The Duran Podcast - Merz Failed Platform of War and Deindustrialization

Episode Date: September 13, 2026

Merz Failed Platform of War and Deindustrialization

All right, Alexander, we are a couple of days removed from the Saxony-en-Holt elections in Germany, where we saw the AFDE win around 44% of the vote. And we can discuss Mertz, Mertz in the CDU and his position in the CDU, his position as chancellor. There are rumors that I haven't been able to confirm this, that Mertz was going to take a call with Trump, and he canceled the call. Mertz canceled the call with Trump. because Trump posted on true social about the victory. He was happy about the victory with Aifde in Saxony-Anhalt.

It sounds like something Mertz would do. But anyway, Mertz is saying that he's going to stick around. He's not going anywhere. How do you see things unfolding? Well, I'm going to say firstly a few things about Matt himself. I mean, firstly, he says he's going to stick around. He's going to remain chancellor. And secondly, he's going to continue doing all the same thing.

that he's been doing before, which were what caused the results in Saxon and Hath, and are causing the collapse in popularity of the CDU, and which explain why the IFDA is now leading in the opinion polls, in every single opinion poll that I've seen, not just in Eastern Germany, but now in Western Germany as well. It is truly extraordinary. And if we're talking about mouths himself, well, the first thing to say is he is obviously a dead man walking. I mean, I know that sounds a dramatic thing to say, especially about Germany. Germany makes it very, very difficult to change chancellors. The Germans don't generally do that. I mean, usually if somebody becomes

Chancellor, they're there throughout their term. I think this is such a bad Chancellor, such a peculiarly, eccentrically bad Chancellor that he is undermining his own position within the CDU rapidly. And I think his authority is draining away. I think this is Stama Mark two. in the sense that it's now happening in Germany, though even more dramatically. I think that Mets, his chancellor is going to be increasingly, chancellor in name only.

I think he's going to find it increasingly difficult to implement any kind of policies in Germany himself. And I think the events over the last few days, his reaction to the Saxon-unhaled vote was the worst possible. And his performance in the Bundestag, by the way, there was a debate when he was up against Alice Vidal. His performance in that Bundestag debate was calamitous.

Whereas I have to say this also, I mean, Alice Vidal, I know that she has her critics. But, I mean, she is so much more authoritative. and intellectually competent than he is, that the contrast, at least to me, from a distance, seemed almost painful. Now, can I just say, not just Merz, the entire German establishment has played the result in Saxon-unhaled completely wrong. They've made it sound immensely dramatic. You know, the IFTA is surging that it is this unstoppable force that Sachsen unhulth proves that the entire political class in Germany, the whole political system in Germany

is now in crisis. What they don't get is that the people of Germany are very disillusioned and angry with the political class. If they hear that Saxon-un-un-Hulth is a step towards, the fall of the entire political class in Germany, that is going to make them happy. So it is going to increase support for the IFD, not reduce it. A much, much cleverer, politically more sophisticated policy would have been to say, well, Saxon Unhelp is a small state. It's only got two million people. A lot of the population there are old.

Much of it is rural. It's untypical of Germany. It only accounts for 2% of GDP. Let's not get over excited about this. We are the government in Berlin. We have a strategy. We have a policy. We will get Germany through.

This is a small event. And let's not become obsessed and distracted by it. That is what Helmut Schmidt would have done. That is what Helmut Schmitt would. have done. That is what chancellors of the past would have done. Instead, Meertz is busy creating a crisis around his own government and in terms of his own position as chancellor. It is extraordinary. And I have to say from a distance, not obviously for people in Germany, from a distance, it is almost funny to watch. It's very funny to watch. Absolutely. They did it to themselves.

They're their whole little firewall and their secret little agreements. We're never going to go into government with the IFD and we're going to create this pinky swear agreement amongst ourselves. Just so stupid. It's so childish. They're like a bunch of kindergarten kids. All of them, CDU, the Greens, the SPD. They all look foolish and stupid. That's how they look.

They've made the IFDA look like the only adults in the room. Yeah. Because they are. Which they are indeed in terms of. Well, certainly Alice Vidal does come across that way. And some of the other people in the idea, I have to have some very clever people. Anyway, but they've given the opposite impression to the one I think they set out to do. They have accelerated the collapse of this government.

I think this, I don't know how it's going to happen because in Germany it is very difficult for constant. coalitions to fall apart, though it does happen. But my own view is that it is unlikely to last another year, just saying. It could be very drawn out, but we might start to see diffractions from the CDU to the IFDFTA. It's not impossible. I mean, before I would have said it was impossible. Now I think it is becoming possible. And I think we're going to start to see a groundswell of support for the eye of debt in all sorts of places. Possibly, and this is, I think, something to mention, not so much in this election that's also happening in Mecklenburg for Pomen in northern eastern Germany, because East Germany is divided between north and south.

South has always tended to be much more conservative. The north tends to be much more left wing traditionally. And Mecklenburg-Fort-Pomen is a more difficult place for the IF dare to win. But then again, it was the place where one of the spurs of the Nord Stream pipeline. lines were supposed to go. So they're apparently very angry about that. They're probably very angry about the fact that it was blown up there. And looking at the situation in Germany today, I would not be surprised if the voters even there were to say, well, enough, enough, we need an actual government, a real chancellor in Berlin, somebody who can actually do the right things that Germany

needs. And that's, I think, the other thing to say. I mean, the IFDA, what they're saying, we need the gas for Russia. We need peace in Europe. We need to rethink the whole policy on nuclear power, dismantling all those nuclear power stations was a disastrous mistake. We need to rethink all of that. We need to start changing, shifting that policy. I've actually seen opinion polls and they were very interesting because what they showed was that in many places across Germany where the IFDA is strong, it is not questions of immigration that are the biggest vote winner for the IFDA. In many places, immigration is the biggest vote winner.

But not everywhere. Across Germany, questions of war and peace matter a great deal to German voters. And, of course, the overall situation in the economy is the priority for everyone. And on these issues, what the IFDA is saying makes sense. And because it makes sense, it's gaining traction. That's the problem that Merch has. That's the problem that the coalition that governs Germany has, is that their platform, their policy, if you even want to call it that, is built on war.

They want a war with Russia by 2030, or at least that's what they're telegraphing, prepare for war with Russia by 2030, and it's a policy of deindustrialization. How can you win elections with that type of platform? It's ridiculous, but that's what they're going with. Exactly, exactly. That is what they tell the German people, and they actually believe that the German people are going to be okay with that. Absolutely.

So our platform, citizens of Germany, is that we're going to take you to war by 2030 and we're going to hollow out all of the German industry and we're going to pour whatever money we do have into the military industrial complex. Now vote for us. Exactly. It's beyond stupid, but these people are not, they're not clever.

They're definitely not clever. They're not pragmatic. They're not rational. No. They don't have zero leadership skills. But what they are is, ideologically driven and obsessed with destroying Russia and Project Ukraine. And that is why they have zero chance of going up against any party, any party that came

along and just put together a simple coherence, a policy and strategy for Germany is going to win. Exactly. Exactly. Anyway, it's important not to be over optimistic because there's a long way to go. There's also the problem with Brussels. But just to make one observation, Germany, you can make lots of criticisms of the country, but if you're talking about an opposition, a resistance to the drift of policies that have brought Europe to disaster,

it's in Germany that it has happened. It's not happened in Britain. It's happened to a much lesser extent in France where you would expect it to happen. It's happened to only a very disappointing degree in Italy. It is in Germany, it is in Germany where a disciplined, well, here in organized political movement that is winning support, that is committed to these policies, and that has produced an effective leader has emerged and is gaining support. amongst the wider population.

So, I mean, it's a point I think that is worth making. But all of the points that you made are exactly right. I was in Germany, as you know, recently. I spent a lot of time with young people there. They do not want to be drawn into a war. They are not attracted to this whole nonsense. Deindustrialization is a shock for many people. in Germany. It goes totally contrary to the culture, the very deep rooted culture in Germany,

which is about making things, about engineering prowess, about all of these things. These are the things that Germany took, was good at and took great pride in doing well. People don't like the fact that their cities are becoming dirty and disdainting. organized. Germany was always clean, orderly, functional, efficient. The IFDA to some extent, well, the IFTA says it stands for all of those things. What do they get from Merz and all of the other parties? War to industrialization. And I have to say it, hysteria. Yeah. I mean, look, there are many, many question marks with the AFTA and a lot of people are doubting if the Avede is for real.

Yeah. Including myself, we'll see. If they do come to power, we'll see. We'll see. You know, we've covered Farage, we've covered Maloney, we've covered Le Pen. Who knows? Who knows? I remember Cyprus from the left side of things. Cipras in Greece. He said. said a lot of the right things. It took them 24 hours to become an Uber globalist. Yes. 24 hours, tops. One trip to Brussels, he came back and he was as globalist as, as, as Ursula or Kayakalas. Absolutely. Right. So I mean, you don't know. Yeah. Until they get into power. No. But they are saying a lot of the, the right things. One final question. The EU is now saying that, or there are reports from German media, which claim that the EU is going to implement many of the tools that it implemented against Hungary and against Poland when it comes to Saxony and Anhalt, which is that they're going to restrict money and funds that are earmarked for that region in Germany because of the rise of the AFD in order to punish the economy and force the,

the citizens of Germany to rethink their vote, right? Exactly what they did to Orban and exactly what they what they've done to Poland as well. Well, of course they are. Of course, of course, they're going to do that. I mean, that is what Ursula does. That is what the European Union has become. I mean, it's going to use its tools. What you always refer to there's that comment that Osilla used to Maloney. We've got our tools. And of course, they're going to use those tools. And they're going to use those against the people, people are Saxon, unhurt, and they will try to use them in Germany as well. But of course, this is a more dangerous game with Germany, because Germany accounts for 40%

of the EU's GDP. It is its economic heartland, its economic powerhouse. Remember, the European Central Bank is located in Frankfurt. So, you know, play this game. in Germany is far more risky than doing it in a little place like Hungary or in place like Poland or in Italy before or in Greece. If you start doing those kind of things in Germany, then, I mean, especially given the anger that there is already in Germany, which is building up across Germany, what this could

do is it could strengthen the IFTA. and the IFDA is already saying that its policy will be to leave the euro, just to say. By the way, coming back to what you said about what the IFDA wants to do if it becomes a government, if they want my advice, I would give it now. If you become the government, do all of those things that you said and do them fast. I mean, don't take an incremental approach. Tell the Bundestag to bring back the Deutschemark immediately. Call Putin the day after you become Chancellor.

Alice Vidal becomes Chancellor. Try and set up a meeting with him. Get the gas. We'll find out firstly of whether You can actually send gas through the one pipeline that's still functioning. Act fast because if you delay, that only gives Ursula and her loyal allies in Germany time to organize. And she and they will. Take the tools out of their hands.

Wow. Yeah. Great way to end the video. Let's call it there. The durand.com. We're on X. We're on Rumble. We are also on Telegram. Go to Durant Shop, pick up some merch, and look for us on Substack. Those links with the description box down below. Take care.