Firewall Physics, or: Why the German political establishment probably won't ban the AfD however much they may think they want to

This pinched woman with problem glasses is named Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf.

She’s exactly what she appears to be, namely a totally crazy law professor at the Universität Potsdam who has spoken in favour of mandating Covid vaccines, of revising our Basic Law to include gender-neutral language and of banning Alternative für Deutschland.

That’s alarming, because the Social Democrats have nominated Brosius-Gersdorf for a position on our Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, and the CDU and now the CSU have pledged to support her nomination – in return for the SPD supporting their own nominee.

Brosius-Gersdorf is so nuts that a lot of people in the Union parties really don’t want to vote for her, but leadership are insisting that they follow through. Among other things, our cartel parties are desperate to show that they can still manage appointments to our nation’s highest court, despite the firewall against a never-stronger AfD.

If anything, the CDU and CSU probably think we should be grateful that Brosius-Gersdorf is not even crazier. No candidate can make it onto our nation’s highest court without the support of two thirds of the Bundestag, and none of those votes can come from the 151-seat-strong AfD faction. Because of the firewall, in other words, every candidate will need substantial support from the hard-line hippie socialists of Die Linke (the Left Party) and the deranged Greens to succeed. We can therefore expect judicial nominees to become more left-leaning even as the Bundestag shifts further and further rightwards. That is the awkward balancing act we see unfolding in this particular farce.

Now, a lot of people are worried that sending lunatics like Brosius-Gersdorf to the Federal Constitutional Court will make an AfD ban much more probable. I’ve been sick in bed since last week, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about this and also about some other related things. Ultimately, I’ve concluded that it hardly matters who goes to Karlsruhe. An AfD ban is extremely unlikely whatever justices happen to be serving on our highest court. In fact, save for one laughable joke scenario, I think it pretty much can’t happen, and for one simple reason: