As recently as 40 or 50 years ago, the idea that Germany might de-industrialize would have seemed absurd. Germany’s status as an industrial superpower dates to the 19th century, and it seemed impregnable. But that was before the “green” movement brought Germany to its knees. The German government’s war on energy, along with other policy failures, have made it increasingly impossible to manufacture products (automobiles, for example) competitively in that country. The result is a looming economic crisis, with third-world status by no means an impossibility.
Only one German party–AfD, the Alternative for Germany–wants to enable the cheap energy that can restore Germany’s economic might. Equally important, AfD wants to rein in the wave of illegal immigration that has undermined German society. Most heretical of all, AfD wants to restore German patriotism and pride in German culture. The horror!
AfD has been officially branded a right-wing extremist party, based not on any actual extremism but rather on the views outlined above, and the other German parties seem to exist for the principal purpose of preventing AfD from participating in government. But the times, as someone once said, are a-changin’.
Check out Heather Mac Donald’s article on the recent elections in Baden-Württemberg, formerly the country’s industrial heartland. This is the dreaded and “extreme” AfD:
On February 13, Alice Weidel, the AfD’s charismatic co-chair, bounded onto the stage of a large auditorium in the southwest corner of Baden-Württemberg, accompanied by heavy metal riffs and cheers from a crowd of 2,000 supporters. The AfD hoped to double its previous vote share in this cradle of German engineering might by emphasizing its message about a rational energy policy. “Am achten März: Schmerz für Merz! [On the eighth of March, pain for Merz!]” was its optimistic, thrice-rhyming campaign slogan. Weidel has relentlessly denounced Germany’s trillion-euro investment in windmills and solar farms, which have radically decreased Germany’s energy output without even saving the environment, as the Left would define it. …
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And then Weidel got to the heart of her speech: reclaiming Germany’s future. “We need to give freedom back to our industrial concerns. . . . We must liberate them so that they decide what to produce and can make free decisions. The auto industry must decide what it manufactures. We want free competition so that you can decide what you buy. We want free enterprise back. . . . How can an industrial nation destroy the most modern nuclear energy in the world? We are the only country [to do that]. France, China, and the U.S. are building nuclear energy. Only Germany is blowing it up [literally, as a video projection showed]. That’s why we have the highest energy prices.”“We’ve had it with the dilapidated politics of the Old Parties.”
Weidel hadn’t gotten the message that patriotism was an atavistic impulse. “Vote for the AfD out of love and responsibility for our country!” she urged in her peroration. “Out of love for our Fatherland. We want our Germany back, and we will take it back!”
The crowd was on its feet, roaring.
Of course, Weidel is the contemporary version of a right-wing extremist:
Weidel’s ebullience at the February 13 campaign rally in Baden-Württemberg contrasted with her steely persona in the Bundestag. She mocked ongoing efforts to characterize the party as neo-Nazi and laughed off a left-wing heckler who demanded that she decamp for Switzerland, where she lives part-time with her Swiss-Sri Lankan wife. (So much for alleged conservative “phobias” about allegedly “marginalized” groups.) In the AfD, she said in response to the heckler, anyone can say what he wants.
AfD made strong gains in the Baden-Württemberg election, doubling its vote total to 19%. Nationally, AfD is now the second most popular party in Germany. It is held back, no doubt, by universal hostility from the German establishment and the German press–actually, the international press:
And so the anti-AfD forces are ramping up their smears. A deputy with the German newspaper Bild regularly recycles the usual calumnies about the AfD in The Wall Street Journal in order to promote Chancellor Merz.
The Journal is increasingly worthless.
But the tide is flowing strongly in AfD’s direction. Despite unremitting hostility from the political class, most Germans are not ready to consign their country to the dustbin of history. If they want a future, AfD is their only hope.
Much more at the link.
