Germany is Not “Lurching to the Right”

The German election outcome is being reported by the BBC, FT and other establishment media as a “lurch to the right.”

It has never been clear what a “lurch” actually means in the lexicon of political clichés. However, those in Britain or J.D. Vance and Elon Musk in the United States who went out of their way to endorse the AfD surely are disappointed.

Germans say “Nein Danke”

More than 4 out of 5 German said “Nein Danke” to the AfD offer. Indeed, the combined vote of the German progressive left — SPD, die Linke, Greens — at 36.8% was nearly twice that of the AfD.

Compared to Italy where Georgia Meloni is prime minister, Germany’s AfD is as far from power today as it was before the February 23 national election.

Moreover, one can safely assume that under Boris Pistorius, currently Germany’s effective Defense Minister, the Social Democratic Party, sister party of Britain’s Labour Party, will be an effective coalition partner.

Putin disappointed

There will be no lurch to the right as happened under Boris Johnson when Putin oligarchs showered money on the Tory party to obtain the hardest possible Brexit, a long-standing goal of Putin.

Putin’s European policy has long aimed at weakening the EU to create a Balkanized Europe of small, bickering nation states he can pick off one by one.

For all of its high degree of self-satisfaction and pompousness, the AfD continues to miserably fail in fulfilling Putin‘s mandate. The only way it can succeed is if the establishment parties are dim-witted enough not to address the German voting public’s clearly stated concerns for smart policy changes.

Appeasing Donald Trump

British ministers have tended to go out of their way to appease Donald Trump, waffling about the fabled “special relationship” — coincidentally a term never used or heard in Washington.

Meanwhile, the presumable new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, denounced the Trump-Vance-Musk attacks on Europe as no different from Putin’s hostility to the EU. That is all the more remarkable as he has long made a name for himself as a very strong transatlanticist.

The AfD, for its part and despite all of its hooraying, remains cantoned in East Germany where resentment lies close to the surface. This resentment prevails despite the fact that, after the end of communist rule, the united Germany made special efforts to raise the standard of living and inward investment into East Germany.

The roots of the AfD

For all the justified disdain at the AfD, it is important to remember that the party is really a product of Angela Merkel’s disastrous sequence of errors in the second half of her chancellorship.

These infamously included kowtowing to Putin and ending non-fossil fuel energy sources like nuclear power which pushed German electricity prices to the highest in Europe.

Above all, her decision to open East Germany to two million Muslim Arab and North African immigrants from Syria provided the perfect petri dish in which racist and anti-Berlin sentiment grew.

Most of those policies at the time were supported by the German political establishment.

European parallels

The anti-immigration mindset is also alive and well in Britain, France, the Nordic Countries, Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland. It is especially workers who have turned away from classic center-right or center-left parties, venting their anger by voting for demagogues like Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, Matteo Salvini or Geert Wilders.

In British terms, this is the old Enoch Powell politics of “repatriation.” When Powell first raised the racist flag half a century ago, the Conservative Party repudiated him and went on to keep winning elections.

Now, a top Tory journalist can write an article under the heading “Is Rishi Sunak English?” That is rather like American right wingers disputing whether Barack Obama is an American.

Conclusion

The AfD is part of the European, including the British, turn to ethno-nationalist politics which is emotional. It is based on a genuine sense that modern governments are indifferent to the plight of so many people who cannot earn a living sufficient to buy a house or have a family or even pay electricity and water bills or shop for good food for children.

But the hopes of Vance, Musk, Farage, Le Pen or Orbán that the pro-Putin AfD would win big in Germany have not been realized.

Meanwhile, the new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is 69 — so may be in a hurry to show he has the policies to turn Germany round.

The likely Black-Red CDU-SPD coalition should allow Merz to spend on German defense and help face down Putin. He will soon be seen as a key leader of Europe.