Behind all of the disingenuous fact-checking and the performative outrage, one detects in German mainstream commentary the deeper recognition that J.D.
Thinking about the nuts-and-bolts of coalition formation has clarified several points, in addition to those raised here. One question, for example, has been why the CDU ran such a shit campaign. Then I realised: CDU are actually in a better position with a relatively stronger SPD and Green Party. Their ideal scenario is one in which CDU + Greens or CDU + SPD can both give them a majority. Then they can play each potential partner off against the other.
So CDU refused to attack both left parties, even while both parties attacked them in turn, and spent of the campaign a) saying very little about anything, then b) attacking AfD, then c) issuing weak ultimatums on migration and pleading for the left to go along with them on this.
I think you are credititing CxU campaign managers with more nous (sorry, northern English word I will make you look up as academic exercise ;-) ) than is their due. Modern campaign management is a Blair/Clinton thing. German political campaigns mostly seem stuck in the fax-machine era.
To return to Clinton's "it's the economy stupid", Germany, and to almost the same extent the rest of the EU, have just gone through a lost decade. When Japan, a country most of the world cares little for except them having been thrashed into being enthusiastically on our side, went through an economic "lost decade", it coined the term "lost decade". Since then Japan has had two and a half lost decades (without comment), and "weiter so" threatens us with the same.
"It's the economy stupid" just doesn't seem to work outside the USA.
Actually Japan has had a much better last two decades than popularly believed. BOJ Bank Governor Mieno san made a deliberate choice in the early 1990s to de-financialise the economy in favour of an ethically grounded return to a real economy in which making things was more important than making money with money and speculation. The rest of the world sees only the dismal performance of financial assets and markets amd ignores (willfully or otherwise) the extraordinary increase in real performance of japanese companies and the steady, relentless increase im overall prosperity that Japan has experienced. If that is the outcome of “lost decades” then bring it on as far as I am concerned.
I recommend Richard Werner's excellent "Princes of the Yen" (in both book and video form - you can find it online). Werner truly understands and explains the Japanese asset bubble of the 1980s and Mieno's unique and surprising role in bursting it. I agree Japan is better off "de-financializing" and "making things." Still, we must be very cognizant of the horrific personal and economic pain brought to the public by the bubble and its correction. Be careful what you wish for, and be ready for the consequences.
This is a very interesting description you share, certainly at odds with what I thought I knew, but attractive to me especially as a small business owner longing for what I experience as the "real" economy to break free from the tyranny of the financial markets. Is there anything you might recommend for further reading on this?
See if you can find anything from the value investment manager Andrew McDermott, from Nashville who has been investing in Japanese companies for the last decade (as has Warren Buffett by the way). He is a deep thinker and writes lucidly and engagingly on all topics but is particularly good on Japan. If you can’t find anything publicly available ping me on a DM here and I will see what I can share.
Japan was the China of the 70s and 80s. The US decided to put a stop to this, and flattered Japan with a seat at an economic conference alongside the US, UK, Germany and France - the Plaza Accord of 1985. This changed the relative values of the US $ and Japanese ¥ to the extreme disadvantage of Japanese exporters. It took a couple of years for the effects to kick in fully, when the Japanese government panicked and tried to cover up the losses with an expansionary economic policy that created an asset bubble. When the bubble burst in the early 90s, the lost (three) decade(s) began.
In the polite society of diplomacy and global think tanks, the Plaza Accords are forgotten, and Japan's irreversible decline is blamed on the asset bubble. China was watching carefully, and knows better.
Trump’s promise of improving the economy is the excuse for most for why they voted MAGA. But while they came for the cash, they stayed for the anti-woke, anti-green, anti-war, and anti-corruption agenda.
I am a complete ignorant of the details and meanders of german politics but let me ask you about another scenario - a call me crazy one:
Could AfD vote unilaterally for CDU/CSU?
Merz would then be elected but would remain almost captive of AfD for each decision in the Bundestag.
1) And Merz would have to “forcibly”, blamelessly (he didn’t break the cordon, right?)negotiate with just one party, the AfD, a (very strong and with friends in high places) party instead of two smaller parties;
2) But If he chooses to go along with smaller ones he wouldn’t be able to go alone with just one of them because they wouldn’t add to 315+1 votes.
So Merz would be permanently having to negotiate simultaneously with the other two: SPD + 1 even smaller other or Greens + 1 even smaller other;
And remember: who would have broken the cordon would have been the AfD not the CDU. No blame.
There’s always the risk the other parties come to Merz’s rescue at each legislative voting but imagine the price CDU would be paying!
Also his life wouldn’t be very easy with an open oposition by a party of at least 145 MPs, right?
If Merz wants to keep the firewall, he and his party will have to avoid an election to the chancellorship with AfD votes. If he is elected to the chancellorship by accident – say, it's the second or third round of voting, and he expects SPD/Green support, but they go against him and AfD give him the majority, then the only way to keep the firewall will be to bring a confidence vote to the Bundestag. Merz's party will tactically vote no confidence in him, triggering another round of snap elections. Then we can replay this whole farce all over again!
Accidents aside, there are any number of ways Merz could avoid being elected to the chancellorship with AfD votes. His party could abstain or vote for another candidate, in the second round of voting the CDU could ditch Merz and tactically nominate a left-leaning CDU chancellor candidate instead that will be unacceptable to AfD, etc.
The thing will all of these options is that the optics are terrible. You have the CDU, with 30+% support, basically throwing away all those votes to maintain a doubtful political principle and actively refusing power. That will hurt the party badly. The scenario you suggest is a way out – a CDU minority government tolerated by the AfD. The CDU have said they won't do this, but the CDU reverse themselves all the time. IF it comes down to the third round of voting, and IF Merz is faced with these awkward choices, I think there are good chances he violates the firewall again and accepts a chancellor majority with AfD support. There will be a huge media scandal, also an internal crisis in CDU. The Merkel wing might leave the party, but I think the majority with AfD votes will be strong enough to withstand even a split like this. It could happen, but I'm far from confident that it will.
Could the AfD theoretically spoiler any vote by simply voting for policies from the coalition parties? They already (kind of) signaled this when they promised to vote for a statement condemning them as long as it was attached to anti-migration rhetoric. What if, say, half of the AfD voted for Scholz and half voted for Habeck?
The firewall is really to prevent a conservative coalition. The left will probably be happy for any votes that AfD gives them on legislation. In addition, it will make AfD supporters unhappy.
What is the REAL aim of “ex”-Blackrocker Friedrich Merz? Is the real aim to continue the destruction of Germany and Europe through Third-Worldization and exorbitant energy prices?
More like "wet-your-pants then pants-on-head" retarded. They will be bleeding supporters like a hemophiliac. There's a big difference between a coalition and a subjection.
The main talking point of all the bigger parties is: vote for us, because we are not the AfD.
SPD, Greens,Linke saw in the last weeks they may have to pretend they also have other talking points, but the CDU is the most bureaucratic party without real leadership, and has been too slow to change that quickly.
I think Merz is even more empty of any political convictions than Scholz.
Honestly, German elections and their coalitions are like a game of music chairs with 5 participants which are more or less the same. Like 5 homogeneous elementary school students from the same classroom and 4 available chairs. After a hour it becomes apparent that you’re always going to get predictable outcomes no matter who wins, even though one will be left out each round.
What a massive shot across the bow Messrs. Vance and Trump have delivered this week. The message is clear: Europe is the enemy of peace, if not of the USA. Remember how, immediately after Trump was elected, they all scrambled to try and "Trump-proof" Ukraine by locking in commitments that were intended to outlast the Biden Administration? Trump does.
Memo to the leaders of France, Germany, and UK as you are swept out the door in the coming weeks and months: you've not only been treating the Americans as enemies, but your countries are now irrelevant to the world's superpowers. Bitter pills to swallow, indeed.
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises, an Austrian, said it best:
"The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. What an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight."
I see your von Mises and raise you one Max Stirner:
“Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.”
His "The Ego and its Own" is quite provocative a read.
Hmmm....Imagine a scenario involving new Allies, Russia and the US facing off an Axis of Germany and Vichy France in the European theater. Something that should give Germany and the continent nightmares. The US and Russia came together once before to defeat Fascist Germans and Europeans. And make no mistake, the current leaders of Germany, UK, France and the EU are Fascists engaged in Saul Alinksy projection onto AfD. The Commies in the Red part of that flag are just window treatments.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn gave an interview in 1994 to Forbes where he said one day in the 21st century the west would need Russia to save them from the new world order that was rising. Maybe that's why so much effort has gone into keeping Trump and Putin apart, as adversaries? That Alliance would upset the Axis applecart? And Ukraine features prominently in the interview. Hmm?
In the political realm I once occupied it's a common saying/understanding that there's no such thing as permanent friends or permanent enemies. There's only permanent issues.
As long as issues align any help from any direction is possible. Not to be mistaken for loyalty or friendship.
I think this is wisdom to embrace as we look at those around Pres. Trump today. Even Musk. If his issues are at odds with ours we will just as quickly oppose him. Like Neuralink and other issues he fancies but we don't.
A very good point. Though I still have to think of the US track record of leaving even temporary allies out to dry, like we did with the Iraqi Kurds on several occasions. Though Russia is probably sufficiently robust as to survive us leaving them in the lurch.
As far as Musk goes, I'm not particularly opposed to Neuralink, compared to Tesla. I mean, I'm never going to get either *one* of them, but at least Neuralink is only people fucking *themselves* up, and may actually do some serious good for those with major damage. Pure EVs are simply fucking retarded. But I'll spare this forum that particular rant. ;)
As long as Neuralink-type technology remains voluntary, and by voluntary I mean not under any coercion, deceit, manipulation that manufactures consent, sure, fine, I suppose. Just knowing that the US government, CISA declared the "cognitive infrastructure" of Americans is a national security matter - our thoughts and ideas - I see any type of tinkering with our minds as a threat to Americans, all of mankind.
When I share something like this from the ago that's well-received I'm always most interested in what the reader's takeaway from it is. I have my own, but I enjoy learning what others find most valuable, informative?
I’m intensely interested in the reach-out from Trump to Russia. A fascinating alliance where nothing is trusted except each country’s own self-interest.
Trump sees possibilities, just like he saw possibilities with Rocket Man and made the “beaches and resorts of North Korea” video.
The Cold War didn’t do much for us, so how about something completely different?!
The most genuine alliance that could ever be possible. No BS. Good for our nation/bad for our nation? That's it.
Most alliances today are of the Good for me and my friends who possess power in my nation/Bad for me and my friends who possess power in my nation? variety.
A Russia-US alliance will also get the EU off their feckless asses, to get their own houses in order instead of on more intense lock-downs in every possible way.
I read once that Austrians like to pretend that Mozart was Austrian and Hitler German. So I wonder do the want Mises to be German or Austrian? While I haven't read Mises yet, I've read two of Hayek's book and it put words to what were only vague perceptions.
Maybe you mean Beethoven? He was born in Bonn, on present-day German territory (then, the Archbishopric of Cologne in the Holy Roman Empire), but relocated to Vienna in his early 20s, and had no option of returning to Bonn after it fell to the French revolutionary army. He remained in Vienna thereafter.
Mozart was born on present-day Austrian territory (Archbishopric of Salzburg, Holy Roman Empire), so no need for Austians to pretend.
Hitler was born in the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary, but just a short walk across a bridge into Germany. He despised Franz-Josef's multi-ethnic empire, and told his friends that his loyalty lay with Germany. On the outbreak of war, he was conscripted but deemed medically unfit by the Austrian army. He immediately travelled to Munich and volunteered to fight for Germany. His subsequent, uh ... career unfolded entirely in Germany.
So Mozart - definitely Austrian.
Beethoven - German, but Austrian by adoption (although for him, he simply relocated within the Holy Roman Empire)
I have heard the reference to W.A. Mozart as not being Austrian from Austrian friends, too. My understanding is that during Mozart's life from 1756-1791, his home town of Salzburg was part of the Holy Roman Empire and was annexed by Austria only in 1805.
How far can you go back in time for these nationality considerations? Beethoven came from a Flemish family, thaqt moved to Bonn from Mechelen (Malines)
Walter Russell Mead in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, "But what if the Europe we helped build is just a selfish community of decadent states locked into terminal decline? What if falling short of building a genuine security partner in Europe was America’s most tragic foreign-policy failure?"
That was set in motion when the Allies embraced the entire Nazi senior command, industry, science, medicine, media, judiciary, police, etc into the rebuilding of the Europe they destroyed. The Soviets had it right, they were irredeemable and would try to recreate their "perfect" society led by "master" races. And now here we are.
We would be foolish to not have interests in what's happening in the EU (particularly in the UK and Germany). Pretty sure it's a national security risk for us if our allies are turning their back on free speech and democracy. I'm glad to see Trump understanding this and being proactive.
They. Are. Scared. They will never get it. They've harbored hate so long that it came for them. They're seeing red, so they only see what's in front of them, instead of taking the 30k ft. view.
Trump and his wrecking crew has a method of operating which the Russians call "razvedka boyem" --reconnaissance through battle. You push and you see what happens and then you change your position. Its astonishing they can't get it. But then again none of them have had to negotiate in their entire lives. It's so blatantly obvious to those with negotiating experience that it's mon boggling. It's seriously hilarious.
Just about the only thing that matters is for the "moderates" to wake up. Hitting critical mass is most likely not going to happen without their buy-in. But I'm not sure they're going to get "lost" in it. There's just too much being dumped to at least not digest the broad strokes.
There's a reason people despise hypocrisy, especially when it involves their pocket book. And its why memes work; hypocrisy is base material for mockery and humor.
Two very powerful tools to control the plot. They're force multipliers when combined. And it's a tool to expose themselves as fools and/or cry babies
Oh I think they're about to find out what this means:
"You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don’t know where the fuck it’s gonna take you.”…… -
Lester Freeman; The Wire
Trump et al already know the coordinated crimes between The Left and the globalist in the EU.
Scared of what? The Eurocrats are dictators, that's why Vance deliberately called them commissars. The EU is not a democracy by treaty, the Commission rules everything and the EU Parliament is a farce.
As for the German politicians, the whole reason Germany is in this mess is because so many voters want them to act this way. The "firewall" is popular, that's why it still exists. The smear that the AfD are somehow similar to the Nazis has been so effective despite being totally untrue that it's brainwashed the country into deadlocking itself into a death spiral rather than allow the hated, um, libertarians, into power.
You see the same in the US by the way. Look at how the left are reacting to the new administration. They hate Musk more than Trump. That's because the actual ideological opposition to the left is not and never has been conservatism, but rather libertarianism. Libertarians believe in the opposite things to the left, conservatives believe in whatever they grew up with.
'...until this inflexible, sclerotic system suddenly breaks and unleashes all of the potential energy it has accumulated in one great chaotic crisis.'
Excellent description.
And it's almost unimaginable that, while this inevitability is obvious to those of us outside the system, the people inside the system still have their heads stuck determinedly in the sand.
Utterly clueless. How about Hitlers rise to power being a result of too much freedom speech?!
Imagine saying that without shame and actually believing it.
SO let me get this straight - the maniacal tyrant Adolph Hitler, the brutal Gestapo, a cold blooded military war machine, and cowardly politicians of The Reichstag were persuaded to carry out Holocaust by free German citizens practicing free speech?
I mean Germany has gone so far in avoiding Nazism that they resorting to communism by shutting down free speech
You have to be kidding me, the Globalists, who have turned much of Europe into no-go zones and Ukraine into a crucible of cannon fodder, have the gall to lecture Trump on foreign policy.
Give me a break. The overlords aren't angry, they're in fear. Because of their fear they're whipping up so much anger/hatred with the the uninformed that it's virtually certain there will be acts of violence against the FAR, FAR right....whether that's in the US or across the pond.
Just the mere mention of the president's name (and im sure it's the same with leaders on the Right in Germany) and its like they got shot with a dart in the jugular that contained a mixture of methamphetamine and rabies.
So now one of the overlords is threatening Trump that he'll be denied the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace? Which just proves these prizes have never been about peace or science, just politics. How else would Obama get one just for getting elected? How fucking petty.
Trump doesn't need the Nobel prize. These are the prizes POTUS and his supporters want.
The "Prize" is that we are no longer apologist and suckers on the world stage - to be respected again
The "Prize" is that we have the most lethal, well-equipped military in the world.
The "Prize" is that we have a balanced budget, no federal debt, and a booming economy
Some would say that idea of the most well equipped lethal military is part of the reason we got here in the first place. I’ll take the balanced budget, no federal debt, and a booming economy but would seriously prefer a foreign policy that stays out of other countries shit.
Yes. It's hard to keep that "lethal and well equipped military" on a short leash. It always wants to break away and attack something. Like, another country. Or even its own citizens.
Ah, but they *were* censored, and they *used that oppression* to call out the people doing it, and thereby gain power. The Weimar Republic jailed many of them, along with the writers and publishers of their newspapers, for saying illegal things. And they used that fact to win propaganda victories against the Weimar Republic.
At least McConnell announced today that he won't seek re-election next year. (One of the many who have one foot in the grave & the other on a banana peel.)
When parties form alliances as they have in Germany and the UK no system of voting can cope well. The united elites can create chaos before their destruction.
The question in Germany and the UK is whether there will be a national worth recovering at the end of it all.
The parliamentary systems was designed to give power to party bureaucracies and dilute the power of the voter. While presidencialism is not perfect at least it gives the remote chance of shaking up the entrenched bureaucrats. FWIW trump completely took control of the Republican Party.
I've been thinking that same thing -- I had been thinking a parliamentary system would be better for the US, but after reading eygyppius' careful analysis today...I'm not sure how that would play out here. I do think this 51% Takes All is not good, however. There must be some way to give smaller parties a voice? The US founding fathers were incredibly prescient, they did create a pretty decent system of checks and balances, so...around and around I go!
The point of forming coalitions is so that not too much change happens and that extremes are kept to the fringes. However when the fringe beliefs become "fact" and "truth" that everyone must believe in, you get what we have now. Things like all immigration is good, no matter what level its done at with no requirement for assimilation. That there's an existential climate crisis that requires a complete destruction of the current way of life and a reliance on enemies for core resources like energy.
The US system at least allows changes to happen when the voters feel that things are not right. We're going through that right now. It might be a disaster but at least they are getting change. The border at this moment in the US is fixed. Gaza war is winding down and Ukraine will be settled, government waste is being tackled, stupid EV mandates are being removed and energy hopefully will be unleashed. These are all things that US voters wanted. If its a disaster they can reign it in next year and completely remove it in 4yrs time.
After this election, German voters are going to be back at square one, just because the fringes beliefs have become truth.
Very interesting! I will say that I've been very surprised, in a good way, at what's happening in the US now -- not only did the people sit up and clearly vote out the insane woke policies that have been in ascendance, but Trump, Musk,Vance, RFK Jr -- all are actually doing what they said they would do!! And they are doing it post-haste!! I've never seen anything like this, and while I do have some worries about what may come, so far I'm standing here awed and impressed. It will be very interesting to watch what happens in Germany now! It feels like a fresh wind is blowing across the planet, everyone has had enough of the destructive policies from the leftist authoritarians. Sometimes change must come with great force; if DOGE is a sledgehammer, I think it's needed so we can sort out the good from the bad.
I've lived in both Germany and Belgium for over 20 years and this political system leaves my head spinning. (Not that it takes much.) The idea that the parties with the least amount of votes still get a say and the parties with the most or second most amount of votes gets nothing, messes with my head. How on earth can so many votes be ignored?! As in the case of cordon sanitaire. How can a government ignore more than 20% of their constituents and call themselves democratic?
I was completely stuck with the last U.S. vote. I'm an RFK JR fan. When he teamed up with Trump I was like, WTF?! The fact that this "team" was coming together despite glaring differences, to SAVE AMERICA, hit me hard. I wish they would do that in Europe. Could it be that the politicians just don't see how bad it is? Do they not genuinely care about their country? How can they let it get so far out of hand? That is their job, after all. The people want alliances. Not coalitions.
Smaller parties do have a voice in the US, it's just that the coalitions are worked out during the primary process and the smaller parties only rarely are given names.
Examples of smaller parties that have influenced US politics in recent years: the Tea Party, the Bernie Bros, MAGA (the latter eventually becoming so big it took over the formal Republican Party).
In a PR system these groups would have all been separate parties vying for votes independently and trying to make a coalition after the fact.
You're right, and that's a good way to think of it. These unofficial "parties" composed of citizens with the same interests (at least to some degree) do have a LOT of power, as we have seen this election. This may be, in the long run, a better way to influence our governments: through the actual will of the people, which eventually is expressed in the vote. Money talks, also, and refusing to give money to organisations and businesses you don't like is another excellent way to influence an outcome.
Wish there was a writer on France like Eugy here. It’s just as wild that Macron has ignored voters and remains in power. I checked out Candace Owens’ series on Brigitte. Holy cow. While it raises many more questions than it answers, something very dark is going on there. I think the political implications are more important than the tranny stuff. For sure he was politically groomed. I found the part about his reputation at the bank fascinating. Co-workers were clear that he was the very opposite of a boy genius. France is every bit as fucked as Germany, maybe more, because there’s a lot of pissed off people at this point. But also a staggering brazenness on the part of the well, tranny cult. The Olympic show was a direct fuck you to Catholics and Christians in a Catholic country. I’m mystified as to where they get this level of confidence.
As long as the Firewall is maintained, the scenario you describe is the most likely one. Given Merkel's interference - in the background or more explicit after the elections, I cannot see Merz doing anything to even knock a few stones out of that Firewall.
Moreover- under a Chancellor Scholz - or worse, Habeck (he's declared himself the 'Alliance Chancellor') I think the plans of some of the still current MPs, to prohibit the AfD and make that Party illegal, will gather pace.
But no worries: poor Germany will have long crashed into the wall made of economic disasters, de-industrialisation, and having put herself on the 'enemy'-list of Pres Trump before this happens.
There's this nice German saying: "Wer nicht hören will muß fühlen" (If ye refuse to listen, feel the consequences). Well, it won't be long now. And although the outlook is grim, at least Red in all shades of the colour plus Green can say: 'it's the will of the electorate', innit like: they voted for it ...
I doubt they are sufficiently clever enough to recognise this truly machiavellian ploy, never mind implementing it!
Moreover, they have to present some cheap triumph to their acolytes, and banning the AfD would be such a triumph - cheap and painless -or so they think.
However, I think that they've already buried such a first, minot inflection point when Merz crawled back into the embrace of the red-green driven 'public opinion', after 'that' vote and after Mutti M called him out for it.
Perhaps it's too late now and they must go down that road to the bitter end - something Germans seem to have in their genes, as the events last Century have shown, twice ...
The low end lefty parties should have polled worse after the most recent migrant terror attack, but they surged. This tells me Germans are just fundamentally different. Would love to be proved wrong on Sunday.
It could be immediate, but not necessarily. The saying is really more in the way of a threat than an immediate action, and "voelen", though it carries a connotation of physical hurt, could be any kind of unpleasant consequence like, say, getting fired or demoted or getting a bad grade.
Of course, "voelen" and "fühlen" have the same Germanic origin as "feel" in English, although the arrays of meanings may have diverged over time. For example, the common expression "I feel that ..." in English would more commonly be translated "Ik heb een gevoel" -- literally "I have a feeling ..."
Good point regarding the divergence of meaning in those languages. Thus, an appropriate translation of 'wer nicht hören will ....' into colloquial English could be: 'you made your bed, now lie in it'.
'Only the truth can provoke the kind of panicked and intemperate reactions that followed Vance’s remarks.' Precisely. In Switzerland, this has caused possibly the biggest meltdown I've ever seen.
It's similar, it just gets noticed less. The Swiss police have done things like cut the power to buildings where right wing people were giving speeches (look up Martin Sellner).
Swiss politics operates on two levels. There is the direct democracy, which is reasonably rational most of the time. And there is the parliamentary politics, which is also mostly reasonable but only because it's easy to launch referendums to overturn new laws so they can't step too far out of line. But the official structure is a deadlocked perma-coalition in which the cabinet is always shared out between the major parties in fixed proportion, almost regardless of the actual votes. They call it the "magic formula" and "consensus politics".
Some years ago there was a (for Switzerland) shocking political machination in which the head of the right wing SVP was effectively kicked out of the cabinet and his own party, against the wishes of its members and voters, because he committed the great sin of publicly disagreeing with a decision of the cabinet. They are all forced to pretend they agree with each other even though you have far leftists sitting in the same room as people who are very conservative or libertarian. It's very fake and benefits the left primarily, because they are more aggressive at insisting that their views are a "consensus" and more comfortable with the fakery.
Meanwhile the population's views are heavily shaped by state media, which is BBC-like and quite biased. Unfortunately because of the historical Swiss policy of formal neutrality, many Swiss think that this is a culture not a foreign policy and that it extends to their media, so don't question it much. I've caught SRF subtly manipulating their audience especially w.r.t. foreign affairs several times, for instance by not translating the totality of what an interviewee said, or by mis-representing foreign politics. They especially like attacking Britain this way which is sad, because Switzerland has more in common with the UK than most other European countries.
Fair enough. Living in the States, it can be difficult to get a feel for what's really going on overseas (or even next door in Canada or Mexico) without a loquacious and articulate interlocutor such as Eugyppius. I very much appreciate the insight.
Good analysis! Although I consider SRF's manipulation not-at-all subtle -- they're simply open propaganda most of the time. Curious to me is the hysteria from the NZZ. They reliably criticize the Greens and SP/SPD, and give not-too-biased analysis of SVP/AfD.
But even they are beside themselves that somehow Americans have realized they receive little return-on-investment for subsidizing the European welfare state and sending American soldiers to die while young European males scold the world about windmills from the safety of their medieval cafes.
So if I understand this correctly, the more votes AfD gets, the more likely it is that the hard left will be able to take power even though a minority, because the DE government has decided to shed however many voting seats that AfD obtains, even though the citizens would go ahead and vote for the AfD to be able to operate in government.
Is there a threshold of AfD or AfD + firewall-dismissive-party votes above which this dynamic would lose its power, even if some parties retained this appalling "firewall" aka disenfranchisement policy? Surely there is, but how totalized does AfD support have to get, to allow a functional government to form?
I'm presuming that meeting that threshold would be the net outcome of that future chaos, so it's only current lack of total popularity that prevents it being met now, right?
I should probably check the comments to see if someone has discussed this in the last hour or so.
I mean, if AfD gets 50%+1 seats, that would do it. If they got 30% and all the hardcore Merkeloids in the CxU lost their seats (possibly including Merz) the rest of the CxU might understand what that shot across the bow from the electorate meant, and abandon the "firewall".
I think... If AfD and CxU *both* pulled in 26% of the vote, somehow... that might be a sufficient inflection point to actually inspire some serious introspection in the CxU folks. Again, it would probably depend on the Merkeloids in specific losing, but that's about the lowest position at which I can see a major change occurring. And of course, basically all of this analysis is as an American, living in America, and reading Eugy's descriptions of things. So I could be *very* wrong. :D
well... there are/were other factors and I'm not sure his numbers should be used as comparison but yes people can change their minds quickly. That's one reason I'm very against early voting in the USA.
Or, they could come to their senses and violate the firewall. Which, faced with a decision between being chancellor, or not, I expect them to choose the former.
Then you don't understand European politics and how deranged some of these people have become. In Britain the Conservatives chose self-destruction and a Labour victory, because many of their politicians preferred a left wing party to Reform. Before that their politicians chose to ignore the results of the referendum they themselves voted for, confident they could win, and Johnson had to commit a mass purge of his own party to get things back on track.
Remember, these people have been brainwashed into thinking their opponents are pure evil. Given the choice of destroying their own party completely or compromising with "evil" and being banished by their "friends", they will always pick the former. That's been the pattern for many years and I see no reason it will ever change until they are completely gone from politics.
I'm American in Germany, and a German was telling me after Trump's election that she thinks American politics are so wild and undemocratic. I answered, "hey, at least they listen to half of us every four years ". She couldn't argue with that.
There's barely a mention at all of what would be best for the German people. I don't think typical Germans think that way about their government.
It seems that VP Vance, the mild-mannered, highly educated man from a down-on-its-heels Midwestern city, has fired the shot heard round the world. Who would've thought?
Two observations:
1. From American scholar Victor Davis Hanson: Vance wasn't so much addressing the Euro Big Shots. He was heard by the growing populist parties in Europe. Words of encouragement to keep up the fight b/c they're correct. (Not to confuse right with Right. Right as in CORRECT. As in not wrong.)
2. German politics seem to be going the way of UK politics. The 2024 UK election attempted to throw out the Tories, or at least send them a message. Instead, the election went to Labor. And no one's happy..
There's unlikely to be a change in Germany simply because to change would require the government to admit they are WRONG. Wrong about immigration; wrong about "green" policies; wrong about authoritarian policies.
I'd love to believe that Germans are smarter, but if Eugy is correct, there is a lot more pain that "moderate" members of the CDU need to feel before they switch to AfD (or at least agree to a coalition with them).
Brilliant analysis, Eugy. Although I believe that Mr. Vance will remind the CDU that There Will Be Consequences if they keep the firewall and allow the crazies to maintain power.
Thinking about the nuts-and-bolts of coalition formation has clarified several points, in addition to those raised here. One question, for example, has been why the CDU ran such a shit campaign. Then I realised: CDU are actually in a better position with a relatively stronger SPD and Green Party. Their ideal scenario is one in which CDU + Greens or CDU + SPD can both give them a majority. Then they can play each potential partner off against the other.
So CDU refused to attack both left parties, even while both parties attacked them in turn, and spent of the campaign a) saying very little about anything, then b) attacking AfD, then c) issuing weak ultimatums on migration and pleading for the left to go along with them on this.
I think you are credititing CxU campaign managers with more nous (sorry, northern English word I will make you look up as academic exercise ;-) ) than is their due. Modern campaign management is a Blair/Clinton thing. German political campaigns mostly seem stuck in the fax-machine era.
To return to Clinton's "it's the economy stupid", Germany, and to almost the same extent the rest of the EU, have just gone through a lost decade. When Japan, a country most of the world cares little for except them having been thrashed into being enthusiastically on our side, went through an economic "lost decade", it coined the term "lost decade". Since then Japan has had two and a half lost decades (without comment), and "weiter so" threatens us with the same.
"It's the economy stupid" just doesn't seem to work outside the USA.
Actually Japan has had a much better last two decades than popularly believed. BOJ Bank Governor Mieno san made a deliberate choice in the early 1990s to de-financialise the economy in favour of an ethically grounded return to a real economy in which making things was more important than making money with money and speculation. The rest of the world sees only the dismal performance of financial assets and markets amd ignores (willfully or otherwise) the extraordinary increase in real performance of japanese companies and the steady, relentless increase im overall prosperity that Japan has experienced. If that is the outcome of “lost decades” then bring it on as far as I am concerned.
I recommend Richard Werner's excellent "Princes of the Yen" (in both book and video form - you can find it online). Werner truly understands and explains the Japanese asset bubble of the 1980s and Mieno's unique and surprising role in bursting it. I agree Japan is better off "de-financializing" and "making things." Still, we must be very cognizant of the horrific personal and economic pain brought to the public by the bubble and its correction. Be careful what you wish for, and be ready for the consequences.
Thank you. I hear you on careful wishes. Hence the interest in understanding these forces and decisions better.
Princes of the Yen hardback version costs $2,679.48 on Amazon. I may have to hunt down the video version!
This is a very interesting description you share, certainly at odds with what I thought I knew, but attractive to me especially as a small business owner longing for what I experience as the "real" economy to break free from the tyranny of the financial markets. Is there anything you might recommend for further reading on this?
See if you can find anything from the value investment manager Andrew McDermott, from Nashville who has been investing in Japanese companies for the last decade (as has Warren Buffett by the way). He is a deep thinker and writes lucidly and engagingly on all topics but is particularly good on Japan. If you can’t find anything publicly available ping me on a DM here and I will see what I can share.
Thank you! I will
Japan was the China of the 70s and 80s. The US decided to put a stop to this, and flattered Japan with a seat at an economic conference alongside the US, UK, Germany and France - the Plaza Accord of 1985. This changed the relative values of the US $ and Japanese ¥ to the extreme disadvantage of Japanese exporters. It took a couple of years for the effects to kick in fully, when the Japanese government panicked and tried to cover up the losses with an expansionary economic policy that created an asset bubble. When the bubble burst in the early 90s, the lost (three) decade(s) began.
In the polite society of diplomacy and global think tanks, the Plaza Accords are forgotten, and Japan's irreversible decline is blamed on the asset bubble. China was watching carefully, and knows better.
Trump’s promise of improving the economy is the excuse for most for why they voted MAGA. But while they came for the cash, they stayed for the anti-woke, anti-green, anti-war, and anti-corruption agenda.
'Nous' is ancient greek, I believe. But the way of using it is indeed Norfern.
Thank you for nous. I'm going to try to interject its usage throughout the English-speaking world.
It's pronounced 'nowce' / 'now-ss', if that helps.
Thanks for the pronunciation
I am a complete ignorant of the details and meanders of german politics but let me ask you about another scenario - a call me crazy one:
Could AfD vote unilaterally for CDU/CSU?
Merz would then be elected but would remain almost captive of AfD for each decision in the Bundestag.
1) And Merz would have to “forcibly”, blamelessly (he didn’t break the cordon, right?)negotiate with just one party, the AfD, a (very strong and with friends in high places) party instead of two smaller parties;
2) But If he chooses to go along with smaller ones he wouldn’t be able to go alone with just one of them because they wouldn’t add to 315+1 votes.
So Merz would be permanently having to negotiate simultaneously with the other two: SPD + 1 even smaller other or Greens + 1 even smaller other;
And remember: who would have broken the cordon would have been the AfD not the CDU. No blame.
There’s always the risk the other parties come to Merz’s rescue at each legislative voting but imagine the price CDU would be paying!
Also his life wouldn’t be very easy with an open oposition by a party of at least 145 MPs, right?
If Merz wants to keep the firewall, he and his party will have to avoid an election to the chancellorship with AfD votes. If he is elected to the chancellorship by accident – say, it's the second or third round of voting, and he expects SPD/Green support, but they go against him and AfD give him the majority, then the only way to keep the firewall will be to bring a confidence vote to the Bundestag. Merz's party will tactically vote no confidence in him, triggering another round of snap elections. Then we can replay this whole farce all over again!
Accidents aside, there are any number of ways Merz could avoid being elected to the chancellorship with AfD votes. His party could abstain or vote for another candidate, in the second round of voting the CDU could ditch Merz and tactically nominate a left-leaning CDU chancellor candidate instead that will be unacceptable to AfD, etc.
The thing will all of these options is that the optics are terrible. You have the CDU, with 30+% support, basically throwing away all those votes to maintain a doubtful political principle and actively refusing power. That will hurt the party badly. The scenario you suggest is a way out – a CDU minority government tolerated by the AfD. The CDU have said they won't do this, but the CDU reverse themselves all the time. IF it comes down to the third round of voting, and IF Merz is faced with these awkward choices, I think there are good chances he violates the firewall again and accepts a chancellor majority with AfD support. There will be a huge media scandal, also an internal crisis in CDU. The Merkel wing might leave the party, but I think the majority with AfD votes will be strong enough to withstand even a split like this. It could happen, but I'm far from confident that it will.
Could the AfD theoretically spoiler any vote by simply voting for policies from the coalition parties? They already (kind of) signaled this when they promised to vote for a statement condemning them as long as it was attached to anti-migration rhetoric. What if, say, half of the AfD voted for Scholz and half voted for Habeck?
The firewall is really to prevent a conservative coalition. The left will probably be happy for any votes that AfD gives them on legislation. In addition, it will make AfD supporters unhappy.
What is the REAL aim of “ex”-Blackrocker Friedrich Merz? Is the real aim to continue the destruction of Germany and Europe through Third-Worldization and exorbitant energy prices?
I think the idea is that Merz would then *refuse the chancellorship* if he were elected that way, as utterly pants-on-head retarded as that is.
More like "wet-your-pants then pants-on-head" retarded. They will be bleeding supporters like a hemophiliac. There's a big difference between a coalition and a subjection.
The main talking point of all the bigger parties is: vote for us, because we are not the AfD.
SPD, Greens,Linke saw in the last weeks they may have to pretend they also have other talking points, but the CDU is the most bureaucratic party without real leadership, and has been too slow to change that quickly.
I think Merz is even more empty of any political convictions than Scholz.
the odds of this “we’re are not AfD” talking point backfiring on all three may be growing…
Honestly, German elections and their coalitions are like a game of music chairs with 5 participants which are more or less the same. Like 5 homogeneous elementary school students from the same classroom and 4 available chairs. After a hour it becomes apparent that you’re always going to get predictable outcomes no matter who wins, even though one will be left out each round.
What a massive shot across the bow Messrs. Vance and Trump have delivered this week. The message is clear: Europe is the enemy of peace, if not of the USA. Remember how, immediately after Trump was elected, they all scrambled to try and "Trump-proof" Ukraine by locking in commitments that were intended to outlast the Biden Administration? Trump does.
Memo to the leaders of France, Germany, and UK as you are swept out the door in the coming weeks and months: you've not only been treating the Americans as enemies, but your countries are now irrelevant to the world's superpowers. Bitter pills to swallow, indeed.
They're swept up in a global crime scene.
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises, an Austrian, said it best:
"The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. What an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight."
I see your von Mises and raise you one Max Stirner:
“Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.”
His "The Ego and its Own" is quite provocative a read.
Hmmm....Imagine a scenario involving new Allies, Russia and the US facing off an Axis of Germany and Vichy France in the European theater. Something that should give Germany and the continent nightmares. The US and Russia came together once before to defeat Fascist Germans and Europeans. And make no mistake, the current leaders of Germany, UK, France and the EU are Fascists engaged in Saul Alinksy projection onto AfD. The Commies in the Red part of that flag are just window treatments.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn gave an interview in 1994 to Forbes where he said one day in the 21st century the west would need Russia to save them from the new world order that was rising. Maybe that's why so much effort has gone into keeping Trump and Putin apart, as adversaries? That Alliance would upset the Axis applecart? And Ukraine features prominently in the interview. Hmm?
https://www.forbes.com/2008/08/05/solzhenitsyn-forbes-interview-oped-cx_pm_0804russia.html
At this point I have to wonder if Russia would even *take* our help.
In the political realm I once occupied it's a common saying/understanding that there's no such thing as permanent friends or permanent enemies. There's only permanent issues.
As long as issues align any help from any direction is possible. Not to be mistaken for loyalty or friendship.
I think this is wisdom to embrace as we look at those around Pres. Trump today. Even Musk. If his issues are at odds with ours we will just as quickly oppose him. Like Neuralink and other issues he fancies but we don't.
A very good point. Though I still have to think of the US track record of leaving even temporary allies out to dry, like we did with the Iraqi Kurds on several occasions. Though Russia is probably sufficiently robust as to survive us leaving them in the lurch.
As far as Musk goes, I'm not particularly opposed to Neuralink, compared to Tesla. I mean, I'm never going to get either *one* of them, but at least Neuralink is only people fucking *themselves* up, and may actually do some serious good for those with major damage. Pure EVs are simply fucking retarded. But I'll spare this forum that particular rant. ;)
As long as Neuralink-type technology remains voluntary, and by voluntary I mean not under any coercion, deceit, manipulation that manufactures consent, sure, fine, I suppose. Just knowing that the US government, CISA declared the "cognitive infrastructure" of Americans is a national security matter - our thoughts and ideas - I see any type of tinkering with our minds as a threat to Americans, all of mankind.
Thank you for the link. Excellent interview with one of Russia’s greatest
When I share something like this from the ago that's well-received I'm always most interested in what the reader's takeaway from it is. I have my own, but I enjoy learning what others find most valuable, informative?
I’m intensely interested in the reach-out from Trump to Russia. A fascinating alliance where nothing is trusted except each country’s own self-interest.
Trump sees possibilities, just like he saw possibilities with Rocket Man and made the “beaches and resorts of North Korea” video.
The Cold War didn’t do much for us, so how about something completely different?!
The most genuine alliance that could ever be possible. No BS. Good for our nation/bad for our nation? That's it.
Most alliances today are of the Good for me and my friends who possess power in my nation/Bad for me and my friends who possess power in my nation? variety.
A Russia-US alliance will also get the EU off their feckless asses, to get their own houses in order instead of on more intense lock-downs in every possible way.
Always love a Mises quotes!
Although I’m pretty sure he was Austrian, not German.
Oh shoot. Maybe so. My bad. Thanks for correction
I read once that Austrians like to pretend that Mozart was Austrian and Hitler German. So I wonder do the want Mises to be German or Austrian? While I haven't read Mises yet, I've read two of Hayek's book and it put words to what were only vague perceptions.
If you're delving into philosophy from Germany and Austria and from that time-period, do consider looking up Max Stirner's works.
He's one of those thinkers who provokes you no matter if you agree with him or not.
Mad Max Stirner
Maybe you mean Beethoven? He was born in Bonn, on present-day German territory (then, the Archbishopric of Cologne in the Holy Roman Empire), but relocated to Vienna in his early 20s, and had no option of returning to Bonn after it fell to the French revolutionary army. He remained in Vienna thereafter.
Mozart was born on present-day Austrian territory (Archbishopric of Salzburg, Holy Roman Empire), so no need for Austians to pretend.
Hitler was born in the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary, but just a short walk across a bridge into Germany. He despised Franz-Josef's multi-ethnic empire, and told his friends that his loyalty lay with Germany. On the outbreak of war, he was conscripted but deemed medically unfit by the Austrian army. He immediately travelled to Munich and volunteered to fight for Germany. His subsequent, uh ... career unfolded entirely in Germany.
So Mozart - definitely Austrian.
Beethoven - German, but Austrian by adoption (although for him, he simply relocated within the Holy Roman Empire)
Hitler - Austrian, but German by choice.
Two geniuses and one megalomaniac who liked Wagner's music. Wagner born in Leipzig.
I have heard the reference to W.A. Mozart as not being Austrian from Austrian friends, too. My understanding is that during Mozart's life from 1756-1791, his home town of Salzburg was part of the Holy Roman Empire and was annexed by Austria only in 1805.
How far can you go back in time for these nationality considerations? Beethoven came from a Flemish family, thaqt moved to Bonn from Mechelen (Malines)
So was Hitler.
Correct. Although I’m not sure what that has to do with anything
It's just that looking at Europe and Britain, it seems like Hitler won.
superb
"About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often
asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we
have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great
advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard
their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be
applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they
are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their
just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no
progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their
truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically
is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no
rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that
direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not
more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers."
Calvin Coolidge, 1926
RG - you have set a high bar for apropos quotation deployment, but I particularly appreciated this one. Thank you!
Walter Russell Mead in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, "But what if the Europe we helped build is just a selfish community of decadent states locked into terminal decline? What if falling short of building a genuine security partner in Europe was America’s most tragic foreign-policy failure?"
Europe is a nursing home with a museum attached--and they seem to be ok w that.
That was set in motion when the Allies embraced the entire Nazi senior command, industry, science, medicine, media, judiciary, police, etc into the rebuilding of the Europe they destroyed. The Soviets had it right, they were irredeemable and would try to recreate their "perfect" society led by "master" races. And now here we are.
We would be foolish to not have interests in what's happening in the EU (particularly in the UK and Germany). Pretty sure it's a national security risk for us if our allies are turning their back on free speech and democracy. I'm glad to see Trump understanding this and being proactive.
They. Are. Scared. They will never get it. They've harbored hate so long that it came for them. They're seeing red, so they only see what's in front of them, instead of taking the 30k ft. view.
Trump and his wrecking crew has a method of operating which the Russians call "razvedka boyem" --reconnaissance through battle. You push and you see what happens and then you change your position. Its astonishing they can't get it. But then again none of them have had to negotiate in their entire lives. It's so blatantly obvious to those with negotiating experience that it's mon boggling. It's seriously hilarious.
Just about the only thing that matters is for the "moderates" to wake up. Hitting critical mass is most likely not going to happen without their buy-in. But I'm not sure they're going to get "lost" in it. There's just too much being dumped to at least not digest the broad strokes.
There's a reason people despise hypocrisy, especially when it involves their pocket book. And its why memes work; hypocrisy is base material for mockery and humor.
Two very powerful tools to control the plot. They're force multipliers when combined. And it's a tool to expose themselves as fools and/or cry babies
At his own request, Starmer is off to Washington next week.
What price Vance and then Trump shower him with reality juice?
Guessing Tommy Robinson and last summer’s scapegoats could be out of jail soon.
Oh I think they're about to find out what this means:
"You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don’t know where the fuck it’s gonna take you.”…… -
Lester Freeman; The Wire
Trump et al already know the coordinated crimes between The Left and the globalist in the EU.
Pretty sure they're in for a rude awakening.
Freamon
The Eurocrats SHOULD be scared. They should be quaking in their boots.
Yeah I don't think we'll even need guillotines to chop their heads off...lol...just let the Overton Window "decapitate" them.
Oh, it's not just the Eurocrats. War is plenty profitable for plenty of Americans too.
Scared of what? The Eurocrats are dictators, that's why Vance deliberately called them commissars. The EU is not a democracy by treaty, the Commission rules everything and the EU Parliament is a farce.
As for the German politicians, the whole reason Germany is in this mess is because so many voters want them to act this way. The "firewall" is popular, that's why it still exists. The smear that the AfD are somehow similar to the Nazis has been so effective despite being totally untrue that it's brainwashed the country into deadlocking itself into a death spiral rather than allow the hated, um, libertarians, into power.
You see the same in the US by the way. Look at how the left are reacting to the new administration. They hate Musk more than Trump. That's because the actual ideological opposition to the left is not and never has been conservatism, but rather libertarianism. Libertarians believe in the opposite things to the left, conservatives believe in whatever they grew up with.
'...until this inflexible, sclerotic system suddenly breaks and unleashes all of the potential energy it has accumulated in one great chaotic crisis.'
Excellent description.
And it's almost unimaginable that, while this inevitability is obvious to those of us outside the system, the people inside the system still have their heads stuck determinedly in the sand.
Utterly clueless. How about Hitlers rise to power being a result of too much freedom speech?!
Imagine saying that without shame and actually believing it.
SO let me get this straight - the maniacal tyrant Adolph Hitler, the brutal Gestapo, a cold blooded military war machine, and cowardly politicians of The Reichstag were persuaded to carry out Holocaust by free German citizens practicing free speech?
I mean Germany has gone so far in avoiding Nazism that they resorting to communism by shutting down free speech
You have to be kidding me, the Globalists, who have turned much of Europe into no-go zones and Ukraine into a crucible of cannon fodder, have the gall to lecture Trump on foreign policy.
Give me a break. The overlords aren't angry, they're in fear. Because of their fear they're whipping up so much anger/hatred with the the uninformed that it's virtually certain there will be acts of violence against the FAR, FAR right....whether that's in the US or across the pond.
Just the mere mention of the president's name (and im sure it's the same with leaders on the Right in Germany) and its like they got shot with a dart in the jugular that contained a mixture of methamphetamine and rabies.
So now one of the overlords is threatening Trump that he'll be denied the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace? Which just proves these prizes have never been about peace or science, just politics. How else would Obama get one just for getting elected? How fucking petty.
Trump doesn't need the Nobel prize. These are the prizes POTUS and his supporters want.
The "Prize" is that we are no longer apologist and suckers on the world stage - to be respected again
The "Prize" is that we have the most lethal, well-equipped military in the world.
The "Prize" is that we have a balanced budget, no federal debt, and a booming economy
Etc. Etc.etc
I think a 4th PRIZE is that we will no longer be sending OUR money to prop up these fools.
Some would say that idea of the most well equipped lethal military is part of the reason we got here in the first place. I’ll take the balanced budget, no federal debt, and a booming economy but would seriously prefer a foreign policy that stays out of other countries shit.
Yes. It's hard to keep that "lethal and well equipped military" on a short leash. It always wants to break away and attack something. Like, another country. Or even its own citizens.
How about less is more with the military and change it's mission.
Which is what Trump wants to do.
There is one constant in mankind:
Conflict over real estate. Nobody is ever going to stop that.
Therefore we need to have a military that strikes the fear into our enemies.
Trump should tell them he wouldn't accept their corrupt award if they offered it to him.
"How about Hitlers rise to power being a result of too much freedom speech?!"
Presumably, the fact that the 1930s Nazis were not censored allowed them to come to power. Which, technically, makes a stupid kind of sense.
Emphasis on "stupid".
Ah, but they *were* censored, and they *used that oppression* to call out the people doing it, and thereby gain power. The Weimar Republic jailed many of them, along with the writers and publishers of their newspapers, for saying illegal things. And they used that fact to win propaganda victories against the Weimar Republic.
It’s truly amazing how often reality is exactly 180 degrees from what our dear leaders believe.
methinks the parliamentary system is too complicated. the american system isn't perfect, but at least you know clearly who to hate!
I'm reminded of this fact whenever I hear someone complain that the US has "only" two political parties.
I usually hate both.
Trump + DOGE is causing my disgust to thaw. At least, for now.
Be careful not to lose your disgust for the average Republican politician. Most of them will turn on Trump again if they get the chance.
At least McConnell announced today that he won't seek re-election next year. (One of the many who have one foot in the grave & the other on a banana peel.)
My thoughts exactly. The intelligence and farsightedness of America's founding fathers is revealed daily
When parties form alliances as they have in Germany and the UK no system of voting can cope well. The united elites can create chaos before their destruction.
The question in Germany and the UK is whether there will be a national worth recovering at the end of it all.
The parliamentary systems was designed to give power to party bureaucracies and dilute the power of the voter. While presidencialism is not perfect at least it gives the remote chance of shaking up the entrenched bureaucrats. FWIW trump completely took control of the Republican Party.
It's usually safest to just hate them all.
This has been my strategy for decades with *very* few exceptions.
I've been thinking that same thing -- I had been thinking a parliamentary system would be better for the US, but after reading eygyppius' careful analysis today...I'm not sure how that would play out here. I do think this 51% Takes All is not good, however. There must be some way to give smaller parties a voice? The US founding fathers were incredibly prescient, they did create a pretty decent system of checks and balances, so...around and around I go!
The point of forming coalitions is so that not too much change happens and that extremes are kept to the fringes. However when the fringe beliefs become "fact" and "truth" that everyone must believe in, you get what we have now. Things like all immigration is good, no matter what level its done at with no requirement for assimilation. That there's an existential climate crisis that requires a complete destruction of the current way of life and a reliance on enemies for core resources like energy.
The US system at least allows changes to happen when the voters feel that things are not right. We're going through that right now. It might be a disaster but at least they are getting change. The border at this moment in the US is fixed. Gaza war is winding down and Ukraine will be settled, government waste is being tackled, stupid EV mandates are being removed and energy hopefully will be unleashed. These are all things that US voters wanted. If its a disaster they can reign it in next year and completely remove it in 4yrs time.
After this election, German voters are going to be back at square one, just because the fringes beliefs have become truth.
Very interesting! I will say that I've been very surprised, in a good way, at what's happening in the US now -- not only did the people sit up and clearly vote out the insane woke policies that have been in ascendance, but Trump, Musk,Vance, RFK Jr -- all are actually doing what they said they would do!! And they are doing it post-haste!! I've never seen anything like this, and while I do have some worries about what may come, so far I'm standing here awed and impressed. It will be very interesting to watch what happens in Germany now! It feels like a fresh wind is blowing across the planet, everyone has had enough of the destructive policies from the leftist authoritarians. Sometimes change must come with great force; if DOGE is a sledgehammer, I think it's needed so we can sort out the good from the bad.
I've lived in both Germany and Belgium for over 20 years and this political system leaves my head spinning. (Not that it takes much.) The idea that the parties with the least amount of votes still get a say and the parties with the most or second most amount of votes gets nothing, messes with my head. How on earth can so many votes be ignored?! As in the case of cordon sanitaire. How can a government ignore more than 20% of their constituents and call themselves democratic?
I was completely stuck with the last U.S. vote. I'm an RFK JR fan. When he teamed up with Trump I was like, WTF?! The fact that this "team" was coming together despite glaring differences, to SAVE AMERICA, hit me hard. I wish they would do that in Europe. Could it be that the politicians just don't see how bad it is? Do they not genuinely care about their country? How can they let it get so far out of hand? That is their job, after all. The people want alliances. Not coalitions.
Smaller parties do have a voice in the US, it's just that the coalitions are worked out during the primary process and the smaller parties only rarely are given names.
Examples of smaller parties that have influenced US politics in recent years: the Tea Party, the Bernie Bros, MAGA (the latter eventually becoming so big it took over the formal Republican Party).
In a PR system these groups would have all been separate parties vying for votes independently and trying to make a coalition after the fact.
You're right, and that's a good way to think of it. These unofficial "parties" composed of citizens with the same interests (at least to some degree) do have a LOT of power, as we have seen this election. This may be, in the long run, a better way to influence our governments: through the actual will of the people, which eventually is expressed in the vote. Money talks, also, and refusing to give money to organisations and businesses you don't like is another excellent way to influence an outcome.
Yeah, every sitting member that takes money from AIPAC.
In short, all but a few that you can count on one hand probably with fingers to spare.
A year ago I could never even have imagined that I would be looking forward with such excitement to a German election.
That is precisely how I felt watching the UK election on (ironically) the US' 4th of July.
Now, I, too, am interested in what's going on in Germany.
Farther down the road, there's the Rally party in France.
Wish there was a writer on France like Eugy here. It’s just as wild that Macron has ignored voters and remains in power. I checked out Candace Owens’ series on Brigitte. Holy cow. While it raises many more questions than it answers, something very dark is going on there. I think the political implications are more important than the tranny stuff. For sure he was politically groomed. I found the part about his reputation at the bank fascinating. Co-workers were clear that he was the very opposite of a boy genius. France is every bit as fucked as Germany, maybe more, because there’s a lot of pissed off people at this point. But also a staggering brazenness on the part of the well, tranny cult. The Olympic show was a direct fuck you to Catholics and Christians in a Catholic country. I’m mystified as to where they get this level of confidence.
As long as the Firewall is maintained, the scenario you describe is the most likely one. Given Merkel's interference - in the background or more explicit after the elections, I cannot see Merz doing anything to even knock a few stones out of that Firewall.
Moreover- under a Chancellor Scholz - or worse, Habeck (he's declared himself the 'Alliance Chancellor') I think the plans of some of the still current MPs, to prohibit the AfD and make that Party illegal, will gather pace.
But no worries: poor Germany will have long crashed into the wall made of economic disasters, de-industrialisation, and having put herself on the 'enemy'-list of Pres Trump before this happens.
There's this nice German saying: "Wer nicht hören will muß fühlen" (If ye refuse to listen, feel the consequences). Well, it won't be long now. And although the outlook is grim, at least Red in all shades of the colour plus Green can say: 'it's the will of the electorate', innit like: they voted for it ...
I wonder about banning AfD. If the red-red-greens are in government because of the Brandmauer, they might just want to keep the AfD around.
I doubt they are sufficiently clever enough to recognise this truly machiavellian ploy, never mind implementing it!
Moreover, they have to present some cheap triumph to their acolytes, and banning the AfD would be such a triumph - cheap and painless -or so they think.
See i think if they keep going down this road it'll be like the backlash the Ds got after trying to jail Trump.
That was an inflection point as well as the attack on free speech.
Combine that with the attempt on his life and it was inevitable he was going to win.
I think the German elites will find they meet the same end as Ds if they keep up these played-out tactics.
One would fervently hope so!
However, I think that they've already buried such a first, minot inflection point when Merz crawled back into the embrace of the red-green driven 'public opinion', after 'that' vote and after Mutti M called him out for it.
Perhaps it's too late now and they must go down that road to the bitter end - something Germans seem to have in their genes, as the events last Century have shown, twice ...
The low end lefty parties should have polled worse after the most recent migrant terror attack, but they surged. This tells me Germans are just fundamentally different. Would love to be proved wrong on Sunday.
Funny we have the exact same thing in Dutch: "Wie niet horen wil, moet voelen"
That's interesting! Did the 'moet voelen' mean, as in German, that physical punishment (I'm polite here ...) was following immediately?
It could be immediate, but not necessarily. The saying is really more in the way of a threat than an immediate action, and "voelen", though it carries a connotation of physical hurt, could be any kind of unpleasant consequence like, say, getting fired or demoted or getting a bad grade.
Of course, "voelen" and "fühlen" have the same Germanic origin as "feel" in English, although the arrays of meanings may have diverged over time. For example, the common expression "I feel that ..." in English would more commonly be translated "Ik heb een gevoel" -- literally "I have a feeling ..."
Good point regarding the divergence of meaning in those languages. Thus, an appropriate translation of 'wer nicht hören will ....' into colloquial English could be: 'you made your bed, now lie in it'.
Ah well, won't be long now ...
'Only the truth can provoke the kind of panicked and intemperate reactions that followed Vance’s remarks.' Precisely. In Switzerland, this has caused possibly the biggest meltdown I've ever seen.
Which is ironic since as far as I'm aware, Switzerland has done the least to attract Vance's ire in that way.
It's similar, it just gets noticed less. The Swiss police have done things like cut the power to buildings where right wing people were giving speeches (look up Martin Sellner).
Swiss politics operates on two levels. There is the direct democracy, which is reasonably rational most of the time. And there is the parliamentary politics, which is also mostly reasonable but only because it's easy to launch referendums to overturn new laws so they can't step too far out of line. But the official structure is a deadlocked perma-coalition in which the cabinet is always shared out between the major parties in fixed proportion, almost regardless of the actual votes. They call it the "magic formula" and "consensus politics".
Some years ago there was a (for Switzerland) shocking political machination in which the head of the right wing SVP was effectively kicked out of the cabinet and his own party, against the wishes of its members and voters, because he committed the great sin of publicly disagreeing with a decision of the cabinet. They are all forced to pretend they agree with each other even though you have far leftists sitting in the same room as people who are very conservative or libertarian. It's very fake and benefits the left primarily, because they are more aggressive at insisting that their views are a "consensus" and more comfortable with the fakery.
Meanwhile the population's views are heavily shaped by state media, which is BBC-like and quite biased. Unfortunately because of the historical Swiss policy of formal neutrality, many Swiss think that this is a culture not a foreign policy and that it extends to their media, so don't question it much. I've caught SRF subtly manipulating their audience especially w.r.t. foreign affairs several times, for instance by not translating the totality of what an interviewee said, or by mis-representing foreign politics. They especially like attacking Britain this way which is sad, because Switzerland has more in common with the UK than most other European countries.
Fair enough. Living in the States, it can be difficult to get a feel for what's really going on overseas (or even next door in Canada or Mexico) without a loquacious and articulate interlocutor such as Eugyppius. I very much appreciate the insight.
Good analysis! Although I consider SRF's manipulation not-at-all subtle -- they're simply open propaganda most of the time. Curious to me is the hysteria from the NZZ. They reliably criticize the Greens and SP/SPD, and give not-too-biased analysis of SVP/AfD.
But even they are beside themselves that somehow Americans have realized they receive little return-on-investment for subsidizing the European welfare state and sending American soldiers to die while young European males scold the world about windmills from the safety of their medieval cafes.
So if I understand this correctly, the more votes AfD gets, the more likely it is that the hard left will be able to take power even though a minority, because the DE government has decided to shed however many voting seats that AfD obtains, even though the citizens would go ahead and vote for the AfD to be able to operate in government.
So i've been mulling this over.
Is there a threshold of AfD or AfD + firewall-dismissive-party votes above which this dynamic would lose its power, even if some parties retained this appalling "firewall" aka disenfranchisement policy? Surely there is, but how totalized does AfD support have to get, to allow a functional government to form?
I'm presuming that meeting that threshold would be the net outcome of that future chaos, so it's only current lack of total popularity that prevents it being met now, right?
I should probably check the comments to see if someone has discussed this in the last hour or so.
I mean, if AfD gets 50%+1 seats, that would do it. If they got 30% and all the hardcore Merkeloids in the CxU lost their seats (possibly including Merz) the rest of the CxU might understand what that shot across the bow from the electorate meant, and abandon the "firewall".
Beyond that... I just don't know.
Not long to wait and see I guess. Yes I guess I am wondering about inflection points short of a simple majority.
I think... If AfD and CxU *both* pulled in 26% of the vote, somehow... that might be a sufficient inflection point to actually inspire some serious introspection in the CxU folks. Again, it would probably depend on the Merkeloids in specific losing, but that's about the lowest position at which I can see a major change occurring. And of course, basically all of this analysis is as an American, living in America, and reading Eugy's descriptions of things. So I could be *very* wrong. :D
Just a few short months ago, Kamala Harris was showing in an Iowa poll (Iowa!) that she would beat Trump by 3%. She lost by 10% in that state.
In fact, she did worse than Biden in 2020 in EVERY county in the country. As in, she never reached Biden’s share of rabid popularity (smirk).
well... there are/were other factors and I'm not sure his numbers should be used as comparison but yes people can change their minds quickly. That's one reason I'm very against early voting in the USA.
Or, they could come to their senses and violate the firewall. Which, faced with a decision between being chancellor, or not, I expect them to choose the former.
Then you don't understand European politics and how deranged some of these people have become. In Britain the Conservatives chose self-destruction and a Labour victory, because many of their politicians preferred a left wing party to Reform. Before that their politicians chose to ignore the results of the referendum they themselves voted for, confident they could win, and Johnson had to commit a mass purge of his own party to get things back on track.
Remember, these people have been brainwashed into thinking their opponents are pure evil. Given the choice of destroying their own party completely or compromising with "evil" and being banished by their "friends", they will always pick the former. That's been the pattern for many years and I see no reason it will ever change until they are completely gone from politics.
Yeah, and after they break the firewall, they will ask Trump to come to their house and kiss their sister.
It's really gotten to the point that there is nothing the right in Europe could do that I would object to
WOW!
Your government organizational structure makes my head hurt.
But, I suppose ours looks the same to you. Ha!
I'm American in Germany, and a German was telling me after Trump's election that she thinks American politics are so wild and undemocratic. I answered, "hey, at least they listen to half of us every four years ". She couldn't argue with that.
There's barely a mention at all of what would be best for the German people. I don't think typical Germans think that way about their government.
It seems that VP Vance, the mild-mannered, highly educated man from a down-on-its-heels Midwestern city, has fired the shot heard round the world. Who would've thought?
Two observations:
1. From American scholar Victor Davis Hanson: Vance wasn't so much addressing the Euro Big Shots. He was heard by the growing populist parties in Europe. Words of encouragement to keep up the fight b/c they're correct. (Not to confuse right with Right. Right as in CORRECT. As in not wrong.)
2. German politics seem to be going the way of UK politics. The 2024 UK election attempted to throw out the Tories, or at least send them a message. Instead, the election went to Labor. And no one's happy..
There's unlikely to be a change in Germany simply because to change would require the government to admit they are WRONG. Wrong about immigration; wrong about "green" policies; wrong about authoritarian policies.
I'd love to believe that Germans are smarter, but if Eugy is correct, there is a lot more pain that "moderate" members of the CDU need to feel before they switch to AfD (or at least agree to a coalition with them).
Brilliant analysis, Eugy. Although I believe that Mr. Vance will remind the CDU that There Will Be Consequences if they keep the firewall and allow the crazies to maintain power.
"I now think I vastly underestimated how crazy all of these people are."
You will never go broke underestimating the intelligence of Western political elites.