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Chancellor Merz Defends AfD
Friedrich Merz, formerly of BlackRock Germany, is the new chancellor of Germany. He’ll be taking office amid investigations by German intelligence of AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), characterized as a very, very far-right political party by their globalist adversaries, despite polling as high as 40% (more than any of the opposition) with German voters. Gateway Pundit is now reporting that Chancellor Merz has repudiated the effort to ban or sanction the AfD, as has been so broadly discussed.
In a climate of escalating rhetoric and maneuvering amid shifting political realities, Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz has rejected growing calls from leftist and globalist parties to ban the right-wing, anti-globalist AfD, warning that such efforts risk weaponizing state power against legitimate political opposition.
“I have always been very skeptical about party bans,” Merz stated in a recent interview. “It smells too much like an attempt to eliminate political competition.” His comments directly challenge the chorus of voices from within the left-liberal Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and even elements of his own Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who are agitating for an unprecedented move to ban the country’s most popular opposition party.
I have been a sharp critic of Chancellor Merz, who has made no proposal to replace the affordable energy no longer available from Russia, nor to reverse Germany’s industrial crisis. On paper, Merz appears to be one more globalist thug positioned to run roughshod over the people they were elected to represent. This very welcome move to oppose the attempted delegitimization of AfD leaves me some hope that Germany can steer a better course.
Published in Foreign Policy
The CDU should stop and reflect that once the AfD is outlawed, they become the far right party.
Slippery slopes don’t suddenly get less slippery.
Here is how Die Welt (a top German news organization) framed the matter:
Clearly, Vance is squarely over the target and Merz is willing to adjust to the criticism while he denies the criticism. I have raised children, I get it.
Merz wants to increase support of Ukraine, which is good. I wish him success.
A rational response from Merz! I’m surprised but pleased.
It wasn’t his decision. US intelligence was strictly instructed to engage in no intelligence-sharing efforts with German intelligence with regard to the AfD or any other German party. The pressure came from the German intelligence community to not mess up their relationship with the United States.
In addition, the NGO’s that were paying anti-AfD protestors suddenly don’t have the money to pay them, and nobody is showing up for the protests. Just like that, a major domestic threat is suddenly not one.
Scuttlebutt or a source you can share?
It was two sources, one under the Townhall banner (I think), but I don’t recall offhand. Path may have started at RealClearPolitics. I was raised on The Economist (when it was rock solid and maybe a bit dull) so I do consider sources before buy in.
It was also suggested that his inability to negotiate the formation of a government also played a role, i.e. that refusal to work with a party willing to work with him looked bad to the general public.
The AfD directly thanked the US for exerting the pressure that stopped the investigation. That should be easy to find.
P. S. Edit: checked my history and found nothing so it must have been on my phone. I was overseeing exams this week and had time to fill while the students sweated it out.
Gee, whatever happened to the money?
That was my thought too: USAID was paying for it.
The articles I saw did not directly imply this was the reason, but if you were at all aware of the USAID defunding, it was the obvious conclusion to reach. One of the bases for the decision to declare the AfD a domestic threat was the protests against them.
Wasn’t he Lucy and Ricky’s landlord?
NB: Die Welt is one of the more America-friendly periodicals in Germany, probably the most so among daily papers. Cicero is a conservative commentary magazine and I highly recommend it.
It’s odd how that never seemed to be an important part of the show, as I remember it. You’d think they would be pretty well-off for money in that situation, but Lucy and Ethel were still always scheming.
Thank you. I think my interest in the inscrutable politics of the Hun is increasing.
William Frawley, a popular Vaudevillian in his heyday, is said to have been a fussy, entitled such and such 20+ years older than Vivian Vance playing his wife. His scenes became largely Bickerson routines between Fred and Ethel.
And Vivian Vance had a problem being seen as so much older, when she and Lucy were the same age. They did give Lucy a younger hair style, and definitely gave Ethel an older one. I at least always thought she was way older than Lucy in the series
The Lucy Show: a seething cauldron of animosity and resentment.