There is also the dizzying pace of the changes being wrought by President Trump. It's hard to keep up. And frankly, some things the Donald is doing -- the threatened tariffs, the apparent sell-out of Ukraine -- look wrong-headed. There may be method in his madness, but we'll wait and see. For now, we'll hold the applause.
See that huge aqua-tinted area, roughly corresponding to the old East Germany, on the map? Those are seats in the Reichstag won by the AfD!
Friedrich Merz's conservative CDU/CSU got more seats -- those coloured in black -- but Germany's 2025 election has revealed a strong trend to the hard right.
It is notable that the AfD's strength is mainly in the east, where millions of people remember what it was like to be governed by Communists. Their rejection of the socialism and liberalism of Angela Merkel and her successor Olaf Scholz.
AfD doubled its support from 10.4 to 20.8% in just four years, and is now the second biggest political force in the German parliament.
Meanwhile, outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz's socialist SPD had its worst performance in decades, only securing 16.4% of the vote. The loony left Green Party, once considered the "coming thing", drew only 11.6% of the vote.
Alternativ für Deutschland is spreading in the west too, and loyalty to the old mainstream parties is a thing of the past. The AfD, demonized as "far-right" by the (((controlled media))), has, for one in five Germans, become "normal".
Even though it came second, the AfD is blocked from being part of the next government because of a "firewall" constructed by Germany's main parties, who have refused to co-operate with any party seen as "extremist".
The same strategy -- refusing to join in any coalition with any right-wing group -- has been employed to keep Marine Le Pen's National Rally out of power in France. The firewall -- Brandmauer in German -- has worked since the end of WWII, but AfD joint leader Tino Chrupalla says, "Anyone who erects firewalls will get grilled behind them."
The cuckservative CDU/CSU did not win enough seats to form a majority government. Herr Merz must therefore find a coalition partner, but has vowed to keep the firewall in place. He told the meeja that he believes the only reason the AfD exists is because of "problems such as migration and security that need to be addressed:" Ya think?! "We need to resolve these problems," he said, "then that party, the AfD, will disappear."
AfD leader Alice Weidel insists it is a libertarian, conservative movement, not racist. Its big increase in public support has coincided with a series of deadly attacks in the past nine months, all by Islamic extremists who Angela Merkel's minions welcomed into the Fatherland as "refugees" and asylum-seekers. What the AfD wants to do is send them back where they came from, in a policy dubbed "remigration".
Herr Merz will now go into talks on forming a government with the Social Democrats, who came third. He has already flirted with the AfD in the Reichstag, relying on their votes to push through a motion on migration. Now that the AfD has more than 150 seats, many CDU/CSU supporters believe it is time for the firewall to go. Stay tuned.
