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Warmek's avatar

> "While those things did not help, what crushed these incompetent clowns in the end was something much more mundane: They ran out of money. "

Ahhhh. Thatcher's Premise finally caught up to them.

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Matt330's avatar

There is an old joke in American politics

"A million here... a million there... pretty soon it adds up to real money!"

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Tardigrade's avatar

The new joke would be updated to "billion".

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air dog's avatar

It was originally billions.

The quote is often attributed to Sen. Everett Dirksen, but seems to have been coined in the NY Times in 1938. Even way back then, our government was recklessly spending billions of dollars.

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Tardigrade's avatar

One can't help thinking of the scene in Austin Powers, the global extortion demand for… "One MILLION dollars!"

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air dog's avatar

Or that time when Saturday Night Live offered the Beatles $3,000 for a reunion concert.

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Tardigrade's avatar

😮

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Blair's avatar

Updated to "trillion"

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Danno's avatar

"Trillion"

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Erik Hoffmann's avatar

Simply Said- Money's Too Tight (To Mention)

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Michael Magoon's avatar

Yes, that was exactly what I was thinking.

“the problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

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Jim Davidson's avatar

German intellectuals have overpowered and destroyed the German economy. They refuse to work with the German people and pretend to be surprised by the rise of a populist political movement that defies their mad policies.

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air dog's avatar

So, pretty much the same as every other Western country and economy?

We even use some of the same German intellectuals!

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Godfree Roberts's avatar

Chinese intellectuals brought Mao's Hundred Flowers campaign to an end in precisely the same way. It's what they do..

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Jim Marlowe's avatar

So you would contend that Mao truly intended to promote a diversity of political ideas and encourage criticism of party dogma? But the "experts" ruined it? If so, I have significant doubts about that notion.

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Enflambe's avatar

"It's in the Wikipedia entry, so I know it's true!"

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Jim Marlowe's avatar

Wikipedia adopts the sinophilic view apparently espoused by Mr. Roberts. I am not entirely certain what you intend by the reply. But it gets a like from me because it can be construed as consonant with my assertion.

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Enflambe's avatar

The quotation mark use is intended to be the tell.

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MAGRIETHA DU PLESSIS's avatar

🤣😂

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Erik Hoffmann's avatar

German intellectuals, an oxymoron full of morons.

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Andrew P's avatar

How does one oxidize a moron?

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Chickenfucker's avatar

Oxygen

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Kittykat's avatar

This cannot go on forever. Populism is unleashed and it cannot be put back in the bottle. Not by the current ruling classes who are so far removed from the populations they govern. Populism is also risky but as far as I can tell the current populist movement just wants a return to common sense.

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Helen's avatar

Kittykat. That was a brilliant statement. Common sense. What a refreshing thought!

That seems to be in short supply in all the Western countries. Instead of governing wisely, by protecting borders, measured and controlled immigration, maintaining and adding

new infrastructure as required, investing in top notch Healthcare grounded in real science,

refraining from endless wars with diplomacy and pragmatism; the list goes on.

Instead we have been been subjected to governments infected with Progressive policies.

I'm 74 and I can't ever remember a time when these countries, including my own, Canada, launched such an attack on their own citizens as they are doing now. And the irony is its to preserve our democracy. As their policies fail those that voice a dissenting opinion are

called racist, hateful, anti immigration, anti vaxxers, climate denialists, objecting to the Ukraine/ Russian war a Putin lover; the list goes on.

And for all the other issues I missed, those in disagreement are conspiracy theorists.

We are being manipulated big time by a very powerful and determined group of individuals who are terrified of Populism because it may truly be the only way we will be able to defeat the Progressive policies we are currently living with.

I have no idea how the election of Trump in the US will evolve. But it gives me hope.

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Jane Doe's avatar

I've never posted on substack before, but went I hit reply to you it asked me to fill out a couple boxes then click on a link in my email, which I did, and apparently it still didn't let me put through my post, so it's completely gone. This is a test to see if this one goes through.

Anyway, our generations neglected the "home" so to speak. We thought we were past all the hardship and sacrifice and struggle of previous generations, and of course, better than those across the continents - the old USSR and the third world. But the lesson for humanity, in particular western civilization, is that you can't opt out of struggle for values, freedom, infrastructure, land, family, culture and heritage. if you opt out you'll have nothing left. That's why we're where we're at.

Politically, the idea of "common sense" is serviceable enough. Fine. But our ancestors didn't die in horrible wars to defend "common sense". What DID they fight and die for? That's a question every Canadian and American has to ask themselves.

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Danno's avatar

They fought and died for their brothers, sisters and neighbors. Some even fought and died for their country, with its shared culture and values. Who will will fight and die for the UN, NATO, the EU, or globalism? The elites in favor of those things? Not a chance.

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Jane Doe's avatar

That's right.

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LAnative's avatar

Why do these wannabe Marxists always think it either just not the right people, party, or message?

They’re obstructionists need a huge banner that reads, “It’s the ideology stupid!”

Here at home our fellow Americans in the Democrat Party are in the same boat- trying to dress up garbage as something edible.

Nov 6th for us was the opening of the trash can! How do you say “good luck” in German. 😎

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Rubberto Kaufen's avatar

Viel Glück

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Jerome V's avatar

Matthew Crawford makes a persuasive case that this is because the intellectuals are infected with a Malthusian Mind Virus. https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-narcissistic-murderous-parent-0dd

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rjt's avatar

(Mathew really prefers to be spelt with one "t".)

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Jerome V's avatar

Thanks!

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Joe Katzman's avatar

Germany's problems come from its vassalage to the USA, whose political class and institutions are a major force in propping up and manufacturing its "intellectuals" and public personae. The EU blob is the other side of that lock, owned by Davos.

The USA has changed its President, but not its institutions or ruling class. Unless and until it does, Germany will remain firmly trapped. Meanwhile, in this crucible, it needs to form a sense of its own self again.

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varactyl's avatar

There are major differences between Germany's intellectual culture and that of the US:

1) Environmentalism is common sense. Climate change is the most important problem of our time, and we deserve every climate refugee that will enter our country because of our pollution of the atmosphere. The famines in Africa, the wars for resources to be, all due to climate change, owe much to our greed and exploitation of the planets.

2) Our country is not great, it is evil. Its past is irredeemable. You should avoid showing its flag, except perhaps at football games. Patriotism is an inherently dangerous sentiment.

3) War is bad, so bad in fact that the military should be kept weak if it even has a right to exist at all. Now the Ukraine war has forced the introduction of drones and greater expenses, but we should probably reverse these measures as quickly as time allows.

4) Capitalism is stupid and immoral. Our system is doomed by its inherent contradictions. Who would believe in never-ending growth with finite resources? We owe our wealth to the exploitation of African countries.

Yes, that's a bit tongue-in cheek. But I claim that these sentiments are common among professional, educated Germans. They like to vote for the Greens, and even if they don't, they will probably concede the moral high ground to those who do.

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Joe Katzman's avatar

1, 2, and 4 currently describe the American gentry and institutional class to a "T". They've sold out to #3, but then the German Greens have likewise become a lapdog war party.

It's possible that a structural change in the American leadership class could shift this. Otherwise, I expect Germany to remain tethered and dependent. Even as I would like them to decide that they refuse to be Hitler's last victims, regain their sense of self, and head into a viable sovereign future.

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Jim Davidson's avatar

The USA's problems stem from its vassalage to the house of Hanover in Buckingham palace that lies and calls itself Windsor. Ever since they murdered prez Garfield they have controlled most of both political parties. Their greatest coup was the Feral Reserveless scam of 1913. Then they had JFK murdered. The more they squeeze their fist, the more we slip through their fingers, like water.

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Joe Katzman's avatar

Wherever the final locus is, at least some of it lies beyond America itself. The G3P model is persuasive.

https://iaindavis.com/what-is-the-global-public-private-partnership/

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Jane Doe's avatar

German's problems came from a result of WWII, and because you joined the EU. Why on earth ANY European thought it was a good idea to form a massive blob like the EU, run from Brussels, and give up sovereignty, is beyond me. Why does the EU exist? It was like a pact with satan, and you can't unsign it. Even UK after Brexit has not escaped. As bad as we are here in the United States with as many problems as we have, nobody ever thought, hey, let's create a union with Canada and Mexico!

Do you reside in Germany? Can you give me your opinion on the changes to your country's laws in regards to NATO and the Ukraine War? I understand there were changes since WWII to enable your country to take certain actions, yes?

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MAGRIETHA DU PLESSIS's avatar

Agree with you about the European Union

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Jane Doe's avatar

Thanks. This is my first experience commenting on substack. I got your reply via email, but when I click on it it does not jump to your comment it starts at the top...hmm. Also the thread structure is difficult to follow.

The EU is certainly a problem. Not sure how europeans get out of that. And EU regulations heavily affect us here in the states too, with banking regulations and speech regulations.

France seems hopeless. I'm waiting to see what Germany does.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

Hear me, out Eugy.....what if you just.....didn't have elections to replace these idiots?

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Michelle Dostie's avatar

As in a coup? It’s likely worth it.

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Owain Glyndŵr's avatar

Whoa there SC...what if that would have happened here in the US? But I'm suspecting a TiC suggestion.

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Darren Turner's avatar

With the cordon sanitaire and the “green is great” support of the CDU, Germany is doomed to further hardship and increasing world politics irrelevance. The Cordon eventually could lead to the occurrence of what they claim it’s there to prevent, an extremist government.

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Rikard's avatar

A cautionary tale from the North, about two possible futures:

Case A: Denmark. Dansk Folkeparti ("Danish People's Party) tried to stick to their guns even when invited to help rule as part or as aid to the various (and for Denmark normal) minority-coalitions, to no avail. Their policies were co-opted, neutered enough to look good but only shunt the problems forward in time, and their voters abandoned them rapidly once it became obvious that they would never ever be allowed to enact any of their real policies by the other parties. However, again normal for Denmark, a party going from double-digit percentages of seats to barely making it into parliament from one election to the next is not that uncommon.

Case B: Sweden. Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats) has gradually adapted their policies, statements and tolerance of internal dissension and debate during a 15-year period, to the demands of the other parties in the vain hope to break through the Cordon Sanitaire arranged against them (called "åsiktskorridor" in Swedish, meaning "Opinion Corridor" - stay in the middle of it or you're Hitler/Stalin, basically). This has finally manifested in the party becoming the most pro-war one when it comes Ukraine/Russia, and the most pro-Israel one too, as well as becoming pro-EU, pro-Neoliberalism, pro-migration - if you think of a typical European Socialist Democrat party of the 1990s, you have the SD of today. Compromising themselves out of existence, thinking that one day "their prince will come" and let them into government proper, not daring to play hardball for fear of a Moderat (think US warhawk neocons mixed with '90s Democrat shitlibs) - Socialist Democrat tacit but de facto-alliance.

I'd wager those are the only options the AfD will think exist for them, barring their own majority which simply cannot happen given the demographic shift Germany (as well as us up here) has been forced to undergo for three generations now.

All according to all those "conspiracy theories" from the 1920s and 1950s. . .

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JayBee's avatar

I also remember the SD being the only/most pro lockdown&masking party in Sweden.

The AfD in contrast was the only party against these idiocies and above all the quackzine mandates.

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Rikard's avatar

Yep.

The old hard-liners have been kicked out or relegated to lower-tier function out in the Regions.

The old party leadership has been separated from Åkesson, who in turn has been isolated among a crop of careerists, people who'd shill for any party as long as it benefits them personally.

And the party as a whole is pants-wettingly desperate for a seat on the floor under the Kool Kid'z table.

Gone are the leadership of just 4-5 years ago, who said "Give them Hell" when the Socialist Democrats demanded SD voted with them, threatening a crisis in Parliament otherwise. The SD of today would say "Yes B'wana" and jump to serve.

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Andreas Stullkowski's avatar

The party system itself is failing, and none of the right-wing parties will be able to change it. Even with the best of intentions and highest of morals.

As we see now: change only comes from single men with a small elite behind them. Trump as the latest example, but before him a number of other recent examples.

O.Spengler foresaw for our times the shift to "Caesarism".

It will probalby eventually reach Middle- and North-Europe, although it is hard to believe, since we are ruled by such tiny people, and there is no Big Man on the horizon yet.

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Cet's avatar

Trump was possible because of (relatively) direct democracy in election nominations, preventing direct gate-keeping in the selection of representatives, and the winner-take-all system, which prevents a divide-and-conquer strategy against populist movements. Unsurprisingly, these features are often criticized.

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Bootsorourke's avatar

Good points. However, The elite in the US are not behind Trump. They are unaffected by anything he is fighting against for the real people and it is social and career suicide to say anything favorable about him amongst the elite.

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Sherry 1's avatar

The so-called ‘elites’ in the EU and the West are the problem. They hate their own countries and their own people. IMHO.

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Helen's avatar

Sherry 1. You're right. But it begs the question; Why? What made them sell us out?

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Tardigrade's avatar

I think they could be very affected by many things he and his coalition are fighting against, hence, their freakout during the campaign.

Whether or not he will actually try to implement any of these reforms, especially the ones RFK was advocating, remains to be seen. Having both houses of Congress is a plus.

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Helen's avatar

Tardigrade. As a Canadian observer during this election one of the main reasons I wanted Trump to win was because of RFK. I hope Trump didn't use him for a temporary political advantage and actually gives him a mandate to improve health. I hope he let's him loose to go after the corrupt alphabet health agencies.

In a perfect world that would happen. Jaded reality says otherwise.

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Tardigrade's avatar

We're in complete agreement. I was going to vote for RFK, and I still did, I just had to do it via Trump.

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Helen's avatar

Bootsorourke. Loved your comment. As a Canadian Trump supporter it is also social suicide for me and I'm sadly not part of the elite class. I fall into a small percentage number of Canadians that thought he was a better choice than Kamala. I am so relieved that I won't be subjected to her word salad, cackle way of speaking on the world stage broadcasted by all the mainstream news outlets. I wonder if she is still feeling the "Joy"? I know I am.

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CS's avatar

'I fall into a small percentage number of Canadians that thought he was a better choice than Kamala.'

Trump absolutely was. And I, too, am very glad that I'll probably never be subjected to another word uttered by the vapid and inane Harris.

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VRand's avatar

I think we’re seeing a circulation of the elites such as Musk and like-minded Silicon Valley billionaires who want meritocracy and the freedom to develop new technologies, unlike the current elites who promote DEI, trans ideology, open borders and climate extremism.

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Andreas Stullkowski's avatar

They are different elites (=people with large influence on society), and they are opposed

They are lefitst media/university elites: the wallstreet elites; the new technology elites; the political elites, mostly democrats; the old neocon elites.

Possibly they are further elites which are very important but stay out of the light, like the old families

Trump succedded to get the wallstreet boys, the technology bros. He persuaded mayn of the neocons that he can be worked with.

That left just the inept leftis media people and the geroncratic Dem politicians, who have worked for decades to select for stupid conformity.

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Michelle Dostie's avatar

The wealthy is more descriptive.

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Michelle Dostie's avatar

Let’s stop using “elite” to describe people. We’re Americans!

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Tardigrade's avatar

I can't pretend to comprehend all the ins and outs of this, except to state the obvious, which is that politicians gonna politic.

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Rikard's avatar

Always feel free to ask, but remember that I'm biased in my answers, and rather un-Swedishly frank in describing things, always putting reality before niceties or decorum.

To put it an American context:

Imagine Trump trying to win by sucking up to, and compromising with the people calling him racist et cetera.

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Mitch's avatar

we call those people here RHINO's = Republican in Name Only

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Michelle Dostie's avatar

Not gonna happen

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Andrew P's avatar

All it will take is a crisis of the right sort, and AFD will suddenly be able to win an outright majority.

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jdm's avatar

Well stated. Thanks.

It seems to me that I don't think DF has ever been a coalition member, meaning they get minister seats, but that they would support or work with any right-wing government. They pretty much got nothing for their good behavior and lost votes (power). Danes are always too nice for their own good.

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Tardigrade's avatar

Dang, why do eugy articles always show up right when I'm supposed to go to work?

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ZuZu’s Petals's avatar

Or when we’re preparing dinner. Can’t concentrate on both, alas, and the food often suffers.

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Tardigrade's avatar

We have our priorities! Food can wait.

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SCA's avatar

Sometimes unfortunately total destruction is necessary. My own dearest hope has been that the election of Donald Trump, this second time, will mean the death of our two major parties as they have been constituated [my own fake word] in the post-WWII world so that something reasonably approximating an American Party might begin to stretch its mighty butterfly wings and take off.

And--funny thing. In the leadup to our election, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, our now lame-duck administration was shrieking that reports of FEMA malfeasance and preferments and discrimination were just more of Fascist Don's conspiracy theory derangements. Yet today it was reported that in Florida after the immediately preceding hurricane, a FEMA manager issued instructions that FEMA field workers were to bypass any homes with Trump signs on their property. The FL government, Congressional offices and FEMA are now investigating.

Hoping that every level of Germany's current government, excluding of course anywhere the AfD holds anything, are in terror of the post-January 20th world so let us each lift a glass or mug of choice and clink to that through the interwebs.

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Warmek's avatar

> "Yet today it was reported that in Florida after the immediately preceding hurricane, a FEMA manager issued instructions that FEMA field workers were to bypass any homes with Trump signs on their property."

Fuckin' 'ell. I honestly don't even know what one would do about people as evil as that. Like, that just speaks to a level of rot that I don't know how one gets around, without the equivalent of a full blown civil war.

> "The FL government, Congressional offices and FEMA are now investigating."

I'd say "Let's hope it's not just another case of 'the government investigated itself and discovered that it had done nothing wrong'." but I don't generally have a lot of hope these days.

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KMHgirl's avatar

Bring back public executions!

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Ravishing Rudey's avatar

You honestly, truly don't know what to do about people like that? Seriously? Does it have to be spelled out for you?

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Pnoldguy's avatar

It does put FEMA at the top of Elon Musk's list of agencies to eliminate doesn't it? Plus it's visible proof of promises kept.

I'm sure the state agencies (and citizens) can take up the slack of a defunded Fed FEMA.

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Warmek's avatar

> "without the equivalent of a full blown civil war"

I believe I adequately covered *shooting them* with that.

My point was more that I have no idea how to solve societal rot that leads to that *short* of a civil war.

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ZuZu’s Petals's avatar

I read about FEMA today on Jeff Childers’ Substack and was both incredulous and horrified. What a disgrace.

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SCA's avatar

Every single conspiracy theory. If it was a drinking game we(those of you who drink spirits)'d all need liver transplants by now.

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Suzie's avatar

Hah!

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Steven Work's avatar

May this note find us all ever closer to God, and His Peace.

Sadly this attitude is demonically-programmed through fem-VagFeelie society, media, .., corp and gov across the board as a tool to attack and harm those that Stand against evil, unTruth, inJustice, disOrder, insanity, ...

I had a reply to a comment relaying how much censorship is preventing information and discussion on many topics that powerful mind-rapers do not want us to know or think about, and the person claimed I lived a delusion ..

Sad that she [he?] never expressed an unpopular opinion or argued a point that was against the gov-Satanic powerful directed system.

I wonder similarly about those that crush alternatives to narrative Approved, and History Approved by those mind-raping Fascists that are in power, censor and punish those that have 'wrong-think' like Trump supporters needing tax-paid for assistance.

God Bless., Steve

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Steven Work's avatar

May this note find us all ever closer to God, and His Peace.

Given the years of cycling back of the billions given to israel and other countries to approved (not required to file as foreign countries' agents) PACs like ADL, as well as funders off think-tanks and possibly other political Capture methods such as black-mail videos taken on private islands and threats of false-rapes, of funding others more willing, etc. the fungal-strangulating DeepState as well as corporations & Industries, .

.. our voting harder and longer will not likely fix the Rot and evil.

One might wonder the better we and world would have been had the States been allowed to Secede as was their Just Right (under the Treaty of Paris) and the Federal Gov as an agent of them, as was the case.

About FEMA - I have no doubt about the abuse and neglect based of political beliefs, as is rampant throughout most Fed. Gov departments as seen by the FBI and Judicial, two name two that most people will have seen.

There are credible reports that after Hurricane Katrenia in 2006 that the national guard was ordered to and did take guns from homeowners while armed looters were such a wide threat, and of course FEMA back then was shown to be a Paper-Department, that was funded and the money was spent elsewhere, leader was incompetent and other corruption and evils.

The process of making illegal the Populis representation of the civilians created an acceptance and intent to cause violence, which the ruling class would likely profit from in many ways including the faster genocide of indigenous white Christian peoples.

Interesting how that ruling Class seems the same throughout the West, isn't it?

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Kaatje Gotcha's avatar

Well said! Since the plandemic I've become convinced that we're ruled by the MIC and intelligence agencies. We live in tyranny, and are being lied to by our government. BRICS+ appears much more cooperative.

I feel this is the end of so called Enlightenment and democracy. Politicians in the US and Europe never listen to their constituents. Godspeed to us all, we may as well be peasants in the Middle Ages!

That said, my own life is graceful and content, despite being severely disabled. Inner freedom and having faith, is the greatest gift.

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Matthew McWilliams's avatar

It’s Saturday afternoon here in the U.S., which in the autumn means it’s time for American college football. I’m sitting on my sofa, drinking a few beers and watching the games. I’m also making small dollar bets on my gambling app. I’m going to throw some half chickens on the grill later. This is my first anxiety free Saturday watching football in several years.

I’m sure all of your readers would like to be doing the same thing I am doing, watching Bundesliga football or whatever your sport is, anxiety free. This is all I want out of life. My wife and I work hard all week to pay the bills, and we just want to be able to enjoy the small pleasures in life, like watching college football on a Saturday afternoon.

This is the primary reason that I hate these assholes. They make it impossible to just enjoy life. And they do it for the most ridiculous reasons imaginable. Your explanation of why the German government is so dysfunctional is emblematic of leftist government around the World. They do it to my wife and me, and they do it to you, every day. And there is absolutely no reason that it has to happen other than that they are stupid assholes.

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Ravishing Rudey's avatar

There is another reason. Because we are too disorganised and too cowardly to put them in their rightful place: on the guillotine. That's the only thing that will make them stop.

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VRand's avatar

I once believed that the masses could rise up in rebellion when they had had enough, but I have since changed my mind, especially after observing the behavior of the masses during Covid tyranny. The masses cannot organize on their own, even in the most extreme conditions. A leader or a small group of elites is what it takes. The Popular Delusion book educated me on this, and I’ve seen this more clearly now that I’m aware of this phenomenon on mass behavior.

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Matthew McWilliams's avatar

The American Revolution was just what you describe. It was a top down revolution driven by a few elites. I truly believe we have a similar situation with Trump and the constellation of elites around him.

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Tardigrade's avatar

Geez. All because they won't let the populists play. That's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

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Warmek's avatar

Or like cutting off your dick to spite your... oh wait. Right. People actually *do* that these days and are praised for it.

FML but the world is insane.

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Florida Prophet's avatar

Ich versteh garnichts about German politics!? Seems the CDU and AfD are kindred spirits on the two main issues confronting Germany - illegal alienation and the Green scam. What the heck prevents them from coalescing?

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eugyppius's avatar

You could write a whole book on the real purpose of the cordon sanitaire, but I will provide a few observations:

First, the establishment parties just don't like newcomers. Germany has an extremely conservative party system. All the establishment parties are co-dependent in important ways, entire careers are tied up with the delicate electoral balances they have maintained. An upstart party like the AfD threatens to destroy all of this.

Second, keeping the AfD out keeps the Greens relevant. If the CDU could form coalitions with the AfD, the Greens would be a minor party that nobody cared about. Instead, they are kingmakers. I think this is not an accident. A lot of people in the CDU are personally sympathetic to Green politics and want to keep Green policies on the agenda.

This is explained by a third factor: The AfD got really strong when Merkel started flirting with the Greens and steering the CDU to the left. A lot of the people in the AfD are former CDU members. This means that the existing CDU has changed fundamentally, as a party. It consists of all those people who didn't have a problem with Merkel's triangulations and who, as I said in point 2), probably like the Greens. The AfD is also a genuine, long-term threat to the CDU, as it cannibalises ever more of its base. The CDU knows this and their leadership hates the AfD. Proposals to ban the AfD? Presently being promoted by a CDU politician, Wanderwitz. Investigations into AfD, allegations that they are 'extreme right' and so on? These flow mainly from BfV, domestic intelligence, presently headed by Haldenwang, a CDU man.

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JayBee's avatar

I also think they and in particular the CDU thought they could put the AfD back into irrelevance through their ever more desperate smearing of them and their supporters.

That has now backfired spectacularly.

Similar to Trump or the FPÖ: it's now become OK to be pro AfD among most people, in particular among the working class and SME owners and in the East.

Therefore, if the general election goes well for the AfD, the Brandmauer sh/would crumble under normal circumstances.

I can also see it falling because of a ban of the AfD, although this c/should then lead to huge civil unrest.

Because/but these are not normal circumstances as/and the CDU is now and will likely remain a hopeless case in that regard due to the greenification of most of its functionaries, the Brandmauer will remain intact until the greenified functionaries have been replaced with conservatives again.

What I really cannot understand here is the CDU voter. The voters of all other parties act rational and logical, and/as their vote is at least coherent with their (mostly wrong) own worldview.

But the classical conservative CDU voter either denies that his party has become greenified and that it will continue to pursue the same policies as die Ampel, despite it/them saying so expressively, or hopes that the party will destroy the Brandmauer despite the leadership being green, ruling it out and inevitably becoming pariahs among their class and caste if they did so.

So, if they wanted to vote coherently instead, they have to vote for the AfD or FDP. But most of them simply won't and that mostly just because they think and say: "We have always voted for the CDU/CSU."

Crazy.

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KMHgirl's avatar

Remember Obama got rid of the Tea Party movement by strangling them with IRS restrictions and sanctions. This, too kept the established uni party system in place. Once again, the people’s voices were squashed by those in power.

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CMCM's avatar

A lot of the Dems are lashing out at Obama's influence in replacing Biden with Harris. I must say it's thoroughly enjoyable to sit back and watch them all attack and blame each other. Sadly, they never learn a single thing. They still think their policies and plans were great, and that the problem is that they just didn't "message" it correctly to convince the rest of us.

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Ravishing Rudey's avatar

The CDU voter is a coward. I don't believe there is much more description needed.

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Andrew P's avatar

This sort of rhymes with US politics, as similar dynamics are in play for the Establishment Elites and former Republican Anti-Trumpers who are now Democrats. But here, the money is a big motivating factor. The Establishment and its voters side with the big money. There must be huge financial reasons for certain classes sticking with the CDU.

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JayBee's avatar

True, but not the full picture.

Ever more civil servants and pay-as-you-go state system pensioners and care money recipients certainly fit that bill, equally so for the other parties though.

Those CDU voting Germans really don't like change and reforms, they value stability and continuity above all else.

The paradoxon here is, that they will only get further green and huge change and a higher likelihood of a war with Russia if they vote for this CDU.

But then, those people are also very suggestible and perceptible to any narratives that become the consensus- they seriously think war, gene therapies, anti Trumpism and above all the climate change scam are now the rational middle ground consensus policies.

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LouW's avatar

Doesn't the name Cordon Sanitaire imply that anyone outside of this group is un-sanitaire , aka unsanitary or unclean. Saying that your opponents are unclean/unsanitary reminds of a different political party in Germany long ago.

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Rikard's avatar

Indeed it does, it essentially means "to create a barrier against the sick/the sickness". The political meaning came about after WW1, the idea being to isolate Soviet Russia and Germany from the companionship of the other nations of Europe, many of them newly formed, after the collapse of Austria-Hungary. Clemenceau thought you could "shame" people like Lenin or Stalin into sitting up and behaving according to French-British "codes of conduct" (i.e. always playing the servant and second fiddle to those two nations, their self-image then - and still - being that the Sun shone on their command, to use a badly translated idiom).

Which only served to push Germany and the USSR together, and we know the rest.

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Warmek's avatar

> replaced by literally anybody with a minimal capacity to act

The lack of this is what truly baffles me so much. How did the entire western world come to be ruled by people with such an atrocious grasp of physics that they purposefully intend to drive themselves into freezing poverty?

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Ravishing Rudey's avatar

The point is that the politicians will be fine. They can afford their insanity. They are driving the "little people" into poverty.

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rjt's avatar

Some people understand that energy is wealth, even if only intuitively.

The use of the old Republican slogan "Drill, Baby, Drill!" in the US election is an acknowledgement of this, and particularly to those of the non-Tesla driving class.

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Spaceman Spiff's avatar

Subconscious drives to bring about these very outcomes. Suicide basically. Guilt about our prosperity which they cannot reconcile with their blank slate theories about peoples; we are simply more advanced than most cultures and that cannot be. Everyone is the same, so we must be reduced to third world levels. They believe they are improving the world.

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KHP's avatar

Many years ago I jokingly made up the Let's All Freeze To Death While Starving In The Dark Coalition (along with their Python-esque primary competitor, the Let's All Starve To Death While Freezing In The Dark Coalition -- they of course hate each other's guts.)

Who knew that some political party would take the idea seriously?

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Kurt's avatar

Good aquaintance of ours, lawyers by trade: Bought some mansion in Mecklenburg, renting the appartments out for well off Berliners, everything sustainable and whatnot (nice people, btw). Two electric vehicles. He is earning very good money in a company planning and selling wind farms (though being capitalism-critical, ofc). When greens have party meetings in the higher echelons, he is there, recommending what to do and how. Which party is he in? The Greens? No, he joined the CDU, respectable, not so crazy as the Greens, with more prospects. They were in february organazing rallies in their nearby town, you'd guess it, against "rechts". Things become more clear when one understands that the CDU is basically a leftwing party by now.

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Rikard's avatar

Great explanation of a thorny issue. It is equally applicable to Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. Eerily similar. Almost so that one might suspect some common factor guiding or steering this development from ca 1990-1995 to present day.

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eugyppius's avatar

many conspiracy theories are possible here. the internal Atlanticist revolution the Greens experienced after reunification in 1990 is particularly suggestive.

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Rikard's avatar

Yes - you can almost date the specific day Green groups all over Western Europe stopped protesting outside corporate plants, factories et cetera and began attacking their own people and nation in the name of "global warming".

My understanding is that the old party leadership was around 1995 ousted and replaced with neoliberal careerists with no real understanding of ecology, chemistry, logistics, economy and such - something the old guard actually was quite well read-up on, from their (foolish, and Soviet-endorsed) struggle against nuclear power/weapons during the 1960s/1970s.

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Jerome V's avatar

Matthew Crawford makes a persuasive case that this is because the people involved are either: 1. infected with a Malthusian Mind Virus, or 2. Kunlangeta https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-narcissistic-murderous-parent-0dd

Harrison Koehli has been running a fascinating series on a new general theory of Persistent Predatory Personalities, over at https://ponerology.substack.com/

Your good work here is greatly appreciated!

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Warmek's avatar

Also, this does rather answer my question from the other thread, so thanks for the run down.

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CS's avatar

'All the establishment parties are co-dependent in important ways, entire careers are tied up with the delicate electoral balances they have maintained. An upstart party like the AfD threatens to destroy all of this.'

Same here in the USA, of course.

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ThePossum's avatar

Is there any possibility that Trump will coordinate directly with AfD, thus sending German politics further into some populist maelstrom?

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Rikard's avatar

Same reason the Republicans rejected Trump originally: the newcomer isn't one of the in-crowd.

The older I get, the more I see how politics resemble a High School.

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SCA's avatar

No no. It is middle-school cafeteria forever.

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Rosemary B's avatar

agree. This is stuff I witnessed in middle school.

Our family had just come to the US after a couple of years in Paris and before that Germany, anywho, we lived in Maryland (dad worked in DC) and busing just started.

We had kids from Baltimore in our tiny little white collar town.

It was terrifying.

.... now where was I going with this?

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SCA's avatar

It is a particular life stage unique in its essence. If it don't leave by natural progression of the years and biological processes, all hell descends upon the earth.

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AndyinBC's avatar

Or a kindergarten!

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les's avatar

After this weeks shenanigans from the left all I can say it is like watching a two year old having a temper tantrum when mommie and Daddie say no.

It really is depressing to see adults behaving like this.

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CMCM's avatar

I have seriously been thinking that they act like angry children because in an emotional and developmental sense, they ARE like children, they never quite grew up, perhaps due to a privileged upbringing without consequences for their actions and in which they didn't really have to excel as success was often just handed to them because of who they are and who they know. They always want their way and cannot handle failure. It's a weird thing to watch.

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Joshua's avatar

Fortunately, Reality always wins. Unfortunately, people generally have to suffer a while before it does.

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Matt330's avatar

I keep reading through this and I keep asking myself if this is even real. The whole thing reads more like a drunken fratboy farce than even a political scandal. Several times I had to go back and make sure I read what you wrote correctly. I love schadenfreude but this is just pathetic.

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Bootsorourke's avatar

I think Frat boys tend to have better organizations--they have fun and don't shoot their Presidents.

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Tardigrade's avatar

'trigger snip elections'

Is this an unfamiliar-to-me parliamentary process, or did you maybe mean 'snap'?

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eugyppius's avatar

lol thanks

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Warmek's avatar

Oh, I dunno, I think I rather *like* the sound of "snip elections"...

OK, I'm gonna ask what's probably a violently naive question here:

> "The CDU, however, refuses to take this logical step, because it would amount to appointing CDU head Friedrich Merz as interim chancellor with the help of AfD votes, and that is forbidden by the absurdities of the cordon sanitaire. In this way, the determination of the CDU to marginalise the AfD continues merely to enhance the power of the loathed and discredited German left. "

So, like, seriously, why don't the FDP and the CDU just tell the much loathed Geman left to go fuck themselves, and give this cordon sanitaire the finger, and just form a coalition government with the AfD? From my admittedly very long range perspective on the politics over there, they don't *actually* seem to particularly be at odds in terms of *actual political goals*. None of those three groups want to see Germany become an economic wreck with no industry, starving to death in the dark while the they freeze. Nothing I've heard from any even slightly sane source on the AfD suggests they want anything that's actually particularly horrible, for all that the left froths about their supposed "fascism".

Like, is it just the required humiliation of admitting that they've been being stupid about it all this time? Would sufficient numbers of voters from either of those parties then *actually* defect to the SPD, the Greens, or the BSW?

Am I just expecting entirely too much reason and sanity from politicians?

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AndyinBC's avatar

A very brief review of recent history would seem to indicate that ANY expectation "reason and sanity from politicians" would indeed be "entirely too much".

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Warmek's avatar

I mean... you're not *wrong*... but unless the more outlandish conspiracies about "lizard people" are actually true, then they're still *people*. They should generally want to improve their lot in life and move their goals forward. I just... fuck. This is me being just completely aspie and thoroughly baffled by my own species again, isn't it?

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Bootsorourke's avatar

It's not you being an Aspie. It's them being what most politicians (IMHO) are--shortsighted malignant narcissists.

Here in the US, it's coming to light that the dishonest platitudes (lies) they were spouting was not just to the public. It was to each other within the D party. They lied to each other about the internal polling.

Who could ever understand that behavior?

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AndyinBC's avatar

Don't discount the "lizard people". They appear to be alive and well in the bureaucracies of governments around the world.

How else do you account for the self-destructive, or even suicidal policies and actions of so many governments?

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Warmek's avatar

I mean, Lord knows I often feel like I do not understand even slightly the motivations of a vast percentage of my own purported species. Fuck, maybe *I'm* a lizard person, and it's actually all the *humans* that are insane...

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Ravishing Rudey's avatar

They *are* moving their goals forward. Yes, you don't get it. They all fall into one of two camps: 1) completely corrupt and cynical and all about enriching themselves, the country and the people be damned - OR - 2) So narcissisticaly delusional and myopic about their own ideas, who also think that they deserve all these privileges and rewards and gifts just because they are so special, great, and important.

In either case, they are doing well for themselves and are confident they always will. To be fair to them, the world has yet to do anything but confirm that.

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Tardigrade's avatar

Yes.

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Bootsorourke's avatar

anyone's recent history

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Tardigrade's avatar

Yes, exactly. Although they may have painted themselves into a corner by officially designating the AfD as evil incarnate. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

What's amazing is that they can't see the writing on the wall. Who am I, but I see two choices. 1. Continue on their current course until they self-destruct completely and spectacularly, or 2. Toss the cordon sanitaire out the window, eat some crow, and do their fucking job, which is to run the country.

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Ravishing Rudey's avatar

Like Eugypius, I believe that pigs will fly before the second option takes place.

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Tardigrade's avatar

Sadly, yes.

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Bootsorourke's avatar

Awww Shucks! I was hoping snip was the actual term. Sounds so final and neat.

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Tardigrade's avatar

'migration-scpetical BSW'

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Irunthis1's avatar

I thought it was maybe a snap election held by folks in a snit 😂

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Rikard's avatar

Snip-elections is for trans-people?

Incidentally, "snippa" (snip-uh!) is modern PC-slang for vagina in Swedish.

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Bootsorourke's avatar

as someone with a vagina, I refuse to call it a snippa.

Nope.

Must be a better name for a thing that delivers a human being, provides pleasure, and takes a lot of percussion and keeps working.

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Rikard's avatar

Ahem. I feel I may needs make amends, thus:

Somewhen in the mists of time (ca 2010AD) Swedish feminists decided that they had had enough with various terms for female genitalia being used as swear-words.

(None of them ever considered it wrong to use such words when they were centered around male genitalia and assorted parts.)

They held referendums amongst themselves, pushed and pulled with their friends and allies in the media, and "snippa" was suddenly discovered as the Politically Correct (which to Swedish feminists is not simply the best kind of correct, but the only kind of correct) word, outside of medical matters.

The corresponding male term is "snopp", pronounced the same as "stop" in English but with the 'n' instead of the 't'. The etymology of "snopp" is from an Old German word; schuppen, which is "sniffles" in English.

"Snippa" is used by the same kind of PC-woke AWFLs that would use "latinx" seriously in the USA.

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Pnoldguy's avatar

Rikard you have hit it out of the park! I have tasked my wife to fire up the embroidery machine and make me a T-Shirt that says, "Don't be a Snopp"!

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Rikard's avatar

I think I'm having an "Oppenheimer-moment". . .

Nah, kidding! Have at it, I say, and thank you!

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Tardigrade's avatar

Thank you, I think.

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Rosemary B's avatar

oh hey, thanks as always Rikard haha

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Tardigrade's avatar

'there would be no new deficit spending. Instead, the Greens and the SPD would fund their projects by reappropriating unused Covid-era credit authorisations secured under the Merkel government.'

I'm only a humble, unsophisticated moss piglet, but this sounds very sketchy even to me. They seriously thought they could get away with that? Stealing somebody else's piggy bank?

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usNthem's avatar

At this point, what good is the Afd? They can’t do anything on their own and none of the other coalitions will work with them. I understand it’s a party that’s come about due to the frustrations of many Germans, but nothing is being accomplished. Is there no strong man who will step in, take the bull by the horns and deep six these pantywaste libtards and their stupid fantasies? Damn, and I thought US politics was screwed up…

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Ravishing Rudey's avatar

You are assuming that the amount of people who will vote for the AfD cannot increase.

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Charlotte's avatar

I think that the AfD is there because if Germans just starve enough and freeze to death enough, they get to know there IS an answer to their problems right in front of them. But of course, they still might not choose it, because this odd sub-culture of martyrdom and victimhood seems to have overwhelmed the middle and upper classes.

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Steven Work's avatar

May this note find us all ever closer to God, and His Peace.

The 'Strong Man' solution was tried but it went against the powerful Private City of London (controller of British Empire), Federal Reserve private corp, and other Zionist leaning banking and investment forces that owned, controlled, or influenced enough media-gov-Institutions to drag the USA into WWI when the population did not want war, driven reprisal by them for Germany's pre-WWI removal of Usury enslaving banking-bankers and processes that were used to control the British Empire were rejected, the hatred and destruction-desire of such black-souls was acted on, with once again white Christian men set against white Christian men by them, as in out CivilWar and later in WWII, now as secrete goal of the Ukrainian-Russian war - Holodomor part II with 1 Million white Christian men dead on Ukraine side and more in Russia. Other Genocide cause by powerful Christian hating sect of Jews like the starvation on 10 millions of entire families & communities in Ukraine by post-revolutionary Russian Jews (Holodomor), the Armenian Genocide directed by similar, and now the slow death of white Christian peoples and societies throughout the West - using Sickened Feminism womanhood as a wedge and tool.

The solution must be understood world-wide, and I think of it like this Analogy, ..

I was imaging a country less than a century old that 90% of them were either murdering-pedo or supported them, and that around the world to powerful people and families controlling gov.s were both kid-napping - sexually-torture them to death on private islands - or sending them to this country or using our tax-dollars and the banking-investing world-wide power to support that country.

And they will not Stop. Even if the populations of the world See them doing this, and corp-gov-media supporting and hiding it.

Who would you call a Nazi or such if it was suggested that such a concentration of evil and horror-souls, unrepentant country be removed with nukes - if needed - but stopped and those unrepentant made gone? That since only the very powerful wealthy or those in significant position throughout all gov could be identified - that they be removed, before any more young children are tortured to death by psychotic sexual demons-possessed peoples?

Call such people what names, beside decent God-Fearing protectors of Children, Families, societies, nations and humanity, Or Nazis? Terrorists?

What the hell is wrong with you? Is your acceptance of mothers killing our babies affecting you like a demonic-voice you cannot refuse?

(Inquiring minds want to know.)"

As long as the ADL and those offshore and internal controllers of our gov-Empire policies of endless destruction, horror, death, Hell for us and world-wide, can you imagine anyone they allow us to see, allow us to think or discuss - saying that or similar? If they were part of the system mentioned?

Would you be ashamed to be call names like Nazis or Terrorist for supporting those willing to put their lives on line, since we are too castrated in West by our Sick motherhood, vile male-hating women teachers of young, most [retarded, baby-killing, mutilating children & supporters of] women and gov.s-corp-media and other Significant mind-raping population contempt-filled controlling Institutions such murdering-pedo horrors own?

God Bless., Steve

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janoskar.hansen@gmail.com's avatar

one hopes AfD gets stronger and makes Germany a stronger independent nation again

and stop the self imposed guilt dripping about Israel

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