Alternative für Deutschland now the strongest party in Germany as Merz's government flounders, weak and bereft of options

Merz upon learning of his failure in the first round of voting for the Chancellorship: a terrible omen, as if we needed any.

This is supposed to be a blog on German politics, but I haven’t posted much in this direction for some weeks. That is because German politics are stuck.

Neither the Social Democrats nor the Christian Democrats can move without provoking the ire of the other or stirring the increasingly dissatisfied CDU base into revolt. Freidrich Merz is a weak and increasingly unpopular Chancellor who can barely keep his own party united behind him; SPD leadership, and particularly Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, enjoy little support in their own ranks and therefore have no choice but to accept slavery to their activist base.

Anytime anybody tries to do something in this unforgiving environment, it rapidly becomes a disaster. Crazy leftoid SPD nominees for the Federal Constitutional Court: a disaster (and an even bigger disaster waiting to happen). Merz’s arms embargo on Israel: also a disaster. Promised reductions to the electricity tax: a failure because there is no money and therefore yet another disaster. Merz’s calls for entitlement reform, because “the social welfare state can no longer be financed”: a humiliation after his own Labour Minister, Bärbel Bas, called his statement “bullshit” and Merz had to tell journalists he was fine with this open affront from his own cabinet because he has no other options. So, also a kind of disaster, not least because we all know now there will be no entitlement reforms. There will be nothing at all.