German Election: Merkel’s Era Ends in a Disaster as Conservatives Suffer Worst Defeat in Post-War History
Socialist SPD stakes claim to form a coalition government; right-wing AfD makes big gains in the East.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel ended her 16-years-reign in a disaster as her Christian Conservative alliance (CDU-CSU) suffered its worst election result since World War II.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats secured a little over 24 percent of the total vote, which is the first time it hit below 30 percent in post-war history.
German weekly Der Spiegel summed up the election outcome with the headline: “The End of the Black Republic” — black being the color associated with the German Christian Conservatives.
The biggest winner of Sunday’s parliamentary vote was Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the left-wing Social Democratic Party. The socialist party narrowly became the biggest party in the German Bundestag, getting 25 percent points, five percentage points more than the 2017 election.
SPD leader, Olaf Scholz, staked the claim to form the next government. The left-wing party wants to build a government with the support of the ecological Green party and the pro-business Free Democrats, Scholz said.
“Voters have spoken very clearly,” the SPD chancellor candidate said. “They strengthened three parties — the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats — so this is the visible mandate the citizens of this country have given: These three parties should lead the next government.”
With no party or bloc winning a clear majority, negotiations may take weeks before a governing coalition emerges.
The German public broadcaster DW News reported the election outcome:
After a long election night, the SPD appeared to have come out ahead of the conservative bloc of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU. With 25.7% percent support, it was the SPD’s first victory over the CDU since Merkel took over in 2005.
However, not only was the victory slight — the CDU reached 24.1% — it is a far cry from the results of decades past, when either of Germany’s two biggest parties easily captured over 40%.
Despite this, the SPD’s Olaf Scholz accepted the result warmly, saying “we have what it takes to govern a country.” He promised to take a stronger stance against climate change and to modernize German industry should he become leader. (…)
The SPD will have to look most likely at the business-friendly FDP and environmental Green party for coalition partners. Scholz “will really depend on what the FDP and Greens have to say,” Haase said.
Despite falling somewhat in the polls over the summer, the Green Party scored a historically strong 14.8%. Greens candidate Annalena Baerbock welcomed the result as a likely sign they will join the next German government as junior coalition partners.
The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) obtained just above 10 percent of the vote, 2 percent less than their previous election result. The party emerged as the second most potent force in the eastern region of Germany, winning the largest share of votes in the states of Thuringia and Saxony.
The far-left party, Die Linke, failed to cross the five-percent hurdle to enter the Bundestag. It may still enter the parliament with a few legislators following the German election rules.
Germany, preliminary final results:
West | East
SPD-S&D: 26.4%|24.2%
CDU/CSU-EPP: 25.9%|16.9%
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 15.4%|10.9%
FDP-RE: 12.0%|9.7%
AfD-ID: 8.2%|19.1%
LINKE-LEFT: 3.6%|10.0%#Bundestagswahl21 #btw21
Results live @DecisionDeskHQ: …-federal-elections.decisiondeskhq.com pic.twitter.com/eC855lvJeY— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) September 27, 2021
As Merkel’s era comes to an end, the CDU she inherited from Helmut Kohl, the architect of German unification, has been reduced to chaos. Her most significant blunder was opening the German borders to mass migration in the autumn of 2015, resulting in a wave of migrant crime and Islamist terror attacks.
Born in Soviet-dominated East Germany (GDR), Merkel was a member of the country’s Communist Youth League (FDJ) and worked for its “Agitation and Propaganda” wing, her college peers say. While anti-communist dissidents were barred from higher education and public life, she enjoyed a comfortable career in academics. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she joined the CDU and rose quickly through its ranks, becoming leader of the party in 2000 and German Chancellor in 2005.
[Disclaimer: the author is a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU)]
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So in Germany, where they have a choice between the Left, the Further Left, the Extreme Left, and the Looney Left, voters have rejected the Left in favour of the Further Left.
There is no Right in Germany, not in the sense of limited government, individual rights and responsibilities, respect for private property, respect for freedom of association, lower taxes… Wait! We need a party like that in the US as well.
Good analysis. In Germany, all roads lead to dhimmitude and environmental fanaticism. Open borders to facilitate the spread of Islamic supremacism, totalitarianism and belligerence, and, self-destructive, utterly foolish environmental/economic decisions (e.g., phasing out nuclear power generation).
This.
I can’t say I follow German politics. I am astonished to learn from this article that ex-commie and current idiot Merkel, who chose to surrender her country to Muslim invaders, represents the “rightest” wing party available.
Merkel is what you would get if McConnell and Romney had a baby… after dropping LSD.
Merkel is what you would get if Pelosi had a miscarriage.
Andrew Wilkow calls her “German Hillary.”
All of this is pretty much gibberish because right/left, conservative/democrat/liberal, etc. don’t mean the same things and the media is all state run anyways.
Got any Cliff’s notes as to what this actually means?
See bobtuba’s post @ 3:40 PM.
What this all translates to, for the American taxpayer: we remain in Germany expending money we don’t have to defend an ungrateful country, all so they can continue their social programs.
The German army is now composed of 2 (not a typo) divisions and 64,000 personnel. Not much of a force and not much of a power in the world. About 50,000 US military personnel are in Germany at any time, about 32,500 permanently stationed, and the remainder on some sort of deployment for training, exercises, meetings, conferences, exchanges, etc.
Trump wanted to reduce the number of US military personnel in Europe and move them east in Poland, and the Baltic States. Of course the Swamp disagreed. Now those decisions are being reversed, and the US is increases it’s permanent presence in Germany by a token 500.
The Trump strategy made sense if you are actually committed to the defense of western Europe as it made the US presence a “tripwire” force that would get the US military involved immediately should anything take place between Russia, Poland, and the very vulnerable Baltic States.
Holding the force in Germany basically takes them hold rear areas and gives the US the ability to hide in the rear and defer an immediate hard decision on involvement, and so is a lessor commitment to NATO. But Germany likes all the money the US military presence brings and the security, too, which it does not have to pay for.
Germany spends only 1.28% of its GDP on defense, but this is up from a low of 1..1% before Trump took office and jaw boned them into increasing their defense budgets.
The NATO goal is for member states to spend at least 2% of GDP on their defense.
I fail to understand why it is required the US defend countries that are not committed to defending themselves.
Again, Trump was right. If NATO wants to remain relevant, it must be relevant. If Germany wants to be relevant, they should strive to be relevant. Sitting around large tables in Mons, Belgium discussing the threat of climate change and how to provide transgender equality in alliance member state militaries does not make you relevant.
Asked if this was a signal to Russia, Austin said it was a signal to NATO, whatever that means.
I can think of a way to wake Germany up: revise our tax laws so auto lease tax deductions are either repealed or GREATLY tightened up. Exports of German cars to the US would plunge probably 90% or more.
That’s less a Wehrmacht and more a Wer ist da (Who’s there?).
“The German army is now composed of 2 (not a typo) divisions and 64,000 personnel. Not much of a force and not much of a power in the world.”
And we ALL know what the reason for that is.
Looking to avoid that big third strike. We’re already into “shame on me” territory.
May I ask what exactly the German Army is needed to defend against? If you suggested to Germans that Russia was threatening them they would laugh in your face, as they would in America if not for petty partisan politics forcing us to pretend we are at war with Russia. Our militarism forcing us to pay an abnormally unhealthy amount for a peace time military is well to say the least unhealthy (as the French, Italians, British, Spanish and well every European country with their significantly saner military budgets agree).
Military didn’t even stay neutral but went woke which should make the right reconsider the commandment “thou shalt increase thy military budget every day that ends in Y”.
Who are we fighting and because I know the answer why exactly should I support more 5 year old Muslims from Afghanistan to Yemen being slaughtered by air power? Haven’t we murdered enough people in the Bush Crusade could we just end our desire to kill and bring our drones home?
I’m being hard on you because your attacking a German policy that really should be ours (make our military budget match actual reality on planet Earth such as the Soviet Union doesn’t exist today and Russia spends a tiny fraction of what we do on armaments).
We don’t spend money for defense. We spend money so it can be grifted into the pockets of the elite.
You need an army to defend against the Muslims you invited into your country, to defend against Russia and to ensure that the flow of oil isn’t interrupted.
If the US will fight all of Germany’s wars, then it doesn’t need a military. Of course, that’s a risky bet and not one that a responsible nation would take. Look 5 or 10 years down the road. There’s Russia, Turkey and Iran (and proxies). Not a good idea to be caught flat-footed. If you can predict the future, more power to you.
Totally naive and foolish dhimmitude and equally foolish environmental fanaticism — these will be the hallmarks of crone Merkel’s tenure.
Well, maybe not… if every one of her opponents is actually more radical on these issues than even she is.
Fair point, LOL.
That is where we stand in Portland. “Wheeler” is the normal one which is just really really sad.
News today: Germany moves left in elections.
News when the left does what the left does: Germany’s right wing government authoritarians…..
Germany resumes their ‘self digging hole’.
But, being Germans, it is done with extreme precision.
The hole in the foot is always precisely centered.
So their bodies will land and fill the hole perfectly.
Germany is quickly losing their economic dominance over the EU. The eastern European states last week issued a warning to the EU that if they continue with their romance with Islam, several countries will pull out. That is what Lithuania is doing already by distancing themselves from China while the EU keeps embracing them.
If we had any kind of media, we would all know that events around the world spun out of control last week. The China Century is already over and now everyone understands that the only real economy on the planet is the US. Militarily, it looks like the Pentagon is acting independently from the Biden Administration while Trump is re-emerging on the scene. And we know that Trump is very popular with the military and has been keeping him apprised of what is happening. I think things will be very, very different next year and the ball is already rolling. The big losers will be China and the EU.
“Militarily, it looks like the Pentagon is acting independently from the Biden Administration”
Where on Earth did you get this idea?
I’m wondering the same thing. Any links?
I am not quoting anyone’s opinions but my own. I track these things and make observations. Some are so stark that they can only mean something big is afoot. We already know that our media is not doing its job yet we keep believing them. Here in the US, “everyone” can tell that the Biden admin is not in charge and we are all speculating based on our own echo chamber sources as to who is. We keep talking about Deep State and Shadow Governments but don’t incorporate those concepts into our analyses other than superficially and ignore the glaring dichotomies in our narratives that are plainly visible. We fail to connect the dots. I work on connecting those dots.
Last week’s “Quad” declaration forming an alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and UK does NOT mesh with our current government’s formal foreign policies. In Australia, we have seen a split between the top domestic political leadership’s messaging and their defense offices. There is something going on here where our elected governments are not in sync with their military. Same is true in China where rumors abound that Xi is about to be overthrown by the PLA. But our China-owned media complex is not going to report that. It cannot be a coincidence that China is in free fall right now just as the left is disintegrating everywhere. Something big happened last week and it was global and the Pentagon together with other Deep State players (and I am not necessarily insinuating something sinister) took action to put the global squeeze on China and its “allies” ensnared in their web. The Aussie sub deal, Lithuania cutting relationships with China as did yet another African country (making at least six), Russia abandoning its “One China” policy, Taiwan applying for TPP membership after Xi’s request was rejected, the eastern European countries putting the EU on alert to end their romance with Islam or face consequences, Australia threatening to cut off ALL coal and iron ore shipments to China, and much more.
If all you do is wait for someone to explain it to you, your narrative will never be in sync with events. I follow real events, not just what all of the different echo chambers report to push their narratives.
We are all just believing what we want to believe but at some point, you have to make sense of all of the impossible consequences. Something big happened last week and it was revealing. There seems to be some sort of domino effect playing out. I don’t KNOW (and neither does anyone here) whether this is good or bad but it is happening and I think it may be a sign that the China Century is over. Where do we end up? World war?
The Western world is re-arming fast to take on China and we hold all of the strong cards. ALL of them. Whether the free world can remain free depends on whether WE can find it in us to save ourselves from our weak character and corrupt governments. We suddenly have a clear path to victory. Do we deserve it?
Make what you will with this. It is just my opinion but it is based on reality, not political wishful thinking. You can believe what you want to believe. No one “knows” anything.
“… China-owned media complex is not going to report that.“
Who is reporting to you?
Your many claims would take hours to check.
As far as I can tell that the Party is about to oust LI (not the organization ripening this site) is from a single British reporter who says he kind of believes it’s true.
The only “free fall” description I could discover in a quick search was an economic one in 2015, and some rocket debris that has penetrated the atmosphere on collision path with earth.
If you’re getting your opinions from private news sources, maybe you’d consider making the sources public.
Have you read Ezekiel Chapters 37-39 lately?
Chapter 37 has happened, but 38 and 39 haven’t.
By contrast: in the recent Canadian Federal election the ruling Liberals got 32.6% of the vote (a loss of about 0.5% from the previous election), but picked up a few seats in Parliament (though short of a majority). The Conservative party (with a Mitt Romney-esque pompous left of center leader) slightly outperformed the Liberals with 33.7% of the vote (a drop of 0.6% from last election) and gain no new seats. The depressing situation in Canada got a tiny bit more depressing.
The German and Canadian elections show a disturbing trend: leftist parties usually beat slightly less leftist parties. It would be a good idea for the GOP to provide a non-leftist alternative to American voters in 2022, except that history shows they are incapable of taking a hint even when it is applied with a sledgehammer. Not for nothing is the Republican Party called the Stupid Party.
And the reason that leftist parties usually beat slightly less leftist parties is what Limbaugh pointed out when Obama beat Romney:
“Small things beat big things yesterday. Conservatism in my humble opinion did not lose last night. It’s just very difficult to beat Santa Claus. People are not going to vote against Santa Claus, especially when the alternative is being your own Santa Claus,” he continued. “In a country of children where the option is Santa Claus or work, what wins?”
“Every Obama voter may not be religious, but they believe in Santa Claus. And you know what else they believe about Santa Claus? That Santa Claus doesn’t judge anybody. You’re gonna get your stuff no matter how you behave. You’re gonna get your stuff whether you’re a good guy, bad guy, or a non-entity. Santa Claus isn’t judgmental. In fact, Santa Claus loves you because you have the deck stacked against you.”
You can’t be just another version of the party you’re running against. Slightly less left parties can not beat a leftist party.
It looks like in the long run communist East Germany wins.
The Germans have been flirting with going full Marxist since at least the 1920s. And they’ve been heading that way in fits and starts since WWII. Now they’re lurching that way again,
Could someone tell me why we are spending money we don’t have on NATO to protect an increasingly Marxist fascist socialist Germany from a non-Marxist Russia? Wasn’t the original idea to protect a free and democratic and non-fascist/socialist West German republic from a Marxist/Communist/socialist bloc led by the Soviet Union (Russia) that included the East German GDR?
Or are we really “occupying” Germany at this point, to protect the rest of the world from them?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m grossly in favor of America (paid for by the struggling American taxpayer) not policing the world, and having foreign countries do their own heavy lifting. But would it be a mistake to leave Germany completely unsupervised in Metal Shop with operational power tools?
“But would it be a mistake to leave Germany completely unsupervised in Metal Shop with operational power tools?”
Why do WE have to supervise them? Why can they not be supervised by their neighbor states who have to live side-by-side with them?
And if their neighbor states don’t want to bother, after the lessons of the first half of the 20th century, why should we?
If they haven’t learned their lesson from the early 1930’s, when they could have easily smothered Nazi Germany in the cradle, they never will.
“There never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the previous struggle.”
— Winston Churchill
Historically, they’ve been 100% ineffective at that task, including the totality of the Europeans who were in the Allies camp. If they hadn’t been, we would never have had to intervene in the first (and second) places.
France? Belgium? Italy? LOL
Switzerland? Not realistically.
Poland? I would trust them, especially the current guy.
French military is superior in almost every way despite a smaller budget https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7NnCtb13R0
I giggled at this, remembering a meme.
Someone sent a DM to the Porsche official account:
I have a customer support question.
*INSERT PICTURE OF AN ELEFANT TANK DESTROYER*
Do you guys still make these?
If Merkel is what passes for conservative, they are doomed
Maybe the conservatives wanted…you know, an actual conservative and stopped showing up…
But I now know how to say “Mitt Romney” in German.
I fail to understand why people place so much faith in the results of an election. We’ve seen the results of the 2020 election in the U.S.A. and the shenanigans that have made it one of the most queried elections in world history.
Are the German election results to be believed any more than American ones? Were any more safeguards in place in this election?
Merkel was a “conservative” ?????
That part was news to me.
Right?
Merkel went and pulled Germany massively to the left during her tenure. That ultimately is her legacy. Fortunately France isn’t Germany, and neither is Italy or Poland, but take the way Merkel succeeded in transforming Germany as a reason to be grateful for term limits and a warning about the Liz Cheney/George W Bush types who only care about tax cuts.
I suspect that this was the last German election. The combination of EU financial collapse, lack of energy [a cold winter will finish them off] and dependence on Russia for what they have, and a Jihadi occupation probably means that Germany’s end date is within sight,
Subotai Bahadur
They don’t depend on Russia for anything except natural gas — and they could reduce that by reversing their idiotic energy policies and resuming use of coal (possible) and nuclear energy (unlikely).
But they won’t because that means acknowledging reality. Rather than to that, they would prefer freezing in the dark.
Subotai Bahadur
A silly headline — the CDU wasn’t ‘defeated’; certainly Germany didn’t win — the CDU clearly lost voter share compared to 2017 — but the SPD, even worse than the CDU on every issue, and not long ago seemingly headed to single digits, emerged the strongest party, with the CDU in 2nd place — the CDU will certainly be part of any coalition — as a party they will get important minister posts.
Biggest loser on the nite was the Greens, who fell far short of expectations.
Also the AfD unfortunately — instead of making progress and moving above 15%, they lost support and fell back to just above 10% — for DE, that was the real disaster of the evening.
Soon it will be RIP Deutschland, as they will be predicting when ethnic Germans will become overall a minority, as they already are among under 18 year olds in many cities and towns, and in significantly more cities and towns in the under 5 year olds.
Well, the Germans will regret that very much.
And the Green party? Are those guys not responsible for the disaster in energy?
That will be a very cold winter there, and with this debacle, also a very cold summer too.
With elections, people get the kind of government they deserve.