{"id":93834,"date":"2025-01-29T03:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=93834"},"modified":"2025-01-28T13:42:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T18:42:42","slug":"german-democracy-in-its-death-throes-as-extremely-extreme-extreme-right-gets-an-anti-immigration-bill-up-for-a-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/01\/29\/german-democracy-in-its-death-throes-as-extremely-extreme-extreme-right-gets-an-anti-immigration-bill-up-for-a-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"German democracy in its death throes as extremely extreme extreme right gets an anti-immigration bill up for a vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

The situation in Germany appears critical, as the extreme right Christian Democrats (CDU) seem to be moving closer to working with the extremely extreme extreme right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland<\/em> (AfD) to pass an anti-immigration bill<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

“German flag” by fdecomite<\/a> is licensed under CC BY 2.0 <\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite everything, the cordon sanitaire<\/em> against the Evil Hitler Nazi Fascist party known as Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland<\/em> really appears to be crumbling. CDU Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz has set in motion a chain of events he can no longer control. This coming Friday, there is every chance that anti-migration legislation will pass the Bundestag and become law with the help of AfD<\/em> votes \u2013 an eventuality that was unimaginable even seven days ago.<\/p>\n

As I reported in my prior post<\/a>, Merz said last week that he was open to passing anti-migration bills with AfD<\/em> support. His statement was remarkable, because it violated the most important tabu in German politics, namely that against achieving any outcomes with votes from the AfD<\/em>. This tabu excludes the political voice of opposition voters and insulates the traditional party system from political change.<\/p>\n

Almost from the beginning, there was messaging confusion from within the CDU about Merz’s statement. The reversals, re-reversals, doublings down, and contradictions that have flowed from Merz and his party over the weekend are highly significant. They suggest a panicked CDU leadership that is in disarray, eager to stem the tide of defections to the AfD<\/em> and desperate to weaken the negotiating positions of the leftist SPD and Green parties. The cordon sanitaire<\/em> is a wedge driven straight through the right that allows an ever more unpopular left to punch far above their weight and maintain their vice-grip on German migration policy. It was intended to wall out the AfD<\/em>, but as the AfD<\/em> has grown stronger, it has only walled in the CDU. Remarkably, the CDU seem to have finally figured this out.<\/p>\n

Merz responded to the growing cries of outrage from the left at first predictably \u2013 by backtracking. He insisted he wanted not the AfD<\/em> but the “political middle” to support his anti-migration legislation. In a strange statement on Saturday, he announced that “We have sent the SPD, the Greens and the FDP all the texts that we want to pass next week<\/a>” so that “We can … agree on how we will vote next week.” He added bizarrely that “The AfD<\/em> is not receiving these texts.” These “texts” leaked almost immediately; they turned out to be resolutions calling on the Green and SPD government to tighten border security and increase deportations. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The situation in Germany appears critical, as the extreme right Christian Democrats (CDU) seem to be moving closer to working with the extremely extreme extreme right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland (AfD) to pass an anti-immigration bill: Despite everything, the cordon sanitaire against the Evil Hitler Nazi Fascist party known as Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland really appears to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1118,28,53],"tags":[1577,188,554],"class_list":["post-93834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-germany","category-media","category-politics","tag-afd","tag-electionwatch","tag-immigration"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-ops","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93835,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93834\/revisions\/93835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}