Never going to happen. Even if somehow the AfD were to form a government they wouldn't do it. The financial interests of the big German bourgeoisie are too tied up in the EU project. Germany is not in the same position as the UK was to be able to at least somewhat disentangle itself from the EU, and Brexit was already a huge clusterfuck, but at least the UK still had its own currency. Germany has no alternative to the EU, and also it profits immensely from exploiting the peripheral EU nations. And the US would never allow it. The EU is too valuable a tool for the Washington neocons and their atlanticist acolytes in Brussels to control Europe. This is empty populist rhetoric for the AfD's petty bourgeois base. They talk a big game but at the end of the day i guarantee you they are also beholden to the US.
The most they would do if they got into power is pull the same bait and switch that Italy's fascists did. They will implement all of the xenophobic policies and none of the populist ones they ran on, and they will crank up the neoliberalism while staying loyal NATO imperialist footsoldiers in foreign policy.
I think the bigger picture here is that nationalist ideas are starting to take hold, not just in Germany but all across Europe. AfD is obviously not going to solve any of the problems, but that's just going to further radicalize the public. People are seeing their standard of living collapsing, and they're starting to connect it to the fact that their countries have become vassals of the US, and that the government isn't working in the interest of the public. I expect that at some point this will lead to mass civil unrest and rejection of Atlanticism.
I disagree that Germany doesn't have any alternative to EU. They could join BRICS and start getting cheap energy from Russia again. I think there will be a massive push for doing that. Germany can do exactly the same thing that Russia did and reorient its economy towards the east. There's going to be a huge amount of development along the BRI as well, and that's where economic growth will be happening going forward. It might seem unthinkable for Germany to pivot towards the east, but it was equally unthinkable that Russia would do that just a few years ago.
I disagree that Germany doesn't have any alternative to EU. They could join BRICS and start getting cheap energy from Russia again.
How is this ever going to happen?
Germany has lost its only chance at energy sovereignty after the Nord Stream bombing, its military is barely functional and reliant completely on the US, and the austerity in 2024 budget is going to extinguish any hope of an economic recovery in Germany, at least for the decade if not longer.
Germany’s position is far more precarious than what many people think. Imagine the US cuts off energy supply to Germany, we’re talking about a severe energy crisis with unmitigated economic consequences that will wreck Germany for generations. The US now solely decides what Germany can do.
What’s going to happen in Germany is that deindustrialization and poor economic prospects will be accompanied by the rise of fascism, all of which will destabilize the European economic region and leading to mass emigration/brain drain as people, especially young professionals and highly skilled workers, are looking for way out. Most of them will end up in the US as cheap labor competing with domestic workers to drive wages to the bottom. Exactly what the US capitalists wanted.
This is just shock therapy in action. It was what the EU (and the US) did to the post-Soviet states after the collapse, and the US is doing the same to the EU today.
Only one of the two pipelines has been blown up, the other is perfectly functional right now. German government is just choosing not to use it. I do agree that Germany is in a very precarious situation right now, but it's purely for political reasons. I expect that the current government will get kicked out, and the new government will either make a deal with Russia to resume using Nord Stream or there are gonna be riots.
3 out the 4 pipelines were blown up. And you’re assuming the US won’t just bomb the last one away when needed.
The bombing itself was a warning and a threat. Germany understands this. Whoever gets into the government understands this reality.
Millions more will riot if the US stops supplying energy to Germany. We’re talking about societal collapse here. Nothing functions when you don’t have fuel and energy.
I think the bombing was a one time deal and relied on having a puppet government in power. Incidentally, this might yet come back to bite them in the ass, if a new government comes into power and declassifies the docs that the current government is keeping from the public. If Germany has a government that wants to restore relations with Russia and US bombs their infrastructure, that's not gonna turn out well.
Meanwhile, current energy supply situation is already unsustainable as it is. US is simply unable to supply sufficient LNG to Germany, and the cost of LNG is an order of magnitude higher than pipeline gas. Germany is deindustrializing as we speak, and I'd argue societal collapse is inevitable unless Germany can start getting pipeline gas from Russia again. The whole economy was predicated on having cheap pipeline gas, and it's now collapsing without it. There is nothing US can do to fix that.
I think the bombing was a one time deal and relied on having a puppet government in power.
If they didn't had approval from whoever's national waters this happened in, the US definitely couldn't have pulled it of. We tend to forget it because of how far the US has managed to project their power but the reason they managed to project their power so far is not because every other country was powerless to stop them but because almost every country that could do something to stop them not only conciously let them but actively helped them because they had their government filled with US vassals.
Germany is deindustrializing as we speak, and I’d argue societal collapse is inevitable unless Germany can start getting pipeline gas from Russia again. The whole economy was predicated on having cheap pipeline gas, and it’s now collapsing without it. There is nothing US can do to fix that.
I think we should expect a rising contradiction between the large European capitalists who have the means to relocate to the US and the Petty bourgeois who will be forced to do with whatever state the European economy is in but I'm not sure. If I'm right then we will probably see the Petty bourgeois form movements that actualy seek to cut ties with the US.
Right, and I do think that the fact that German government colluded with the US to blow up German infrastructure will eventually come out, and that will have long term repercussions in Germany. Such a revelation will make a lot of people understand that Germany isn't sovereign and that they've been vassalized by the US. It could be a catalyst for Germany to actually start becoming sovereign.
I do think we'll see a contradiction between global capital and smaller local bourgeoisie as well. I think another big factor will be the working class. As jobs move out of Germany we'll see a huge wave of unemployment and disenfranchisement. The local bourgeoisie will see this as an opportunity and will likely align with the workers against the large capitalists. They will realize that if large capitalists can be kicked out that would open up business niches that can be filled locally.
As jobs move out of Germany we’ll see a huge wave of unemployment and disenfranchisement.
I can totally see Germans going to gastarbeit to Poland and schadenfreude flooding everything here.
I do think we’ll see a contradiction between global capital and smaller local bourgeoisie as well. I think another big factor will be the working class. As jobs move out of Germany we’ll see a huge wave of unemployment and disenfranchisement. The local bourgeoisie will see this as an opportunity and will likely align with the workers against the large capitalists. They will realize that if large capitalists can be kicked out that would open up business niches that can be filled locally.
At that time we(communists)'ll need to be there to critically support the bourgeois class traitors. True German communist parties need to get to work right now and be ready by then.
Indeed, Germany clawing back its sovereignty from US is a prerequisite for having an independent domestic policy. Communism is simply never going to be an option while Germany is a vassal of the US.
I hope you're right about the possibility of realignment but i am more pessimistic than you are about the chance of a government coming to power that will change course. Maybe as i'm living in Germany i can't see the forest for the trees, but i can't see any path toward another government that won't behave just like this one.
Sure the SPD and Greens will lose the next elections, but who will win? Likely the CDU because they are the only alternative. They are who the pendulum swings back to as the default other choice when the SPD fucks up, and vice versa. They will then have to form another coalition government because they will not have a majority and chances are they will still pick one or more of the current government's parties, because i don't think that anyone will want to be seen entering into coalition with the AfD.
Even if the AfD won the elections they likely wouldn't be able to form a government for this same reason. They have been successfully demonized by the media so that most Germans now see them as beyond the acceptable spectrum of political positions (as they should be, as they have a very xenophobic platform and a lot of "ex-"neo-Nazis in their ranks...the problem is that the "mainstream" parties are also full of Nazi sympathizers as the Ukraine conflict has shown) so we would still get the same mainstream parties in power.
I see no mainstream political force in Germany that wants to reverse the energy break with Russia, the Left party has essentially collapsed, the AfD will likely be kept at all costs from entering government and there is even talk of a ban on the entire party (too late if you ask me), and Sahra Wagenknecht's new party is just getting started and we have no idea whether they will actually be able to get any significant amount of votes, and even if they do, it won't be a majority so then they are in the same position as the AfD of needing coalition partners but being essentially shunned by the rest as they will be painted as "Putin puppets".
And i hope that Wagenknecht will not consider joining forces with the AfD because that is just a very terrible and disgusting thought, and i don't trust the AfD to not go the Meloni route anyway. So overall i don't see the mainstream parties, CDU, SPD, Greens and FDP, losing their stranglehold on German politics and government.
I generally agree with your assessment in the near term. However, the establishment has no solutions to the problems they created, and that means that material conditions will continue to decline. That will be the main radicalizing force in my opinion. When push comes to shove people will care about being able to pay their bills and put food on the table more than any ideology. From what I've read, it seems that Germany doesn't really have an alternative to Russian energy because LNG is far more expensive, and it simply can't be delivered in the same volume as pipeline gas. So, the only way to stop the collapse of the economy will be to start normalizing relations with Russia. The alternative is going to be mass unemployment, and mass radicalization.
Unfortunately, I do expect that things will get worse before they get better. It's going to take a critical mass of disenfranchised people to break away from the current political mainstream ans start charting a new course.
nationalist ideas are starting to take hold, not just in Germany but all across Europe.
The strategic weakness of using faux-patriotism to maintain pro US egemony in European governments is that at some point the nationalist voterbase this technic relies on is going to realize that the politicies of the European "nationalist" parties benefit the US far more than their own country.
but that’s just going to further radicalize the public
I think that, unfortunately, worker power doesn't form as a reaction to bourgeois power, it stems from its crumbling. If the "worst rightwing regime=more revolution" was this simple then the whole West Germany debacle couldn't have happened after Nazism. The US wouldn't arm the worst military dictators but rather milquetoast socdems.
That said I share your optimism.
Leaving the EU would put Germany in a long term crisis of bourgeois economic power that could end up strengthening the worker's aspirations. Just like the UK where the bourgeoisie shot itself in the foot with their reactionary nationalism combined with idiotic libertarian economics (because yeah they were complaining about EU regulations that are the only reason it's not a shithole like the US)
I agree that revolution doesn't just fall out from declining conditions on its own. Declining conditions create the potential because people start losing faith in the existing system and become open to fresh ideas. It's the job of the communists to educate these people and set them on the right course. There will be a lot of hard work needed to build a principled worker movement in Germany.
You haven't felt schadenfreude until you've experienced it in the original German.
Gexit could be very popular. Scholz and SPD have sold Germany to Americans without any reluctance or remorse. Any German who can rub two brain cells together has to be pissed about that.
This would never succeed. Pretty sure the UK is the only EU country that's polled anywhere close to 50% pro-leave
In the most recent German poll I could find (a few months back, when AfD was polling at similar numbers), only 10% of Germans wanted to leave the EU (and 42% of AfD supporters)
Btw, am I the only feeling the media giving AfD all this attention is having a 2015 Trump effect? My German friends tell me AfD supporters just shout "fake news" at everything, particularly at the mass deportation story. I saw some messages and they were like, "the mainstream media lies, the meeting was between random irrelevants," "Alice Weidel says immigrant citizens are as German as the rest of us," "the AfD only wants to deport illegals and criminals." Sounds extremely familiar, only I think Weidel is a more competent fascist and better at putting a mask on then Trump?
It's very much a similar dynamic to MAGA in US. Neoliberal policies are resulting in a rapidly declining standard of living, people are becoming angry and disillusioned in the mainstream politics. Right wing opportunists come in and start criticizing liberal policies, which resonates with people because the criticisms are often legitimate. People see that somebody is actually voicing their concerns out loud and they jump on the wagon.
In a sense, right wingers are more politically developed than mainstream liberals because they are able to correctly identify legitimate problems. They don't shy away from talking about declining material conditions, corporate profiteering, and so on. The problem of course is that their solutions are bonkers. They will promote ideas like having less government, getting rid of immigrants, and so on. Unfortunately, these tropes fit in relatively well with the capitalist propaganda people have been fed.
The problem for the left is that we require people to rethink a lot of their base assumptions about how capitalism works, and that's a much bigger ask. Hence why the right tends to grow a lot more rapidly than the left.
