The Duran Podcast - German elections; Scholz sinking, Merz losing ground

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

German elections; Scholz sinking, Merz losing ground

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is going on in Germany. The elections are fast approaching, and it looks like CDU is starting to think about working with the AFD, at least on immigration, migration issues, which is huge news. What is your thoughts on what is happening in Germany? Well, the last couple of days have been very extraordinary. in Germany, they show how unstable and unsustainable in some respects the whole political set up there is. And they might ultimately prove decisive. I mean, you know, when has to qualify this because we still got several weeks to go before the election. But one gets the sense that

a number of things have snapped. Now, as happens in Germany all the time now, we have a large migrant population. Some of these migrants do appalling things. I'm not suggesting all of them do, or a majority of them do, but some do. There's been knife attacks. A child of two was stabbed. Of course, in the very fraught atmosphere that we have in Germany today, these things get noticed as they would, just to say, I mean, don't blame people for notice. these things, it's completely understandable, given all that happened in Germany over the last 10 years, that people would notice these things. Of the IFTA has been making massive mileage on the economic front, talking about the cost of living crisis, the irrational energy policies

that the coalition has been conducting, the closing of the nuclear power stations, the severing of the economic links with Russia, the ongoing processes of de-industrialization. And we now having opinion polls, which show a number of things. Firstly, the SPD is sinking. One opinion poll puts them at 15%. If they fall below that, then, I mean, we could be looking at a complete terminal collapse. Secondly, perhaps even more alarmingly for the German political class, the CDU, CSU, who are the main target of the IFDERS attacks, is losing ground. So they started the election on about 32% according to the opinion polls. Remember, these are opinion polls and we can't be certain how reliable they are.

I'm even getting some reports suggesting that the opinion polls are overstating the support for the CDU and understating the IFDS actual support. We saw that in the United States. Maybe the same thing is happening in Germany. But regardless of that, even these opinion polls are showing the CDU falling. So it's started at 32%. The latest poll I've seen says that it's 29%. The Financial Times is reporting today that there's another poll which puts the CDU-CSU at 2%. 28%. It is sagging. Now, the IFD is surging and one opinion poll now puts them on 23%. Again, bear in mind what I said that its poll ratings perhaps are being understated. It's making, it's got the momentum, but it seems to be growing.

And in the meantime, the Free Democrats, the Liberal Party, are sunk on 3%. It's unlikely they will get into the Parliament in the election. And the two left-wing party, Zara Vagenek's party, is on 6 or 7%. So it looks like they will get into the parliament. But even DeLinka, which is basically the old East German Communist Party with a few trimmings added on, they're apparently on 5%. So we're starting to see a growth in the left, the anti-system left in Germany as well. Now, what this could mean is that there might not be enough deputies, enough MPs at the end of the election for the The CDU and the SPD to form a grand coalition together and to have a majority in the Bundestag. So this is putting the CDU and Mertz, who's by the way proving unconvincing in the election, in a very, very difficult position.

So Mertz gambled. and he's trying on the one hand to stop the rise of the CDU and borrow some of their thunder and position the CDU as the true right-wing party. So he presented to the Bundestag, to the German parliament, an anti-migrant bill, one that basically says that, you know, we've got to control borders and that kind of thing. He knows perfectly well that the SPD and the Greens functionally are incapable of supporting such a bill. It passed as a result of a combination of votes by the CDU and the IFD. The liberals, the free Democrats also voted for it, but as I said, they're gradually melting away.

So, Matt is trying to say, you don't need to vote for the IFD. You can vote for me because all the things that the IFD is saying, I actually agree with, except of course that I'm the good political establishment, centrist, Democrat, and there are these horrible far-right people, you shouldn't really dirty your hands with. for me, even if I'm actually basically now saying the same things that they're saying, and starting to pilot the same kind of policies that they are calling for. And at the end of the day, once I'm elected and I'm Chancellor, you can be sure that I will continue doing all the things that you want me to do, or migrants, on all of those other things.

but of course I'll do it without the IFD. Now, it looks incredibly risky, to put it mildly. Merkel, by the way, has already criticized him for doing it. She said that it's extraordinarily bad politics. It normalizes and legitimizes the IFDA. There's been a political heart shock across the German political class, at this sort of thing.

The key thing about it is that the IFDA is growing and Mertz is becoming desperate. Yeah, he really wants to be Chancellor really bad. It shows how bad he wants to become Chancellor. But I mean, the guy's a zero. He's got zero personality.

I mean, he really does. There's no personality there. There's no gravitas. There's no leadership skills. There's nothing. You know, compared to Alice Widal, he's nothing. He's a zero. He's a zero.

Yeah, he's a zero. I mean, the risk that he runs, though, and this is obvious, is that, you know, the voter is going to say, well, okay, you're going to give us an alternative to, I have day, an alternative to the IFTA, alternative for Deutsche Land. You're going to give us an alternative. Then instead going to the original. Yeah, absolutely. Why not vote for the original? I mean, you're basically taking their policies and you're saying, I'll implement their policies. So stick with me and vote for me.

Why would the voter do that? They can just say, I'll just go straight to the source. And you have more trust in them because they came up with these policies. Exactly. And how can you trust Merch that Merch is going to implement these policies when he becomes chancellor? How do you even believe him? Well, that's exactly right. I mean, that's the fundamental point because, I mean, the one party, the Aifte, looks like they really believe in all of this.

whereas everybody can see, everybody can see, that Mertz is acting entirely opportunistically. Now, the CDU and CSU, the union, as is often called, by the way, in Germany, is, as I said, the big establishment party in Germany, still has enormous roots within German society. Probably it's going to hold together and will emerge as the largest block at the end of the day. But I think this is a mistake. I think this isn't kind of work the Merck's. And I think that it's difficult to see what he could have done that would have worked for him.

But you're quite right. He's not a politically skilled leader. If you've been following German politics as long as I have, throughout, you know, Merkel's long years, You heard these stories about, you know, the CDU's great lost leader, Friedrich Merckz, the man who was going to take the CDU to the right, who was always critical of Merkel's immobilism and all of this. They're not really said anything, but people astubed this was the case. And that when Merkel left the scene, this lost leader would finally come.

And we'd, you know, suddenly. Suddenly he would revitalize the CDU and electrify German politics and all of this. And I think one of the great revelations is that Germany's lost leader never existed. I mean, he is, as you absolutely rightly say, a zero. And he does most definitely want to be Chancellor, but he's looking scared. I mean, this latest manoeuvre that he did in the Bundestag, what it can conveys, I think, to voters is that he is scared. Never a good position for a man who wants to be Chancellor to, you know, to project. But that's what it is. He is not a strong leader. He has no real

ideas of how to take Germany forward. He's got no charisma and he doesn't connect well with Germany society. Bear in mind, we're talking about the Christian Democratic Union, the CDU, and the Christian social union. And this parliamentary maneuver that he's just done has created conflict between the CDU CSU and the German churches, which are very liberal, by the way, in Germany, but which have always been a major support for the CDU CSU. So, I mean, again, not a good position for a CDU leader to be in conflict with the churches in German for obvious reasons. Mertz, desperation and fear. He looked scared and he looked really desperate.

And no one likes to see desperation in their leaders. No. That's a bad look. Exactly. Whereas they see Vidal and she's exuding confidence. An ability, dynamism, and energy. And that does play a role in politics. I mean, nobody should think that it doesn't.

I mean, we've had the proof of that in the United States. With the right of Donald Trump, energy and a drive and charisma and a sense that this is somebody who knows their mind and has an idea, a sense of direction and wants to get things done. Well, that does carry traction in any society, in any democratic politics. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, they've got a platform. Whether you agree with it or not, they have something different. Yes, yes. Where it seems to me that the CDU, the CDU, CSU, they're just basically, they're

Olysholtz on steroids. All the policies of this Schultz Green Light coalition that we've just seen, to me, the CDU just wants to take that and just amplify it by 20x. More sanctions on Russia, more escalation, more cutting off of energy, more and more and more of everything. More globalism, more of it, more of all of it. That was his mistake. I mean, if merch from the beginning said, I'm going to offer you something different. In other words, I'm going to remove the sanctions against Russia. I'm going to look to make energy cheaper.

I don't know, offer something different. Then he would have had something. But he did it. He followed Schultz and he just amplified everything Schultz said. He said, I'm just going to do more. He's going to do more of what this guy's doing. And Schultz is a loser. And we've seen it.

Yes. Exactly. I mean, the extraordinary thing about this parliamentary debate, by the way, is that it made Schultz look more convincing than mouse. I mean, Schultz put on a better. performance, a better parliamentary performance that Mouths did. Now, given how Germans feel about Schultz and Schultz's own problems with personality and charisma and all of those things, that is already quite an achievement action.

To be outdone by Schultz, that's pretty embarrassing. Pretty absolutely. Now, as I said, I mean, we need to always add the qualifier. There's weeks to go before the election. A lot can happen. We're talking about Germany after all. There's the police agencies, the security services, they're going to probably publish reports about the IFDA. There's going to be attempts to involve IFDE people in scandals, all that kind of thing. So, you know, this isn't over and it's still weeks away from being over, but the IFDA has the momentum. Vidal is making the political weather. Vidal is making the political weather. And we can see how that is playing out every day in the election and with every day that passes the chances of the political establishment

in Germany, which looks, by the way, completely incompetent and out of touch, is, I mean, obviously it reduces. And we shouldn't ignore also that there is, as I said, a parent. a gathering storm on the left as well, with the rise of the BSW and even the link suddenly reviving, which was a bit of a surprise. All right. We will end the video there at the durad.orgas.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, butchew, Telegram, Rockfin. Next, go to the Duran Shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update.

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