The Duran Podcast - Will a Merkel Return Halt AfD Momentum?

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

Will a Merkel Return Halt AfD Momentum?

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in Germany. Let's talk about what is happening with the AFD, the rise of the AFTA. The AFTA poised to become the number one party in Germany, if it's not already the number one party in some regions in Germany, in many regions in Germany, in Germany, in many regions in Germany, in Germany, in the panic that this is causing with the globalist establishment in Germany and outside of Germany in Brussels, the halls of power of the European Union. is also starting to freak out. What's the situation with the AFDE? I think the word panic that you've just used is essentially correct. I think that there is growing dismay amongst exactly the people that you said, that the IFDA tide seems to just go on rising, despite everything that can be thrown at it. and they've thrown many, many things at it. And despite some of the IFDA's internal weaknesses,

which are still there, but which under pressure are becoming less as the party itself, the IIFDA, gradually becomes more discipline. Now, what I think is alarmed all of the people that you've just said, is that even as the IFDA gets stronger, it is not showing any sign of moderating its underlying positions. So it's not like, you know, the Maloney movement in Italy, Le Pen in France,

people who start out saying very radical things, and then the closer they come to power, they gradually moderate their positions so that they become accepted to the establishment and win over as they believe moderate voters. The IFTA has taken the diametrically opposite course. It has stuck to its positions and is going out of its way instead to campaign on them and to win people over. And it is having increasing success in doing so.

And some of these positions for the Europeans, European leadership, the EU leadership, the EU centre, the Berlin establishment, the globalists, all of those people. I mean, they are absolutely profoundly shocking. I mean, they say that there must be a rapprochement with Russia. They are openly criticizing the decision to stop importing Russian energy. Alice Vidal is saying that the loss of cheap Russian energy, and energy, deprived German industry of its competitiveness. Now, that is absolute heresy in Germany. The problem is it is also true, and many, many Germans can see that. There's the further worry that over the next few months, this situation in Germany is going to get worse economically.

And we did a recent program about this, the fact that the gas reserves are exceptionally low, that there's been no proper preparation so far as I can see for the winter, that the situation in the oil markets remains extremely tense, that LNG is not flowing to Germany in the quantities that the establishment, the German political establishment wanted and expected. And lastly, there is the sense that the Chancellor himself, Friedrich Mertz, has turned out. out to be a total dud, as we discussed in the program that we recently did when we were together in Chattanooga. So all of these things are coming together and there is now panic. And it is centering on these two elections into East German lander. Saxon-Halt, which is in the towards the

southern end of the former East Germany. And Mecklenburg, for Pormann, which is in the north. Now, the important thing to understand is that these are, politically speaking, two very distinct regions. Southern East Germany, Thuringia and Saxon-Halt, have always tended to be fairly conservative, whereas northern eastern Germany, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Berlin itself,

have historically, and you know, this all where it goes all the way back to the 19th century, they've always leaned towards the left. So if we're talking about Sachs and Unhulled, my understanding is that there, the governing party in coalition, by the way, has been the CDU, whereas in the north in Mecklenburg for parliament, it is the SPD. The IFDA looks like it's going to take the lead in both of these lander in the elections. And in Saxon-Anhalt, they're starting to look like they're very close to winning a majority. In fact, the polling at the moment suggests that they will obtain a majority, in which case they will be able to form their first government in a East German lander.

Now, that is important, because it gives the IFDA representation in the upper house of the German parliament, the Bundest, where they have been weak. And of course, if they win a majority in Saxon-Anhalt, they're likely to start winning in more places, in other places in Eastern Germany. In Tewingen, which is nearby, there's no election coming up there, but, you know, if there's parliamentary elections, Turingen, which is even more conservative, more likely to go even further towards the IFTA than it already is.

And also they will probably start to make inroads, more inroads in-roads in-roads in working class and conservative areas in Western Germany, where they have been getting stronger. So there is a cumulative panic. And the result is that the German establishment is now pulling out every stop to try to get, to prevent the IFTA winning a majority, an outright majority in Saxonan health.

And they're throwing money at the election. apparently the Greens, who are an insignificant political force or have been an insignificant political force in this part of Germany, are spending one and a half million euros on their campaign. More, I believe, than the SPD and the CDU, just to say. They're trying to get 5% of the vote and therefore enough of a representation in the parliament, the local, the local, Lamthag, the parliament in Saxon-Anhalt. And the entire objective is not to prevent the IFDA emerging as the biggest party in Saxon-Halt, but to prevent the IFDA forming a majority government. If the IFDA wins a majority in Saxon-Halt, I think Germany is in political crisis.

And then the rumors that we've already been talking about, about METs having to step down, they will intensify, but they will also be a major intensification. I think of further demands for further political controls in Germany. And we will see the SPD renew its demands for the banning of the IFDA. Yeah, the globalists are calling in their, their green lackeys to try and stop. IFTA. I wonder how far Germany and the globalists are going to go with Afted?

Are they going to try to pull the Romania? Russia and TikTok, TikTok, meddling or whatever. You know they're going to try to pull that. Oh, absolutely. Well, of course they are. I think this is where I think we need to be very clear. I mean, I've been reading people say that if the IFDA

a majority in Saxon-Hulth and forms a government there. And I should say that in Saxon-Al-Unhalp, they are recognized by the BND, the German intelligence agencies, as they define them as an extremist party. So the IFDA are already under intense surveillance, I mean, on a scale unknown to any other party in Germany. I know people are saying if they win the majority and they form the government in Saxonanahal, the option of banning the IFTA disappears. I have to say, I think that's far too complacent.

I think that more likely than not, the demands to ban the IFTA are going to intensify, not lessen. No doubt there are enormous constitutional and legal obstacles. but we've seen already so many times now in Europe that constitutional and legal obstacles which we were told are insuperable are anything but. So personally, I think we're going to see an even greater intensification of attempts to suppress the IFDA in some form or other.

The problem is, of course, that if the IFDA is the most popular party in Germany, if it is attracting support, as it increasingly is, against amongst younger people and amongst working class voters, then banning the IFDAE does risk creating destabilisation in Germany itself. And here I'm going to say something, which I think is well established for German history, and which my friends in Germany tell me, is still true. The Germans are, as everybody knows, an intensely law-abiding, very orderly people.

They are not the sort of people to go out and protest until the moment when they do. When the Germans snap and become angry, they can become very, very angry. And then things can get extremely difficult and in ways that we shouldn't want to try to foresee. Maybe a better strategy for the globalists is to try and infiltrate Aevde from within, try to pull a Maloney. Instead of maybe going the Romania route, maybe go the Italy route or the Greece route, where they infiltrated like Syria. Well, they basically got Cyprus to just sign everything away. And that basically crushed the Greek spirit right there when Tsipras betrayed the mandate. that he had traveling to Brussels for the austerity.

Or a Maloney, like, you know, you go to Maloney like Ursula did, and you just tell Maloney we've got tools, and Momoni flipped instantly to the globalist club. Why not go that approach with Alice Vidal and go from within or just put pressure on Alice Vidal and say, look, we're not going to stop this tsunami. I mean, AFTA is rising. We're not going to be able to stop it, whatever we do.

Why risk? instability in Germany. Let's just go to crush the German people's spirit by taking the IFDA and turning them to our side. And there you go. I think they've been trying to do that all the time. I think they've been trying to do that for the last decade. And I think they're still trying to do it. I don't think that is slackened or slowed down. And of course, they've also been launching attacks against specific IFDAe populace. politicians and trying to create divisions within the IFTA. Up to now, what that has done is the opposite of what I think they were hoping it would do.

It has tended to make the IFTA, which is a very, very undisciplined party at the beginning, more disciplined and more coherent as it sort of came together under this kind of pressure. My own personal view is that the greatest risk the IFTA faces is that it wins in Saxon-Hulth. It wins in all sorts of places. Expectations of what it can do are then increased to enormous levels. And then arrangements are made for it to visibly fail so that it establishes a government in Saxon-Halt, but it finds that it can't run the local services efficiently that funding from Berlin dries up. Funding from Brussels, obviously, dries up.

In other words, the kind of operation that was used against Orban. Exactly. The Orban approach. The Orban approach. I think that is the greatest stage. danger for which worked. Which worked, exactly. But of course, the problem is that, you know, Hungary is a small place.

Germany is very, very big. Doing something like that in Germany, it might take time to succeed. And in the meantime, Germany is not as reliable, is not the reliable pillar, an anchor of the EU system as it has historically been. All right. So we have, just to sum up the video, we have the Romania approach, which could be used. We have the Italy-Greece approach, which I think is good because you have a party on the left, you have a party on the right, and they used that approach against Italy and Greece.

And you have the Orban approach. Which one do you think is most likely? Do you think the Orban approach is most likely? At the moment, that's that, that, it looks like that. But to repeat again, the Orban approach comes with problems because it is contentious and it takes time. And it creates significant instability along the way. But it would mean ceding power in some places to the IFDA. in order to let it fail. But in the meantime, the IFD may use that power in ways that the EU

centre and Berlin don't like. One thing I will say is that in the short term, if the IFD does win, a majority in Sachs and unhulled, I think the chances of mounts being forced to step down increase exponentially. I mean, he's been experimenting with taxes, property taxes. I don't know very, much about this, but this has been massively unpopular and has undermined he support further still amongst Germans, and apparently it's a massive subject in across Germany, and is undoubtedly contributing to this vote for the IFTA that we see developing in Saxon-Hulmah and Mecklenburg for Porman. And on top of all of that, you know, Mertz goes, is. instability within the CDU.

The CDU itself does not look in particularly good shape. There's no obvious successor to Mets, just to say. I mean, they could always find one. Yeah, they could close someone out. They're going to close someone up. But, you know, Mets, Mets had been around in German politics for a long time. There had been lots of stories about what a brilliant man he was and what a great politician he would be and what a shame it was that.

Merkel had pushed him out of German politics. And when he became leader of the CDU, there were wide expectations that he would be a strong and effective leader. As we know, it has turned out very much otherwise. But there is no one in the CDU that I'm aware of that has the kind of reputation that had been built around maths before MADS became leader. So the CDU has problems. The SPD has even bigger problems. The whole situation is very, very difficult. And one person who I've said this already, I suspect we will see if we do start

to get a crisis like that appear, Ms. Merkel. And there's apparently already talk that when Steinmeier, the current president, steps down that Merkel should replace him. You can see that she's been, you know, that she's starting to re-emerge. Exactly. God, God help us. Mirkel's return. Indeed.

Indeed. Indeed. The reason all of this is happening. Right? Yeah. Mirkel. All right. We'll end the video there at the durand.orgos.com.

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