming of voters — covered inaccurately across every German, European, and US mainstream news outlet. The AfD has been discussed at great length here at NC. See here, here, and here. As has the BSW (see here and here).
Instead of again separating fact and fiction in the endless warnings about the AfD and debunking claims that Wagenknecht is a “far-right Putin apologist” I’d like to use the election results as an opportunity to ask one question and then examine four potential paths forward for Germany. First, to the question:
Is the AfD More Dangerous than Germany’s — and the EU’s — Political “Center”?
I don’t include the BSW in this question because claims the party is something menacing are really too ridiculous to take seriously — despite serious people making serious arguments that Wagenknecht is a 21st century version of Benito Mussolini. What Wagenknecht is doing is attempting to rebuild a German left for the working class and destroy the current finance-centered political economy that is welded to the politics of recognition. It is essentially an attempt to return the left to what it once was, and in that mission she is being helped by the fake left neoliberals so discrediting themselves over the past few years.
The AfD, on the other hand, was originally more of an anti-EU party and refuge for neo-Nazis, which has been able to ride the wave of backlash against disastrous government policies for working people — from the war in Ukraine and a lost economic war to disastrous energy policies that hit poorer people the hardest and a large increase in immigration at the same time standards of living decline. The current government belatedly acknowledge this reality and has recently made a show of trimming Ukraine support and taking away the welcome mat from refugees, but it was too little too late as the AfD is now seen by some of its supporters as a party that will “save” Germany and return the country to fondly remembered days – whether 10 years ago or 85.
The good news is the AfD is a sovereignist party; the bad news is its idea of sovereignty favors ethno-nationalist, national oligarchy, climate change rejection, and despite increasing support of the working class, a lack of policy proposals that would benefit workers.
What of the “center” though?
While the media is up in arms about the AfD’s first state election victory, the German-NATO-EU permanent state made up of spooks, neoliberal bureaucrats, Atlaticist think tanks, and the military-industrial complex is leading a neoliberal return to serfdom, mass censorship, and an increasingly reactionary foreign policy that rehabilitates Nazis and supports proxy wars and genocide.
Maybe the “far right” being voted into power shouldn’t be the only outcome to worry about here. We’ve already seen an extinguishing of the left, and the center becoming authoritarian, and goal is now to crush the sovereignists. In my humble opinion, the larger fear is not just the center, but that it uses the ethno-nationalist right to deflect criticism of the neoliberal and Atlanticist pro-war policies that a have Europe where it is today. Under such an “arrangement” the latter abandons anti-EU and NATO stances in order to be welcomed into the halls of power but maintains the ethno-nationalism, militarization, anti-labor positions. Call it a strengthening of the European uniparty or the Ukrainization of Europe.
Under such a scenario, bargains between the “center” and far-right do nothing to rock the neoliberal economic boat nor the EU’s slavish Atlanticism, but with the center as the modern fascist leadership and the ethnonationalist right as its Schutzstaffel, immigrants will be scapegoated for economic problems caused by the financialization of everything, and attacks on anyone resisting neoliberal policies or war will increase.
We’ve already seen this happen to a small degree with Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy. We can also see the center rehabilitate Nazis. And we can see Ukraine’s thriving democracy.
With that being said, what lies in store for the German political landscape? Here are four possibilities.
1. Muddle Along
After getting walloped in European elections, polls routinely showing it’s the most unpopular post- WWII government and now another embarrassment in Sunday’s elections, one might think the government would step aside. There are no signs that is going to happen. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is sticking to the bit, telling Reuters the following about the elections:
“Our country cannot and must not get used to this. The AfD is damaging Germany. It is weakening the economy, dividing society and ruining our country’s reputation.”
The stated plan is that the AfD “firewall” — a pact by other German parties not to work with the AfD — will hold. In the meantime, the current government will continue down the same path of more censorship and crackdown on dissent.
A grand coalition excluding the AfD and BSW and led by the CDU and former Blackrock executive Friedrich Merz can then continue such policies following national elections towards the end of next year.
There are a few problems with this strategy, however. For one, many write-ups of Sunday’s state elections note that these East German states were fertile ground for the AfD and BSW. That’s fair, but it should also be noted that support for them is likely to continue growing as there is no end in sight to Germany’s economic woes. Here’s where the polls stand right now:
But the national elections are more than a year away. Meanwhile, the country’s manufacturing base continues to erode with the recession deepening in August, and the signs increasinging that it is permanent. Here’s Dr. Cyrus de la Rubia, Chief Economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank, talking about all the bad news in the latest German PMI survey:
“The recession in Germany’s manufacturing sector is dragging on way longer than anyone expected [if you read NC, you know that’s not true].August saw an even steeper drop in incoming orders, killing off any hope for a quick bounce back. The HCOB PMI shows that the downturn has been going on since mid-2022, which is unusually long. Normally, over the last 30 years, the industry has managed to recover within a maximum of 20 months of a recession starting. But this time, things are different…
Order backlogs for German companies have been shrinking since the middle of 2022, as shown by the HCOB PMI data. While Eurostat data echoes this trend, it doesn’t quite capture the full picture. What often gets missed is that companies can be struggling despite having order books filled to the brim. This happens when the prices agreed upon for those orders no longer cover rising production costs. In the worst-case scenario, these companies may face bankruptcy, but until that point, the stock of orders data can misleadingly inflate the health of business conditions.”
This would be bad news anywhere, but especially in Germany where manufacturing still accounts for nearly a quarter of the German economy and employs 20 percent of the German workforce.
While German industry would likely be facing difficulties these days one way or the other due to its decades-long reliance on the wage suppression model, a lack of investment, and the rise of Chinese manufacturing, the loss of cheap and reliable Russian energy caused an abrupt shock. Here’s the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce last month noting its ongoing effects, which is probably a mix of truth and scapegoating for German industry missteps:
“The high energy prices also affect companies’ investment activities and thus their ability to innovate. More than a third of industrial companies say that they are currently able to invest less in core operational processes due to the high energy prices. A quarter say they can engage in climate protection with fewer resources, and a fifth of industrial companies have to postpone investments in research and innovation.”
Right on the heels of Sunday’s state elections, Volkswagen announced it is considering closing factories in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history due to falling profits and rising costs. The company has already shifted a significant amount of production to Mexico and is considering moving more out of Germany.
Elsewhere, the ZEW Economic Sentiment Index, which gauges the expectations of financial experts, fell off a cliff from 41.8 points in July to just 19.2 points in August. That’s the biggest drop since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
German real wages have been ticking up in recent months, but have yet to recover from their record decline from the end of 2021 to mid-2023, which crashed them back to the level of 2015. This happened while German corporations were banking near-record profits. Germany has for decades followed a wage-suppression model and has no plans to deviate from it, but the rate of erosion coupled with inflation driven by the war against Russia, a housing crisis, and record immigration have upended society.
With the current government refusing to acknowledge voters’ concerns, people are understandably turning to alternatives, including the AfD. While the party might be enemy number one of the respectable center, let’s just say there are doubts as to whether it’s truly on the side of workers. The party did, after all, receive its seed money from a reclusive billionaire descendant of prominent Nazis and is led by a former Goldman Sachs investment banker.
2. Bring the AfD into the Fold
I’ve written in the past and still maintain that should the AfD come around on its opposition to Ukraine/Russia and the EU, all impediments to its holding power would melt away.
Those are the real problems the “center” has with the AfD.
If you have any doubts, let’s look at what the other German parties are now embracing even as they warn about the AfD.
They are brutally cracking down on any protests against Germany’s support for genocide in Gaza. They are expanding police powers to round up asylum seekers, including giving the state more powers to enter homes, making the suspicion enough to deport people, and criminalizing certain activities by aid workers who assist asylum seekers punishable with up to ten years in prison. They support neo Nazis in Ukraine and across the former USSR states in bids to hurt Russia. The Zietenwende is funneling more money to the military while slashing social programs and removing formerly cultural taboos on the celebration of the military. They want to tear up the part of the German constitution that forbids university research and science from being put at the service of private arms manufacturers. US long range weapons capable of reaching Moscow are coming to Germany until the country develops its own. They criticize striking workers as “far-right” and use their paid-off co-managers and company security forces to shut down most worker actions.
The AfD wants more militarism — albeit independent of the US — favors restrictions on the right to strike, wants welfare work requirements, and lower taxes for the rich.
3. Cross the Rubicon
The German establishment finds some pretext to ban the AfD. The smarter approach would be to bring the AfD into the fold, but a ban would theoretically cement the neoliberal, Atlanticist’s absolute control over Germany. It would also mean that whatever is left of democracy in Germany is dead and likely to lead to Weimar-esque levels of upheaval.
If you look around at the collapsing democracies across the West, a ban would fit right in with the jamboree of bridge burnings — from Macron’s “soft” coup and Starmer’s authoritarianism to the ongoing spook takeover in the US. And let’s not forget the West’s support for genocide, neo-Nazis, and its general belligerence towards most of the world.
Any ban of the AfD would almost certainly be just be the beginning. Next it would be Wagenknecht or anyone who opposes the neoliberal center. That’s likely why we’ve seen a year’s worth of articles describing Wagenknecht — despite all evidence to the contrary — as far right. These are so, for lack of a better word, stupid, but one benefit could be to lay the groundwork for a potential ban. Remember, Wagenknecht just formed her party eight months ago. She still has a ways to go, but her support might have the most room for growth.
4. Something Unexpected
I think we can safely say we’re in a volatile period and it’s hard to discount much of anything. What say you readers? What other potential futures lie in store for Germany?
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“…Under such an “arrangement” the latter abandons anti-EU and NATO stances in order to be welcomed into the halls of power but maintains the ethno-nationalism, militarization, anti-labor positions. Call it a strengthening of the European uniparty or the Ukrainization of Europe.
Under such a scenario, bargains between the “center” and far-right do nothing to rock the neoliberal economic boat nor the EU’s slavish Atlanticism…”
Maybe everything going according to plan?
The growing dystopia can get folks feeling a bit pro-labor and agitated about the status quo. Heading it off at the pass…so to speak…
Liberalism is the good cop while fascism is the bad cop, both serving the same master…
Not “cop”, because that suggests an organised police force acting within an agreed legal framework.
Private security/intelligence operative, foreign-sponsored . . .
“Cop” is precisely the right word. “Police” are part of the legal framework.
They’re called “mall cops”, after all.
The neocons and neoliberals are weak and will not succeed in any of the above scenarios. Their attempts at censorship have backfired and they’ll give up. They lack a unifying vision other than “liberal democracy”, but they are steadily backing away from liberal democracy. Meanwhile, Russia and China speed ahead, winning militarily in Ukraine and economically around the world. Look for a Putin like figure to emerge in the West and bring some order.
The rich never give up on trying to concentrate money and power in themselves. They’ll just try something else.
Losing in Iraq and Afghanistan did not cause the neocons to give up, nor did the New Deal cause the wealthy to give up.
Liberal democracy was always just a PR excuse and talking point, while the rich kept corrupt Western politicians under their thumb, carefully using them to wage class warfare domestically. The problem now is that their legitimacy is so threatened that they have to drop the appearance of being democratic.
> The rich never give up on trying to concentrate money and power in themselves.
This.
It’s sometimes articulated thus: there is far more “class solidarity” among the wealthy than is found on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.
And yes, they can afford to be patient – see the slow but steady dismantling of the social safety net over decades in the US.
> The problem now is that their legitimacy is so threatened that they have to drop the appearance of being democratic.
Exactly. The veil is near fully lifted now. In fact, they have operated with such impunity that sometimes I feel like they don’t really care too much, which is why “dropping the appearance of being democratic” is being done with nary a bead of sweat on the foreheads of kleptocrats. However, they are running out of time. No amount of guns will save them, as even the enforcer class will begin to suffer and turn from their socioeconomic malfeasance.
One thing to keep an eye on is the 5% threshold that parties need to qualify for the parliamentary seats. Linke is already below that and FDP (they are usually in a coalition with Freie Wahler) is perilously close to that. This would leave only 5 parties in the Bundestag, forcing either CDU/SPD/Grune coalition or the unholy alliance of CDU with AfD.
There are voices within CDU that are already saying that coalition with AfD would be preferable to SPD/Grune given AfD’s stance on economic issues. With the election a year away there is no telling how bad SPD/Grune performance may end up and whether any sort of government will be possible without AfD or BSW.
Great piece again. Interesting times. My take would be that they’ll muddle along, but I’d be shocked if something unexpected didn’t happen. Some form of labour-based or labour-adjacent mass movement. The political legitimacy of the neoliberal parties is shot. Surveys show half the CDU vote motivated primarily by keeping AfD out. VW plant closure discussions rightly noted, the list is longer. Opel Eisenach, Thyssen-Krupp in Duisburg, Meyer shipyard. All crown jewels of German industry. Intel may pull the highly subsidised chip fab planned for Magdeburg.
Yes volatility. Great frustration with the existing, rejection, anger. But no pole has yet appeared around which a movement could coalesce.
Only a matter of time
I think the first place to keep an eye on is the government formation in Thüringia. With 88 seats in total and 32 to AfD and 15 to BSW there is no majority coalition that can be formed without either of them. I believe that in addition to those two, CDU (23 seats) has already ruled out any coalition with Linke (12 seats).
A “grand coalition” with CDU and SPD (6 seats) would give 29 seats, less than AFD alone.
A “popular front” on the french model with BSW+Linke+SPD minority coalition would gain 33 seats.
German politics is rather bad at handling minority governments. So something has to give here, unless the situation can be kept in suspended animation or a new election is called.
Saxony is interesting. The original results for the CDU and AfD have been each reduced by 1. The original results were due to “software error”. Huh? you may say. In that case, you are not qualified to write for the German mainstream media, who parroted this phrase without question. I searched a bit, and found, in Die Zeit
So the software worked fine, but the law had changed. By their incompetence, they have created an opening for conspiracy theorists, who may want to know why the law was changed and who voted for it.
Mr Gallagher is an astute observer. But the Eastern elections dragged another contradiction back into daylight that might force the Christian Conservatives, who will lead the next federal government, to implement important policy shifts. I’m just going to post the translated ZEIT article:
What will remain of Friedrich Merz once Sahra Wagenknecht is done with him? Its electoral success could plunge the Christian Democratic Union into crisis and cost him his candidacy.
Defeats can be tragic. But so can victories. The CDU may have won such a tragic victory in Saxony and Thuringia. In both states, they are the strongest of the democratic centrist parties. They will probably even provide the minister-president in each case. But the situation is extremely complicated and dangerous because it looks like the CDU can’t govern in Saxony or Thuringia without the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance. Due to this constellation, the identity of the CDU could be seriously damaged on the way to power, its very essence could be undermined. That, in turn, would not just be tragic for this party, but for the whole country, for our political system.
The preliminary talks, exploratory talks, negotiations and tolerations now taking place in Erfurt and Dresden are not just about the CDU in the two eastern German states, and they are certainly not primarily about Saxony and Thuringia. In fact, the two strongest of the extreme parties – AfD and BSW – are targeting the federal CDU and thus a mainstay of our republic.
It has long been clear that the AfD, as a right-wing extremist party, wants to weaken and divide the CDU, a popular party of the right-wing center. The Greens may be their main opponent, but the Union is their main competitor. This Sunday, a dream has come true for the AfD that they probably didn’t even dare to dream of half a year ago. And it’s not about their own electoral success. Rather, they have a strategic partner in the BSW that will drive their destructive business forward without them having to openly work with Sahra Wagenknecht’s people. The AfD can simply wait (and applaud the Union’s latest migration policy until people’s ears hurt). The AfD must wait too, because the right-wing populists are not seen as acceptable coalition partners despite or maybe because of their successes. The same is not true for another new party that shares key issues with the AfD: namely the BSW.
Sahra Wagenknecht will use the upcoming negotiations to split the CDU on the issues of aid to Ukraine and the stationing of medium-range missiles. And not just in East and West, which she doesn’t have to do much to achieve, because the CDU in the East was almost as pro-Russian as Wagenknecht herself during the election campaign. No, the actual split that is at issue has only existed in a latent state so far and has been kept somewhat in check by the Christian Democratic elites in the West. But now it is becoming virulent.
Wagenknecht will try to make the very different sentiments in the western CDU on foreign policy between the top and bottom politically effective. Because one thing has always been clear: the CDU’s loyalty to the USA, its pro-Israel stance, its critical position towards Russia and now specifically its support for Ukraine – these were always more shaky than they appeared on the outside.
Westbindung as a slogan may always have been the consensus, but when it comes down to it, when sacrifices have to be made for it, then it did and does not come into existence all by itself. The aid to Ukraine does not come from the gut or the genes of the party; rather, it requires constant political effort on the part of the leadership. Western ties are not a static condition, but a process and someone has to do the tying. Solidarity with Ukraine is not something that just exists, it has to be created. And a political constellation is needed that helps the Christian Democratic leadership to achieve this. And it is precisely at this point that the founding of the BSW and the elections in Thuringia and Saxony have changed the calculus.
In East Germany itself, the Christian Democrats already didn’t manage to show solidarity with Ukraine and to be realistic about Russia. But the CDU leadership in Berlin has explained this fact away by saying that foreign policy isn’t the Länder’s business anyway. But now they will meet Sahra Wagenknecht, who will show them what really is and what isn’t Ländersache. Friedrich Merz should think carefully about the smile that Sahra Wagenknecht wore on Sunday evening when she was asked about possible coalition negotiations. She and her husband have already split several parties, so the Union should not be too sure that Wagenknecht will not succeed again.
She has already announced that she wants to personally get involved in possible coalition negotiations in Saxony and Thuringia, even though she has not been a candidate anywhere. And the purpose of this participation is unlikely to be the density of bus stops in Thuringia, but the density of medium-range missiles in Germany. And the aid to Ukraine, the whole course towards Russia in general. She will not rest in the coming weeks until the following chant arises at the grassroots and middle level of the western CDU: We must now pragmatically form a government in the east with the BSW, and if Wagenknecht really wants to have something against the arms deliveries in the coalition agreement, and if it is really doubtful anyway whether this aid to Ukraine will ultimately be of any use, and if we should finally rely more on diplomacy anyway… And so on.
A political brew is being stirred here in which the Christian Democrats’ government pragmatism, desire for power, war fatigue from Ukraine, Nord Stream nostalgia and exhaustion in the fight against the new Russian imperialism are mixed to the point of complete indistinguishability. All of this can happen if Friedrich Merz is not extremely careful. And here we come to the next problem. Because not only has the AfD found a willing helper in Sahra Wagenknecht, she in turn has another willing helper, namely: CSU’s Markus Söder.
He is the chairman of a party that is traditionally closer to Russia and even closer than its sister party to its fossil fuel driven economic self-interest. In this respect, it is certainly easier for Söder than for Merz to get involved in Sahra Wagenknecht’s Russian roulette and to pat Michael Kretschmer in Saxony and Mario Voigt in Thuringia on the back encouragingly during their BSW stretching exercises until they cough.
But the CSU’s secret love of Russia is not the decisive point here. Markus Söder’s main focus at the moment is less on Bavarian interests or Christian Social habits than on Markus Söder. He wants to become Chancellor, or so it seems. And to do that he must first become Chancellor candidate, for which he only has a few weeks left. That is why he is doing everything he can to undermine Friedrich Merz, the CDU leader who, despite his at best passable political health, has first access to the Chancellor candidacy. Not least for this reason, Söder drove another wedge deep into the CDU last week with his categorical rejection of a black-green coalition at federal level.
In addition to the East-West divide (powered by Saxony’s Kretschmer) and the top-bottom divide (powered by Wagenknecht), there is now also the divide between the black-greens and the anti-greens (powered by Söder). Because of course Hendrik Wüst and Daniel Günther, who are successfully in coalition with the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, cannot possibly accept such exclusionism. Not to mention that the Kretschmer/Söder course against the Greens is driving the CDU into the arms of an ex-communist who hates the USA and rejects NATO.
Friedrich Merz now has to manage three divisions in his party at the same time, which would push even a more robust and disciplined personality at the head of the CDU to the limits of his capabilities. In the case of Merz, who sometimes has no control over his impulses, who often speaks without thinking and who sometimes lacks patience, his opponents can hope that he will not be able to withstand this triple pressure. Unless Merz has the courage to seize the initiative and quickly lays claim to the candidacy for chancellor before the three divisions in the CDU will shatter his last nerves.
For Markus Söder, this may all be a power game, for Sahra Wagenknecht a holy mission, but for the republic it is much more. In the history of the Federal Republic, the CDU has always been a guarantor of value-based foreign policy, at least when it comes to the fundamentals: Western ties, Europe, Israel. If the party now loses its inner center and betrays its tradition by being subdued on Ukraine, medium-range missiles or Israel, by obscuring or even revising its positions, then things will get dicey.
Especially since parts of the post-Merkel CDU already have a certain mental proximity to the Trump-Wagenknecht-Weidel populism, and not just on the back benches. Anyone who has seen how friendly and open-minded Jens Spahn was at the Republican Party convention in Milwaukee, or who has had to watch the clueless enthusiasm of CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann for Trump’s designated vice president, J. D. Vance, on television, might get dizzy. No, the CDU is by no means internally stable; the dynamic now generated from the east and south can certainly carry it away from the place where it not only was, but where it believed itself to be: the center.
So far, the CDU is like everywhere else in political Germany: the populists are fighting, the liberals are cowering. After the elections in East Germany, Hendrik Wüst will have to ask himself whether a power struggle as a shadow play is really the only thing he can think of. Otherwise, the CDU’s victories could actually be the beginning of its tragedy.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
CDU-Ost was part of Blockpartei in GDR together with SPD aligned with SED under Honecker. After the Wende CDU ran Thüringen but lost support as Kohl‘s promises turned to reality.
CDU is a joke. It is regime of Lockdown and Reversal of Election in Thüringen and removal of judge in Weimar Amtsgericht. Sahra Wagenknecht is media darling, her husband was right in 1990 but SPD tossed him out as Finance Minister for opposing Euro.
BSW is not a party. It is like Reform Ltd in U.K. a Fan Club for a media personality.
The party system is as fragmented as under 1st Berlin Republic 1919-33 and the U.S. War Party of Habeck and Mopsy is discredited and since only 16 of its 119 seats are directly elected in Bundestag it means these results herald meltdown in 2025
Merkel dumped nuclear power because of elections in Baden-Württemberg but after 14 years the Greens there have left the once superior education system in ruins snd public transport substandard.
There are no workable coalitions. The German polity was built on Parties as leading forceful society – a sort of Leninism with 3 parties but coalition created by a stupid electoral system gave minorities Kingmaker power as in Israel
FDP transformed from repository of former-Nazis in 1950s into a SME lobby but Lindner has destroyed that making them a subset of Green US Party.
Most German politicians never did military service taking Zivildienst opt-out but seem hellbent on antagonising Russia and China and Iran for no gain
Anger is paramount but the system is run to benefit parties who drain €1 billion a year in public funds and they have no legitimacy
Merz is devoid of credibility. He is an agent of BlackRock. He is a millionaire with his own aircraft. He has the charisma of a dumbwaiter. Soeder is a blatant opportunist who in Nov 2021 stated:
Söder: „Ohne Impfen gibt es auf Dauer keine Freiheit“
So there is No Freedom without {compulsory} Vaccination”
Soeder exposed himself as an Opportunistic Fascist and that has not been forgotten. During Lockdown the Political Class suspended the same sections of the German ‘Constitution’ that Adolf suspended in his Enabling Act in 1933. German voters are not caught up in the abstractions of sofa surfers but are the people who marched on the streets every Monday to protest, especially in the East.
When they protested in Weimar against removal of a Judge for suspending mask mandates for children in primary school – the regime brought in riot police from Bavaria (Soederland) and Berlin to prevent them with physical force from assembling and scooped up the flowers they laid into garbage trucks. Named were taken and ID cards recorded for attending a protest.
These matters are not abstractions – they are reminiscent of 1989 when Erich Mielke wanted tanks to crush protesters and internment camps were ready in Gotha – and the Soviet Military were deployed with APCs in Leipzig, weimar, Dresden etc to block the Stasi from staging a massacre.
Too many people read Corporate Media and have a highly filtered perspective on matters which are highly rational on the ground, such as Maassen the Head of German Counterintelligence removed by Merkel because he contradicted her falsehoods over Chemnitz.
How many people know that the Green Energy Revolution using windmills in Mecklenburg requires increased Grid capacity to wheel power across Thuringia but ONLY Thuringians have the capital cost factored into their energy bills not the richer Bavarians or denizens of Stuttgart…..?
Energy Costs in ‘GDR’ are higher than in West Germany
Spahn was Merkel’s Health Minister who pushed Covid Vaccines and has much to fear from any Inquiry. He is a Bankkaufmann who also worked as a lobbyist for the drugs industry. He was able to buy a €7 million villa in Berlin-Dahlem on a mortgage his declared income (even combined with his ‘husband’) might have difficulty servicing. I think he would be getting on wonderfully at a Republican Party money-orgy
Such good commentary!
‘Under such an “arrangement” the latter abandons anti-EU and NATO stances in order to be welcomed into the halls of power but maintains the ethno-nationalism, militarization, anti-labor positions’
I’m not so certain that that would be a workable option. Look at France. All those political factions, especially the left, joined hands with Macron to keep Marine le Pen from power with the assurance that because of how the vote went, that they would have positions in power in the new government. What happened instead is that Macron is appointing his friends to positions of power and refusing to deal with the left until they ignore the results of the election and give him back power again. If the AfD abandons their anti-NATO/EU positions to get to share power, that would make them no different to the centralist government and they would just be another part of the traffic light coalition – while their voters abandon them for betraying them. By the time the next election rocks around, they would be finished.
Agreed. Plus, the afd is particularly strong in the more Russian friendly and USA imperialism critical East Germany (which was a victim of neoliberalism and deindustrialization. And western take over since the wall came down).
However…look at Sweden…the Swedish democrats got co opted into the system, and they didn’t disappear yet…they still have their anti immigrant policy…and their neo nazy elements can fullfill their wet dreams in the Ukraine…
Maybe so. Or maybe they maintain the ethnonationalism and successfully redirect frustrations with EU, NATO, and economy towards immigrants. Look at Meloni, two years in power despite abandoning anti-NATO and EU positions and not doing much of anything except championing family values, working to depict Italian fascists as victims of commie anti-Italian racism, and blaming immigrants while still bringing in enough to supply cheap labor.
How was your trip to Suhl ? Do make a pint of visiting. Ask about the attacks on train staff and problems with the huge asylum camp the regime imposed there !
Go into Erfurt and Jena but best of all go to Apolda
Really do on the ground research and find out why the bomb is ticking
It’s always worth remembering that Macron treated the Left as only slightly less disgusting than the Right. While the left coalition committed to not contesting every district where they had come in third, Macron only promised to choose where he would permit one of those scum to run uncontested by his people. It wasn’t a real coalition, just a very ugly shotgun wedding, for a weekend. It nonetheless accomplished its mission: Le Pen’s people got more than a million more votes than either of the other two coalitions, yet came in second in number of seats. It’s also notable that, with all of Macron’s little thumbs on the scales, his group came in so poorly. No wonder he doesn’t want a functioning government.
re: ‘All those political factions, especially the left, joined hands with Macron to keep Marine le Pen from power with the assurance that because of how the vote went, that they would have positions in power in the new government. ‘
But of course, political games are played, deals are made for advancement of one’s party interests. Macron, in essence, welching on the old, political horse trading dealings is something new. imo. How will voters respond?
Not really. It was an electoral pact designed to secure the maximum seats for both the “Left” and Macron’s coalition at the expense of the RN, and it basically worked. The Left, as they had hoped, won more seats, but not enough to form a government, Macron’s party won more seats than they had feared, but still came behind the Left. The RN lost. But there was no “horse-trading” because Macron is not the government and cannot promise anything. He can ask someone to try to form a government, but can’t dictate the composition, especially now when the National Assembly is so fragmented. See my latest essay for more details.
The ruling political consensus will support the AfD, even if it becomes more Fascist, over either Die Linke or BSW, because the (lower case) left must be kept out of power at all costs.
Shades of Franz von Papen.
Exactly. The “Firewall” will be removed slowly, stone by stone until the CDU can build a coalition with the AfD, as long as it gives them a chance to form the gouvernment (the one and only motivation they have). The AfD on the other hand doesn’t have the personnel that can withstand the lure of profitable positions, big money and atlanticist pressure, so we will get years of more neoliberalism, war-mongering and austerity.
Now, the BSW would then be the natural choice to gather up the increasing number of despaired voters, unless it gets infiltrated and neutralized (like the Linke before it). But I don’t count on it – we Germans are cowards, we don’t rebel. The election results in Saxony and Thuringia are already an expression of outrage and indignation towards the political center that is rather atypical.
But one can hope, at least…
My hope is the AfD and BSW can hold their noses and work together on a minimalist programme of restoring democracy, resisting authoritarianism and delivering concrete material benefits to the electorate. Actually taking power and exercising it would show the CDU etc and the German voters that they are serious people rather than peanut gallery rabble rousers. If that means they can only agree on peace with Russia, cheap energy and civil liberties and have to put off any narrowing or expansion of immigration and net zero, so be it. In at least one Land, they have the majority.
I’d be interested to know if German commenters think pigs might fly before that happens. It strikes me they have everything to gain from such a manoeuvre because they can (and likely will be) be proscribed one by one as minority parties but not as a majority state government. United we stand, divided we fall etc.
The only point of contact between the AfD and BSW is sovereignism. This has important ramifications an colors many other aspects of their convictions, but they are still at antipodes about everything else.
More to the point, the AfDs sovereignism is in fact a fig leaf to their ethnonationalism as they are neoliberal to the bone. The BSW is old school social democrat and their wish to limit migration stems from a workers negotiation power perspective, not a hint of ethnonationalism in there.
Any alliance could work somehow from the AfDs voters perspective but would be completely unacceptable from the BSW voters. I think this would push the BSW below the 5% hurdle in an instant.
Thanks much for this post.
As scaremongering in the West works wonders and the fronts re: Ukraine in the population are solidified, a recap of a grand coalition under CDU/SPD is most likely for 2025.
Which is why nobody will ban AfD for real. I believe they would be really stupid to.
Just go out talk to “the educated” as I do and you see why.
AfD is the bullet-proof guarantee that 60+% will vote for the establishment.
Whether THE GREENs will be part of that is a secondary question but my guess is yes, especially if AfD and BSW experience an uptick among usual non-voters adding up to about a quarter of all voters. Pushing every last Green to the polling booth.
So no change.
What is far more important in how far is there any chance to stop the stationing of missiles in 2026.
Among the few things that do change realities this is the one most substantial and unlike an economic crisis it COULD be very simply prevented by a NO vote by the government.
Because those missiles once put here will remain long after the next government has left us.
So the elephant dangling above our heads is in danger of being eclipsed in upcoming discussions.
Nothing except a 25%+ win by BSW which won´t happen in this universe will change a course of politics in Germany.
So what does possibly change our life? Nukes.
The only good sign is that probably there won´t be genuine LRHWs among those decreasing early-warning to 5 minutes.
If it were to happen otherwise by some miracle or an unexpected RU defector selling secret knowledge to the US we are in deep trouble over-shadowing any election outcome next year.
Turnout was around 74%
People outside „GDR“ do not realise how hated Berlin is by Ossis. They never liked Merkel. The nature of the Merkel-Scholz regime over past 20 years has engendered loathing.
In Thüringen the SED is still in power propped up by CDU Blockpartei just as when Honecker was in power
People are angry. Angry at Merkel Lockdown which restricted travel more than ever in GDR and that Wessis like Ramelow control every level of GDR society with few Ossis at any senior level
People commute weekly from Thüringen for higher wages in West Germany which is why A4 is congested
There are more Leiharbeiter in GDR with Mercedes engine plant in Kölleda making 50% engines but with non- unionised and contractor workforce
My guess is that the narrative will be to try to separate the two anti-establishment parties into the classic left/right divide thus effectively neutering the anti-establishment movement.
It happened in Sweden and probably other countries as well. As long as the divide is between the left/right then the establishment (elite) remains on control.
The proportional representation is intended to have a plurality of parties with different policies where by negotiation and compromising (some use the derogatory term ‘horse–trading’) an outcome reflecting the majority can be achieved.
The leadership of the Swedish Social Democrats ended that by effectively saying to the traditional upper middle class party – Do whatever you want, we will pretend to oppose but in practice we will sit back and from time to time make some speeches. Some say that evil can only happen if good people do nothing and so it was in Sweden. Not sure if they can be said to be good since they refused to take any action against what they claim to be evil, I don’t think so but that is my personal opinion.
Come election time then they’ll claim there was nothing they could have done, the reality is that they chose to do nothing.
One possible outcome in Germany might be similar to what happened in Sweden. Some establishment parties will (reluctantly of course) work together with the new parties and some establishment parties will make loud noises about how the new parties sold out and should be abandoned. Then, like in the duopoly in the UK, they will try to get their turn to rule after the next election to continue establishment policies with some minor cosmetic changes.
A look at some treacherous personality like Heinz Bude gives a taste of what is to be expected and by what methods control will be exerted.
Bude now retired was one of the most respected mainstream “leftist” sociologists with tenure in Kassel. Then came Covid and he became part of the planning staff for some dystopian shit.
He very proudly reported about his work when involved in game-planning scenarios of Covid-scarmongering:
Bude´s infamous paper on his work for the Covid team (German only):
“Aus dem Maschinenraum der Beratung in Zeiten der Pandemie ” / “From the engine room of consulting in times of pandemic”
https://publikationen.soziologie.de/index.php/soziologie/article/view/1545
ABOUT him:
“And if you are not obedient, I will use force”
https://www-corrigenda-online.translate.goog/politik/und-bist-du-nicht-hoerig-so-gebrauche-ich-zwang?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Who needs enemies with friends like these. But the playbook is out there in plain sight.
p.s.
Establishing AfD as the big evil is one cornerstone.
The other as I said above, RU and possibly WMDs stationed here, creating justification for a permanent state of emergency.
Another one economic hardship justified by fighting climate change.
For instance the dismantling of German car-manufacturing industry will be legitimized by reports like this one which argues that free public transport in European cities did NOT reduce the use of cars.
Which – I argue – in the long run makes forceful measures inevitable:
“Cheap local transport alone does not stop cars”
https://www-telepolis-de.translate.goog/features/Guenstiger-Nahverkehr-allein-bringt-Autos-nicht-zum-Stehen-9855782.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Within these frontlines compromise and collaborative change will be almost impossible. For latter to experience go to Venezuela.
I keep feeling like I’m watching a nightmare scenario version of a mix between The Man In The High Castle, and Marvel’s End Games. Always thought that the ‘solution’ in the latter of killing Thanos by way of wishful time-travelling and the messianic merging of technology in the form of Stark’s martyrdom felt eerily unoriginal and somehow reflective of the neo-liberal establishment’s inability to literally come to terms with “the consequences of actions in linear time” (colonialism, rampant exploitation, self-righteous arrogance and above all fake concern for human rights).
It’s too late for them, and they keep looking for a reset button that’s just not there, while refusing to wake the hell up and change course. The Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept (for whatever it is worth) seems quite an apt way to view the grandiose virtue signaling of fake/self-interested human rights concerns, and the intolerance and aggressiveness toward critics.
If it’s true that cultural Narcissism will perpetuate itself through the egregore of an unwell society, and given the perpetuating cycles of pathology through empire, then I’m really not sure what the solution is here. The whole Stable Totalitarianism thing is feeling more and more likely. https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/risks-of-stable-totalitarianism/
I guess, we just keep pushing for healing even if it’s the last thing we do. I like to think those of us who are not at the top of the tower, are spared a certain level of soul sickness, so that’s perhaps the one thing in our favour we have. The crack of sanity that lets the light in (though I shudder to think at what cost).
Perhaps electoral meddling and playing with the state institutions in France and Germany this month is just testing the waters for crossing another Rubicon in the US soon?