The AfD will govern – promised.
The AfD will govern – promised.
Having Merz as Chancellor means that the AfD will govern after him.
With the disillusionment that will follow Merz’s chancellorship, the AfD can solidify itself as the last option “that something will change”.
How Germany’s politics will develop in the coming years, and what an AfD government will mean for awareness, because: everything remains the same.
This article is somewhat part of our series on the AfD; we recommend reading the following articles as well:
“Is this fascism now?” – About the Brandmauer idealism between bourgeois and fascist politics.
“About right-wing radicalism” – About the AfD and why its success is only a logical consequence of the existing system.
The “Progress Coalition” traffic light has collapsed last week.
The implosion of the traffic light can be summarized as Lindner and his FDP annoyed even the neoliberals Green and SPD so much that the traffic light suddenly became Bangladesh.
More precisely: Lindner rejected all approaches to stimulate domestic investments, e.g., by capping the network charges for companies, so far that “The talks (showed) that no sufficient common ground could be established in economic and financial policy” – after nearly 3 years, the barrel has overflowed.
That is; there are new elections, probably in March.
Scholz’s confidence vote will be answered with “No!” by the minority that still holds the current traffic light, the majority of the Bundestag are now opponents of the Chancellor.
What follows is the chancellorship of BlackRock-Merz in coalition with SPD or Greens – meaning nothing will change.
Merz rejects further debt, wants to cut social benefits (including citizen’s allowance) and introduce permanent checkpoints at the German borders (not compatible with EU law).
Merz is the absolute logical conclusion of the last three years of traffic light policy, and he not only continues but perfects it.
The traffic light is deporting to Afghanistan – Merz wants to add Syria.
The traffic light does not allow cash for refugees, Merz will put them directly into “indefinite deportation detention”.
Scholz makes the finance minister unemployed, Merz cuts his citizen’s allowance.
Under a Merz cabinet, for the vast majority of people in Germany, nothing will change naturally.
The reduction of social benefits will accelerate through the shortening of state debt and direct cuts to social budgets, taxes for top earners and corporations will be lowered, and resentments against migrants will continue to be inflamed.
Merz’s foreign policy course suggests he will expand Germany’s position in the trade war against China, leading to further price increases for consumers (since China is Germany’s most important trading partner).
If Merz truly takes to heart Olaf’s call for mass deportations, and pursues a “restrictive migration policy” and “promotes qualified migration”, Germany will face even greater labor shortages, leading to further bankruptcies in small and medium-sized businesses.
Industries with low qualification levels (e.g., hospitality, construction, large parts of the service sector) are experiencing a labor shortage that far exceeds the “skilled worker” shortage.
“Germany does not need less immigration of low-skilled people, but more immigration of both low-skilled and (…) highly skilled people.”
Overall, today in Germany, there are 1.8 million unfilled positions, rapidly increasing.
“By 2035, due to demographic development, five million more Germans will go into retirement than young workers entering the workforce.”
“Migration may come in waves, posing major challenges for municipalities and infrastructure, but not too many people are coming to Germany. Given the huge labor shortage, we need not only the 3.3 million people who are already in Germany as refugees or tolerated, but we will need three times as many from abroad in the next ten years to even half-fill the labor gap.”
The capital is, of course, interested in further influxes of workers who (like refugees working below their qualification level) take on precarious jobs for which domestic workers are overqualified.
On the other hand, the representation of capital, bourgeois politics, is interested in maintaining power, which is based on inventing problems that are not real – e.g., the problem of the lazy migrant.
The long-term reproduction of labor power is something capitalism cannot do, especially because the insecurity it creates leads to demographic problems like the current situation in Germany.
What capital needs for profit maximization, Merz, a former BlackRock executive, surely knows too, but saying things as they are is not in the interest of securing power in the bourgeois state.
Alternative according to Merz
After 4 years of Black-Red or Black-Green, the AfD will rule.
We know that the contradictions here will only intensify over the coming four years.
A Merz chancellorship will, on the one hand, completely eliminate the hesitation for many to vote for the AfD, and on the other hand, reinforce the idea of the AfD as the last option, that “something will change”.
The AfD, which is no more than a product of the misery of the current conditions, will, through another four years of status quo, have enough votes to de facto force a coalition.
It is clear that the rhetoric of this “Brandmauer” against the AfD will cease at the latest when a coalition with the AfD becomes the only way to stay in power.
And then?
The government of the AfD is inevitable, at the latest when voters who will vote for the Union in the new elections realize that the Union, of course, is no alternative to the status quo of the traffic light.
After that, the AfD is the last party that still exists which has not yet tried to directly seize power in the state apparatus, outside of the Left, which are of course communists (I wish).
Of course, an AfD government will accelerate the reactionary state restructuring – but there will be little new.
The living conditions in the country will continue to worsen, the contradiction between the owners and the workers will deepen, and especially those living in precarious conditions will see a huge increase.
The most realistic hope from all this is that the disillusionment with an AfD government will bring about disillusionment with the bourgeois state.
According to the motto: This system no longer seems to offer any alternatives.
An AfD government will produce a massive influx of people into anti-fascist mass movements and will bring many the realization that this system has been exhausted.
This is not an accelerationist hope that socialism will triumph triumphantly from the ashes of this system like a phoenix, but a sober assessment of the consciousness development that will unfold in the coming years.
It is important to raise awareness that no election can eliminate the risk of fascism, and that the AfD is nothing more than the logical consequence of the development of material conditions here.
It is a choice: socialism or barbarism.