Why the far-right AfD will win this weekend's state-elections in Germany.
Let's make it blunt: Germany is clogged.
For all its policies that make Germany a great country, on a political level and party-level it's getting choked to death by the political establishment. And voters have taken notice for a long time.
And Yes, Angela Merkel is the political establishment. She's not only part of the problem, she's one of the worst.
In Germany, the real political power is not held by the voters. It's held by the parties.
* For example: The Chancellor is not elected by the voters. Instead, voters determine the makeup of the parliament. And THEN the members of parliament negotiate among themselves who's gonna be Chancellor.
* Recently, the people in several minister-positions have been switched out. Who are these new ministers? What makes them qualified? Their only qualification is that their ascension to these positions benefits the intra-party and inter-party power-play.
* The mainstream-media and the german parties have their own little arrangements, where the media doesn't ask the real questions and gets to keep their access to the insulated circles of power.
Every single decision of who gets which position is made with the calculation of how this influences the petty feuds and power-struggles.
"Okay, so the power is really held by the parties. Now all I have to do is to join a party and I can shake up the system from within!"
Not so fast. Personal engagement in german parties starts in the teenage-years for some people. You will have to put in the man-hours for many, many years and prove your loyalty to party over anything else over and over again. Only THEN will the party agree to help you with your political ambitions.
This applies to all major parties in Germany, be it the CDU, SPD, FDP, Greens or Left.
Young people have taken notice. Official party-membership is aging and shrinking for ALL german parties. The parties are bycantine systems full of unnecessary power-plays and painstakingly slow procedures. Young people have no interest to work their asses off for a party that slows them down at every turn.
The german voters have realized this more than 10 years ago, when the far-left party "The Left" was founded.
The Left is a far-left party. It was a new party! It was fresh and bold! For oh so many years The Left was THE protest-party. If you're against the system, vote Left.
Then it turned out that even The Left can't shake up the system. Their big promises to hold the government accountable fizzled away. Having a pie-in-the-sky program and internal drama didn't help either.
Then the AfD came. The AfD is a pure right-wing ant-immigrant party. But it's a new party. It's fresh and bold. If you're against the system, vote AfD.
And so people vote AfD.
The german voters know that the AfD are racist assholes, but they are willing to overlook this for the chance to spite the political establishment.
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