What Comes After Angela?
There is now much hand-wringing amongst the world's Obama-era liberals, who fear what kind of Germany and European Union (EU) might emerge after Angela Merkel leaves office in 2021. After the Hesse election results gave her three poor electoral showings in a row, the poor old gal finally had seen enough. As you will read, Germany's anti-Merkel movement is not the second coming of the brown shirts and Nazism. The bigger issue is who will keep the EU from falling apart?
I will miss Merkel in some odd way. She is a baby boomer, but grew up in East Germany during the Cold War. She was Germany's first female Chancellor (in 2005), but willed Germany from the socialist hold of the SPD-Green coalition. That center-right Merkel was pro-market, anti-union, and favored strong ties with the USA. I watched with curiosity the long, strange trip she made from conservative German chancellor to head cheerleader for the world's globalist institutions (such as the EU and the Paris Conference on Climate).
Ms. Merkel should be a lesson to the democratically elected leaders in advanced nations. Perhaps it was too much EU and UN Koolaid, but Merkel confused globalism with liberalism and became an agent for anarcho-globalism: which is what results when too much multilateralism and foreign influence disrupt the economic and cultural constructs of a country. Like many western leaders, Merkel forgot what got her elected in her sprint onto the world stage (and the cover of Time magazine). Ultimately, her success on the world stage did not help working-class and tax-paying Germans once their economy slowed.
Charity begins at home is an old saying because it has stood the test of time. Ms. Merkel forgot this truism when she discontinued the EU regulations for asylum seekers, admitting over a million refugees from Syria into Germany. In doing so, she signed her own political death certificate. Polling showed the average German was happy with his or her life before the sudden implant of a million jobless Muslims into the republic. Afterwards, Merkel's unilateral decision was an over-reach that left German's shaking their heads over her or shaking their fists at her.
As Merkel and the EU faltered, the German electorate shifted right. The liberal idiocracy is now worried the far-right AFD (Alternative for Deutschland) party is the second coming of the Third Reich. Wrong! Such talk is a smear upon today's German society, and trivializes the war-mongering of Hitler and ethnic-cleansing by the Nazis. In truth, there are more plausible explanations for the AFD's sudden popularity amongst native-born Germans; such as concerns for their neighborhoods, the quality of their local schools, the burden on their healthcare system, and the impact upon their economy.
In his book Arrogant Armies, James Perry provides countless lessons of how the "little guy" suffers the mistakes of arrogant leaders, who decide in the relative comfort and safety of headquarters. And - just like the common foot soldier - the man on the street faces threats and problems up close and personal. This is why I refuse to disparage the little guy in Munich who feels his neighborhood is less "neighborly" because of poorly assimilated foreigners. Furthermore, modern Germans know their export-driven economy has benefitted from globalism and understand real nationalism would force Germany to go it alone. Bottom line: Germany will elect a centrist leader that accommodates the forgotten man and woman, and Germans will not be seen goose-stepping in Potsdamer Platz.
The bigger issue is the legacy of Merkel's EU leadership, which treated the European Union as anything but a union. Because of Germany’s strong balance sheet and large trade surplus, Merkel acted as EU empress, imposing German solutions where they weren't wanted (and not necessarily needed). For example, Germany forced the EU to bully Greece into fiscal austerity when that country’s debt became a “common market” and “common currency” problem. This was a draconian measure compared to the pre-EU days, when Greece would have de-valued its currency and repaid lenders with cheap Drachmas. With such a free-market measure, Greece would have lowered the costs of Greek exports and protected its domestic manufacturers from imports. That is how a free market works (and how South America has avoided economic collapse time and again).
However, as a member of the EU, Greece was stuck with a common currency (the Euro) because Germany and France (the de facto EU leaders) knew a return to the Drachma would force German and French banks to write down their Greek loans (something large American banks do all the time). Above all, Germany did not want Greece to become the low-cost point of entry for American and Japanese companies to produce goods to sell duty-free into the "common market."
These backstories are true, and Germany (above all) has benefitted from the Euro, which reduced the cost of German exports by 30% (source: IMF). German dominance has not been lost upon other European nations. Nation after nation has pulled away from a Merkel-dominated EU. A cross-party report from Greece now says Germany owes Greece 299 billion Euros for the WW II occupation. Polish President Duda has alerted Berlin his country expects to be compensated for the Nazis reducing Warsaw to rubble. Turkey has voted to become a more-devout Islamic state. In Italy, the conservative Five Star and Lega political parties have campaigned against Merkel - and are refusing further EU-imposed austerity measures. Great Britain has voted to leave the EU altogether.
Merkel-era multilateralism and globalism are now anachronisms in a civilized world that is threatened by Chinese economic hegemony and Iranian-backed Islamic extremism. As proof, Italy (Salvini), America (Trump), and Brazil (Bolsonaro) elected conservative nationists, who promised to put their people first. The EU must re-define what a future "union" should be. EU life after Mutti Merkel ("mutti" is German for "mom") will certainly include more flexibility and more input from its dissatisfied members. Obviously, a common market is a good thing. The common currency and single-nation dominance? Not so much.