Whoops, They Did It Again! After the German Election, the Establishment is 0-for-3.
I am experiencing considerable–what’s that word? oh yes!, schadenfreude–at the German election results. Although Angela Merkel’s party received the largest share of the vote, the results were a shocking setback for her. The CDU/CSU won the largest share of the vote, but this share was the lowest since WWII and represented a double-digit drop from the 2013 vote. Further, the CSU’s leader is mooting a split from the CDU. Merkel is almost certain to have to craft a coalition including three other parties–including the Greens–and this will be time consuming and constrain her power even once the coalition is in place. But the biggest setback at all was due to the stunning surge of Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), the nationalist (and typically referred to as “far right”) party, which not only surpassed the 5 percent hurdle for parliamentary representation, but garnered 13 percent of the vote.
On Friday, Merkel was lionized. Now she is a greatly diminished figure. So much for the New Leader of the Western World, the Tamer of Trump, the Vanquisher of Populism.
And it’s not like this should be surprising. This is at least the third major replay of the movie–first Brexit, then Trump, now Merkel/AfD. Like the Remainers and the Democrats, Merkel condescended to the broad strain of popular (and populist) unease at her policies, most notably her immigration policy. Indeed, she and the rest of “elite” German (and indeed, Western) opinion could barely contain their disdain, and indeed revulsion, at any of the hoi polloi who dared question the wisdom of admitting a million plus immigrants from Muslim countries, or who expressed so much as concern at the criminality (especially sex crimes) and terrorism risk associated with the immigration wave: such people were the German version of The Deplorables. To the contrary: Merkel et al used this criticism as an opportunity to engage in a spasm of virtue signalling, not to say moralistic onanism. Those who agreed with them were morally elevated: those who disagreed, or even questioned, were knuckle dragging crypto–or not so crypto–fascists.
And as in the UK and the US, the knuckle draggers had the vote–and used it to take their revenge.
It is hard to discern from biased media coverage just what AfD really is. Perhaps David Goldman (AKA Spengler) is right that it is “an America-hating ethnic nationalist monster crawling with Nazi nostalgia.” I seriously doubt, however, that most of those who voted for it fit that description. But in some ways the party’s alleged ugliness, and the scorn and derision heaped on it by Merkel and the establishment, were a feature and not a bug to those looking to express opposition to the establishment’s policies. In a parliamentary system, voting for a fringe party is a way of sending a message, and what better way to send a message to Angela et al than by voting for a party that makes them recoil in horror because of its often extreme views? The only way to snap them out of their virtue signaling and self-pleasuring reveries is a 2×4 upside the head: voting for an AfD that elite opinion considered beyond the pale did just that. For that purpose, the more reprehensible the party, the better.
Such a smack may be necessary, but it may not prove sufficient. For what the post-Brexit and post-Trump reactions of the elite demonstrate is that they are incapable of reconsideration or self-examination or self-doubt. They are so convinced of their own superiority (especially moral superiority) that they tend to double down on the derision and condescension. Thus, electoral shocks tend to be merely the first battle in a protracted and increasingly hysterical war between the soi disant elite and those they believe it is their right to rule. We see that in the US today, with no respites even on the Sabbath, as the current frenzy over the NFL demonstrates.
My schadenfreude is only increased by the fact that Germany lapped France as the most annoying country in Europe some time ago. German annoyingness was the product of two currents, one of which is longstanding, the other more recent. The longstanding current is that of various German national neuroses, most notably the need to cope with the awesome responsibility for the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century, the two World Wars, and in particular the crimes committed in the second of these. To prove that they are different now, the Germans have long held themselves out as morally superior judges of everyone else. Notable examples include virulent German criticism of Israel (especially useful because if Israelis are no better than Nazis, the moral valence of the Holocaust is diminished) and of the US in Vietnam, and latterly Iraq. German criticism of lazy southern Europeans is a somewhat less egregious, but nonetheless notable, example of this tendency. Virtue signaling is a natural pastime.
The second current is Germany’s economic ascendance, especially in the context of the EU. Germany emerged from the Financial Crisis as the dominant economy in Europe, by far. Its main rival within the EU, France, fared not nearly so well, and this combined with British exit has left Germany preeminent in the EU. And they have not been shy to exercise this dominance–nor should they have been expected to, given the aforementioned belief in their moral superiority. Germany–with Merkel in the lead–has been the biggest force pushing for MOAR Europe, because in their current circumstances, More Europe means More German Power.
Of particular relevance in light of the election results, one of the most appalling manifestations of this has been Germany’s insistence on imposing its open borders policy on other countries, especially in eastern Europe (notably Poland). For its part, the Polish government knows how to hit Germany where it hurts (in its swollen sense of superiority) by threatening to demand trillions in reparations for WWII. (The issue of WWII illustrates Churchill’s aphorism about the Germans being either “at your throat or at your feet” very well. It is interesting to note how the Germans have been at times groveling to the Russians in recognizing their depredations in Russia during WWII, but have not behaved similarly to Poland, even though German crimes there were probably greater, and Polish responsibility for the war far less than Russia’s.)
German energy policy is another example. The Germans have been intent on forcing Nordstream I and now II on Europe because it benefits Germany, even though it leaves eastern Europe in the Russian energy thrall. Related to this is the schizophrenic German policy on Russia. On the one hand it has insisted on maintaining sanctions on Russia for Ukraine, but on the other hand it freaked out when the US tightened sanctions on Russia because this undermined German attempts to secure gas supplies from the Russians. The Germans insist on sending a signal–as long as they don’t have to pay a price.
So even if–or especially if–AfD is as bad as Spengler says, its shockingly strong performance yesterday will have major political effects outside of the borders of Germany. It has proven that Merkel has feet of clay. It will lead to a protracted negotiation over a coalition that in the end will leave Merkel diminished and constrained. It will probably spark a vicious political battle in Germany over immigration and Europe that will derail Germany’s attempt at world domination by other means.
And as much as the western establishments will wail, these are good things. In fact, the wailing is probably the best indication of that which one could imagine.