From looking at the election result we notice, that immiseration in Germany has progressed and that the country has been successfully transformed into a low trust society. And yes, if we look at eg., the Edelman Trust Barometer in 2021 still 53% had general trust in the countries institutions, a figure now reduced to 41%, which is below eg., Kenya, Mexico and Colombia. Countries with increasing poverty, social problems and decreasing trust vote "right". Left governments are usually the outcome of harmonious high trust societies, as they could be found in Scandinavia.
The Phoenix from the Ashes prize goes to the left, which rated just above 3% a few months ago and rose to indeed surprising 8.8%. Kudos goes to their leader Heidi Reichinnek who saved her mob with a few great speeches. Hers is the strongest party in the 18-29 age segment, which however is only 13.3% of the eligible voters, with probably a high degree of people with "migration background"; AfD his not far behind there. Bod Dylan got a Literature Nobel for his songs, maybe she gets one for her unpretentious rhetoric in parliament.
Loser of the Pack is Sarah Wagenknecht and the party named after her. Probably she diluted the party platform too much as to make it palatable to as many voters as possible. It also does not help, if you talk to people as if they were five-year olds. It also did not work for Dilma Rousseff in Brazil some years ago. 4.972% she got. I am to lazy to calculate how many votes 0.028% would have been.
The rest matters not really, as to find the effective differences between them require some intensive forensic research. They will continue to ignore the biggest problem all western economies are suffering: the the ever more intensively working "wealth pump" (Peter Turchin) from bottom to top. This eventually will kill off the western economies, if they are not already in an irrecoverable death spiral.
The big question is, will Merz (a former corporate takeover lawyer and BlackRock manager) kill off the coalition with SPD in a couple off years to do "the really necessary reforms", ie. radically culling social spending and the usual "cutting of red tape" and such, together with the AfD? Well possible.
Profoundly important German election. If inflation is no longer the German phobia we thought it had hitherto been, maybe there will be more willingness on the part of the new German government to move away from the prevailing austerity mindset, while simultaneously embracing structural reforms that would create a genuinely supranational fiscal authority. If Merz is to be taken at his word in regard to securing greater independence from Washington, this will almost certainly mean moving toward a "United States of Europe", starting with debt mutualisation (which has been mooted as a means of upping Europe's defense and security needs independent of Washington). I suspect the new coalition will derive more support for this idea, assuming a CDU/SPD coalition. Adding the FDP would make this much more problematic.
True thoughts. They become even more urging considering the consequence of a breakup of the EU if not followed. Inflationrates, nevertheless, are to be understood: They drifted apart in each EU country, thus resulting in diverging competitivenesses, impossible to be corrected by devaluation. Result were ruined economies of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and last Greece as a shining example, and a shift to the export industries of especially Germany, but also Netherlands i.e. This explains the dependency from the rest of the world to drive the ladder export economies. Sadly, there is no discussion about this nowhere in Germany as the far leading economy in the EU, this Problem is simply not present to the german public. At last I want to stress the point, that everywhere the comany sector of an evonomy has joined the private households as a net saver. So there is only the state or the abroad to drive the economy. This is also not understood, it's always the strangling bureaucracy decoy.
Disagree on the high turnout indicating a healthy democracy. This is mostly a result of the AfD using their disinformation campaign to mobilize voters that were previously somewhat impartial to the system to now being willing to tear it down, which equates to the AfD getting in to power. The moderate position in this party is to establish a Hungary-style illiberal democracy. Their extreme wing are open Nazis that are playing down the holocaust and dream of ethnic cleansing. I think many international observers underestimate just how extreme they are and how much they have poisoned the political climate. As a black German I can feel the hatred growing every day.
I have no deep insight of the German politics but in a country with ~30% people being of "Migrationshintergrund", I would suspect there is a ceiling for the popularity of the extreme right wing Holocaust deniers and alikes, especially as I see voters with some non-German background are usually younger and AfD has not really made a breakthrough in the older voter cohorts so they have to rely on the younger populations.
In Hungary, my experience is that our ruling right wing party is "careful" in channeling hatred towards those minority groups that are not present in large numbers among voters (e.g. Middle Eastern migrants, gay people). The large Roma minority is actually successfully being incentivized with different tools to vote for the ruling party and the Jewish minority is not being targeted due to the strong Israeli ties of both the government and the Hungarian Jews - these groups are mostly campaigned against by the "real" right extreme party, but with this they can never achieve more than ~10%.
Though this may not be a relief, since the atmosphere here is also constantly getting more negative, and what was extreme right wing 10 years ago is now the norm followed by the ruling party...
Thank you for that interesting perspective from Hungary. I wish you were right, however, so far it really does not look like it. In January of last year investigative journalists uncovered secretive meetings of AfD members with various Nazi activists, discussion plans to “remigrate” (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing) all non-welcome German citizens with dual citizenship. This was a huge scandal, but did not seem to hurt the AfD’s electoral success. The French FN declined to work with the AfD due to statements made by some delegates, basically praising the “Waffen SS”. Another one insulted German citizens with migratory background as “animals”. These two were just added to the new parliamentary groups. Didn’t seem to bother a fifth of German voters…
Good review with useful details. If Merz and whoever coalesces with him take the AfD grudges seriously they might just hollow out their support for next time round. That does mean getting the economy going again and solving the consequences of the idiotic energy policies they have inherited.
'inherit' isn't quite the right term for the 'idiotic energy policies'. Consider that nuclear energy has been terminated by a coalition of CDU/CSU under Merkel (the party of 'Fritze' Merz) and SPD, solar energy (by Altmaier, CDU) stalled and wind power for once has truely suffered from too much bureaucracy. So it's more about to self reflect and come clear.
Another point will be the regressive CO² tax, beloved by libertarians like CDU and FDP, hitting low incomes the most. Combine this with the demand for even more competitiveness by, again, libertarians, which will result in lower wages, hitting the domestic economy to restore the exports.
Coming german governments, no matter the composition, are primed to fail unless a total change in minds happens.
Yeah it's funny that JDVance types will criticise Germany for being anti-democratic and in the next breath criticise Germany's wholly democratic energy policies (meaning relying on Russian gas and decommissioning nuclear - they don't know/care about solar or wind).
The Trumpian preferred version of "Democracy" seems to be listening to the people on social issues but hitting them hard with whatever on the economy and energy.
I mean, are Germans really desperate to pay over the odds for expensive American LNG, do they really want to distance themselves from China to further American foreign policy? Let's put those ones to a vote!
I find a thought about the recent analysis of leading german economic institutes very interesting. They all deemed the financial plans of the CDU and AfD as most unequal and nonfinancible (or not well thought through, all regarding the legislative boundaries).
Though voters seem to think that said parties would solve their Problems: Fear of poverty/social downfall.
Few surprises here. Greens barely punished for cheerleading the disastrous war, and their foreign minister alienating China whose help is required for actual green energy scaleup. Still shows how much better a working multi party parliamentary system is, than what US or UK have.
AfD could toss refugee toddlers alive and screaming into piranha tanks and nobody would raise a peep, as long as they would became willing and necessary to support American hegemony over Europe in general and the War On Russia in particular.
From looking at the election result we notice, that immiseration in Germany has progressed and that the country has been successfully transformed into a low trust society. And yes, if we look at eg., the Edelman Trust Barometer in 2021 still 53% had general trust in the countries institutions, a figure now reduced to 41%, which is below eg., Kenya, Mexico and Colombia. Countries with increasing poverty, social problems and decreasing trust vote "right". Left governments are usually the outcome of harmonious high trust societies, as they could be found in Scandinavia.
The Phoenix from the Ashes prize goes to the left, which rated just above 3% a few months ago and rose to indeed surprising 8.8%. Kudos goes to their leader Heidi Reichinnek who saved her mob with a few great speeches. Hers is the strongest party in the 18-29 age segment, which however is only 13.3% of the eligible voters, with probably a high degree of people with "migration background"; AfD his not far behind there. Bod Dylan got a Literature Nobel for his songs, maybe she gets one for her unpretentious rhetoric in parliament.
Loser of the Pack is Sarah Wagenknecht and the party named after her. Probably she diluted the party platform too much as to make it palatable to as many voters as possible. It also does not help, if you talk to people as if they were five-year olds. It also did not work for Dilma Rousseff in Brazil some years ago. 4.972% she got. I am to lazy to calculate how many votes 0.028% would have been.
The rest matters not really, as to find the effective differences between them require some intensive forensic research. They will continue to ignore the biggest problem all western economies are suffering: the the ever more intensively working "wealth pump" (Peter Turchin) from bottom to top. This eventually will kill off the western economies, if they are not already in an irrecoverable death spiral.
The big question is, will Merz (a former corporate takeover lawyer and BlackRock manager) kill off the coalition with SPD in a couple off years to do "the really necessary reforms", ie. radically culling social spending and the usual "cutting of red tape" and such, together with the AfD? Well possible.
Age structure of eligible German voters:
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1498/umfrage/altersstruktur-der-wahlberechtigten-bundestagswahl/
Reichinnek speeches:
https://youtu.be/l7bWsE_fMxI
https://youtu.be/omuYdl7NKfo
Thank you. This makes a lot of the general issues clear.
Profoundly important German election. If inflation is no longer the German phobia we thought it had hitherto been, maybe there will be more willingness on the part of the new German government to move away from the prevailing austerity mindset, while simultaneously embracing structural reforms that would create a genuinely supranational fiscal authority. If Merz is to be taken at his word in regard to securing greater independence from Washington, this will almost certainly mean moving toward a "United States of Europe", starting with debt mutualisation (which has been mooted as a means of upping Europe's defense and security needs independent of Washington). I suspect the new coalition will derive more support for this idea, assuming a CDU/SPD coalition. Adding the FDP would make this much more problematic.
True thoughts. They become even more urging considering the consequence of a breakup of the EU if not followed. Inflationrates, nevertheless, are to be understood: They drifted apart in each EU country, thus resulting in diverging competitivenesses, impossible to be corrected by devaluation. Result were ruined economies of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and last Greece as a shining example, and a shift to the export industries of especially Germany, but also Netherlands i.e. This explains the dependency from the rest of the world to drive the ladder export economies. Sadly, there is no discussion about this nowhere in Germany as the far leading economy in the EU, this Problem is simply not present to the german public. At last I want to stress the point, that everywhere the comany sector of an evonomy has joined the private households as a net saver. So there is only the state or the abroad to drive the economy. This is also not understood, it's always the strangling bureaucracy decoy.
"Invite" the Yanks to decamp from Ramstein...Vance/tRump moving in that direction eventually.
Thanks Adam, well done summary of what were the issues
Does a high turnout really mean that democracy is healthy or not in crisis? I think it’s more complicated than that. Otherwise, great column
Disagree on the high turnout indicating a healthy democracy. This is mostly a result of the AfD using their disinformation campaign to mobilize voters that were previously somewhat impartial to the system to now being willing to tear it down, which equates to the AfD getting in to power. The moderate position in this party is to establish a Hungary-style illiberal democracy. Their extreme wing are open Nazis that are playing down the holocaust and dream of ethnic cleansing. I think many international observers underestimate just how extreme they are and how much they have poisoned the political climate. As a black German I can feel the hatred growing every day.
I have no deep insight of the German politics but in a country with ~30% people being of "Migrationshintergrund", I would suspect there is a ceiling for the popularity of the extreme right wing Holocaust deniers and alikes, especially as I see voters with some non-German background are usually younger and AfD has not really made a breakthrough in the older voter cohorts so they have to rely on the younger populations.
In Hungary, my experience is that our ruling right wing party is "careful" in channeling hatred towards those minority groups that are not present in large numbers among voters (e.g. Middle Eastern migrants, gay people). The large Roma minority is actually successfully being incentivized with different tools to vote for the ruling party and the Jewish minority is not being targeted due to the strong Israeli ties of both the government and the Hungarian Jews - these groups are mostly campaigned against by the "real" right extreme party, but with this they can never achieve more than ~10%.
Though this may not be a relief, since the atmosphere here is also constantly getting more negative, and what was extreme right wing 10 years ago is now the norm followed by the ruling party...
Thank you for that interesting perspective from Hungary. I wish you were right, however, so far it really does not look like it. In January of last year investigative journalists uncovered secretive meetings of AfD members with various Nazi activists, discussion plans to “remigrate” (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing) all non-welcome German citizens with dual citizenship. This was a huge scandal, but did not seem to hurt the AfD’s electoral success. The French FN declined to work with the AfD due to statements made by some delegates, basically praising the “Waffen SS”. Another one insulted German citizens with migratory background as “animals”. These two were just added to the new parliamentary groups. Didn’t seem to bother a fifth of German voters…
Good review with useful details. If Merz and whoever coalesces with him take the AfD grudges seriously they might just hollow out their support for next time round. That does mean getting the economy going again and solving the consequences of the idiotic energy policies they have inherited.
'inherit' isn't quite the right term for the 'idiotic energy policies'. Consider that nuclear energy has been terminated by a coalition of CDU/CSU under Merkel (the party of 'Fritze' Merz) and SPD, solar energy (by Altmaier, CDU) stalled and wind power for once has truely suffered from too much bureaucracy. So it's more about to self reflect and come clear.
Another point will be the regressive CO² tax, beloved by libertarians like CDU and FDP, hitting low incomes the most. Combine this with the demand for even more competitiveness by, again, libertarians, which will result in lower wages, hitting the domestic economy to restore the exports.
Coming german governments, no matter the composition, are primed to fail unless a total change in minds happens.
"Die Mehrheit liegt rechts - lasst sie regieren!", Heiner Flassbeck: https://www.relevante-oekonomik.com/2025/02/24/die-mehrheit-liegt-rechts-lasst-sie-regieren/
Yeah it's funny that JDVance types will criticise Germany for being anti-democratic and in the next breath criticise Germany's wholly democratic energy policies (meaning relying on Russian gas and decommissioning nuclear - they don't know/care about solar or wind).
The Trumpian preferred version of "Democracy" seems to be listening to the people on social issues but hitting them hard with whatever on the economy and energy.
I mean, are Germans really desperate to pay over the odds for expensive American LNG, do they really want to distance themselves from China to further American foreign policy? Let's put those ones to a vote!
Thanks Felix- poor choice of word I agree.
How important was Ukraine, the EU and military
I find a thought about the recent analysis of leading german economic institutes very interesting. They all deemed the financial plans of the CDU and AfD as most unequal and nonfinancible (or not well thought through, all regarding the legislative boundaries).
Though voters seem to think that said parties would solve their Problems: Fear of poverty/social downfall.
Few surprises here. Greens barely punished for cheerleading the disastrous war, and their foreign minister alienating China whose help is required for actual green energy scaleup. Still shows how much better a working multi party parliamentary system is, than what US or UK have.
AfD could toss refugee toddlers alive and screaming into piranha tanks and nobody would raise a peep, as long as they would became willing and necessary to support American hegemony over Europe in general and the War On Russia in particular.