The Duran Podcast - Scholz coalition shows signs of fracture

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

Scholz coalition shows signs of fracture

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Germany again. And we did a video on Germany a couple days ago. And here we are again talking about the coalition, Schultz and the Greens. And it looks like this coalition is running its course. Thank God, though, I'm worried what comes next. Anyway, what's the situation with Germany? Well, I mean, the coalition, the government is now, you know, state of

suspended collapse. If I can put it like that, suspended, because essentially, to all intensive purposes, my impression is that it isn't properly functioning as a government anymore.

Every part of it now hates every other part. So the FDP, which is the smallest party, the liberal Democrats, the free Democrats, who are in one of the old parties of Germany.

Anyway, they are now absolutely furious with the Greens. The Free Democrats disastrously in the elections in Bavaria and in Hesse. And there's question marks about whether the work, if there was a Bundestag election, they would even manage to get back into the Bundestag.

They might even fall below the 5% limit. So they're now furious with the Greens. They're saying that the Greens are leading Germany to disaster, that they've overreached. They're saying things that we were saying, almost right from the outset about this coalition, that the Greens are basically running the country. coalition, they've leveraged themselves into a position where they're basically dictating the agenda.

The Greens, of course, are hitting furiously back. They have also lost significant support in Germany, but, you know, they still have a chorus support that will follow them. And, of course, they're not going to change their policies because the free Democrats who they despise don't want to, you know, don't like what the Greens now stand for or are doing. Chancellor Schultz, you know, floats over all of this like a teddy bear that's three quarters asleep and really has no plan about what to do. And of course, the Social Democrats, which is the ruling party, supposedly, except that they're not. Anyway, they're now irretrievably split or so as far as I can see.

There's recriminations and anger within the SPD, even as that party also is collapsing and fading away. And we're now having opinion polls, which shows that rather unusually, the German public now wants this coalition to go, and they actually want new elections. Now, the second is rare. Generally, when there are governmental crises in Germany, what most people in Germany want is not new elections. They want, you know, a new reconstitution of the government, perhaps with different parties. This time, it seems they actually want. elections. So that gives you a sense of how profoundly disillusioned and angry with this government they've all become. But saying all of this doesn't mean that the collapse is going to happen

tomorrow because all three of these parties, the social democrats, the FDP and the Greens, know perfectly well that if there was an election tomorrow, they would all face wipe out, or at least wipe out in the case of the FTP, collapse in the case of the social Democrats who risk becoming a marginal party. And in the case of the Greens, well, they would be perhaps survive, but in a very reduced form. So none of them wants to see the coalition collapse, but all of them understand that they're now living on borrowed time.

And what that is doing is that it's making the one party within the coalition that retains some degree of coherence and some degree of discipline, which is the Greens, more aggressive still in pursuing their agenda, because they want to do as much as they possibly can and lock Germany into as much of their agenda as they can before it all comes crashing down. Yeah, they want to deindustrialize Germany as much as... possible for it all comes crashing down exactly exactly so it sounds like they're they're delaying the pain yes you know they're they're trying to to delay the inevitable yes by delaying it just gets worse and worse for for these parties except for the greens i imagine the greens have a like a

steady yeah um support i imagine you know their support is a pretty steady number maybe it fluctuates a little up maybe it fluctuates a little down but i imagine it's a steady steady level and it will probably always remain at that level. It's, it's just that the SPD allowed them into the government and that's where all the damage has been done. These people should be nowhere near the levers of power. That should be like a rule. I should be in the constitution of every country in the world. Never let Greens near the levers of power. Anyway, what do you think of? No, I think that, I mean, I think that the Greens in the last election got 15%, which, by the way, was less than many people expected. Many people expected

that they would emerge, some even thought they might emerge as the biggest party in Germany, and it didn't happen. And I think there's a ceiling beyond which the Greens can't rise. And of course, many people have never really taken to Beirbock, who would have been the Greens Chancellor if they had formed the government. Just think of that, by the way. But there's also a flaw beneath which they won't fall. I'm guessing 8 to 10%. They're not going to go below that. And that will be enough to keep them in the Bundestag.

And because they're quite strong in regional parliaments, they also retain a pretty strong position in the upper house of the German parliament, the Bundestag. So they are not facing, an existential crisis. The FDP arguably is. I mean, it's survived, it's had a difficult run for quite a long time. I suspect that if it falls out of the Bundestag this time, if it goes below the 5%. It might not come back. And I, you know, I've said this, you know, they have fallen below the

5% level in the past and they have come back. But, We're looking at a very different political situation in Germany now. So I think that they are in existential danger. And the SPD are getting weaker with every single passing week, so it seems to me. But that still means that that means that within this fracturing coalition, it's the Greens who can look forward with confidence because they know that even if the coalition collapses, even if they lose ground, they will still be there. So they still have a future before them as a party.

And exactly as you said, they want to press forward with their agenda. They're not going to moderate it in any way. They want to press forward with support for Ukraine. They want to increase immigration, migration into Germany easier. That is an enormously politically, you know, politically changed. subject. Most Germans want to see migration immigration into Germany reduced or even stopped. The Greens, on the contrary, want to facilitate it.

So they're actually taking steps to do that. They have their own agenda to replace boilers and all that kind of thing. They want that to happen. They've already managed to get the nuclear power stations all closed. And of course, they want continued support. for Ukraine. And Schultz and the social Democrats

don't seem to be in a position to say no. Now, what they could have done, and you're absolutely correct, the big mistake after the elections was that Schultz called them into the government and gave them the key posts. He gave them the Foreign

Ministry and he gave them the Economics Ministry. Looking back, that was a disastrous mistake. When the Greens were making those kind of demands, a more logical government, one which would have served Germany better, would have been some renewed grand coalition arrangement, the SPD, the Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats together, would have made a more stable and coherent government than the one with the Greens. But after the election, after the long years of Merkel's stagnation. That was politically impossible and that's why we are where we are.

A political, a leader with political strength and political statue, somebody like Helmut Schmidt or Vili Brandt or Gerhard Schroeder who led the social democrats in the past would never have allowed the Greens to run away with things. But Olaf Schultz was just not up to it. And there isn't anyone else in the SPD who is. Yeah. All of Schultz is weak and not very bright. But the final question, the IFDA continues to rise. It continues to rise, absolutely.

And of course, this is now becoming a danger. It's a long-term danger for the CDU at CSU as well, which is, of course, Merkel's party, which in the past was a right-wing party, but which, of course, Merkel shifted. significantly to the left, so that it became a kind of centrist party with many social democrat features. And of course, as a result, it lost definition. And Friedrich Mertz was expected to move it further to the right, but he hasn't really done that. And they're now facing

this challenge from the IFD, from the real right, if you like. And potentially that could grow. And this is the thing you see in politics, going back to that famous expression, which arises, by the way, from an event in Byzantine history. You know, in the kingdom of the blind, the politically blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the coalition, the one party that has retained focus,

which is the Greens, are capitalising on events, they're able to promote their agenda even more aggressively because their coalition partners are so weak and in German politics overall you see that the IFTA is rising. It's got problems,

but there are within it people who have a clear vision. It might not always be a vision when it's comfortable with or agree with. But it's a vision and it's one that it's going to attract more and more people in Germany. Unless, of course, the moves to ban the party begin to take hold. And that isn't impossible either. That's not going to be good either for Germany.

No, that's a disaster for Germany. It's a disaster for Germany. Yeah. All right. We will leave it there. The durand.orgals.com. We are in Rumble odyssey, bitch, shoot, telegram. Twitter X and Rock Finn and go to Durant Shop.

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