THE GENIUS OF MERKEL IS THE USEFUL IDIOT OF GERMAN NATIONALISM

by Colin Liddell

The central question of German politics since 1945 was always: “How will nationalism make its comeback to the German political mainstream?” Like a good suspense novel the German political system kept us guessing for a long time and even threw in a few political red herrings.

• Would the Cold War see a form of German nationalism revived as a counterpoint to the militarism of the Soviet Union? Some of the scenes from the 1965 movie Battle of the Bulge clearly hinted at this.
• Would Helmut Kohl’s 1990 reunification of east and west lead to a less cucked Fatherland that wasn’t scared of its own historical shadow?
• Would the NPD be able to brush off its rough edges and overcome infiltrators from the security services to edge out of its East German ghettos?
• And what about Pegida?

There was plenty to keep us guessing. All these narratives caught our attention for a while, only to reveal themselves as entertaining distractions. But, finally, with the results of Sunday’s election we were given our answer – the true German post-war miracle, the return of a nationalist party, with some caveats, to mainstream German politics was down to the machinations of Germany’s most brilliant and scheming politician of the last 20 years, Angela Merkel.

Merkel is to the rebirth of German nationalism what David Cameron was to Brexit, a vital yet unwitting cog in the historical machine. When it comes to the great trends of history, it can truly be said that all mills ultimately grind our corn. We should never be surprised by this, but always take it in our stride.

All this and brains too.

The most cunning politicians of Normiespace – the Camerons and Merkels – have no alternative but to ultimately be our “useful idiots.” There are remarkable similarities between the two. Both came from the center – or “cuckservative” – right, both moved in hard to the political center and even the soft left, and both unwittingly unleashed forces that the establishment of either country had counted on keeping locked up. And all because they were too clever for their own good.

In order to gain or keep power, they moved their parties sharply Left in the smug assurance that their Right flanks were totally secure, anchored by the no-platforming techniques, fear-mongering, and guilt-tripping that the Leftist metapolitical hegemony had imposed. Yes, the Left, by conspiring to deny voters a true right-wing alternative allowed these center-right parties to effortlessly swing Left and park their panzers on the Leftist lawn. That is why Labour was thrown out of power in 2010 and why the SPD hasn’t been in power for 12 long years.

Cameron and Merkel believed they could take their more patriotic, conservative, and – in the case of Britain – eurosceptic voters for granted, in the assurance that no one else would be able to exploit that space. Initially, they were correct in that calculation. What were their more right-wing voters supposed to do? Vote for the “evil parties,” the tattooed “knuckle-draggers” who had been demonized by the leftist dominated media?

This is what led Cameron to offer up gay marriage to hipster centrists, do little to reverse or even stem the inflow of mass migration, and acquiesce in the growth of the EU superstate.

This is what allowed Merkel to erase the harsh image she had gained by sticking it to the improvident Greeks in her Pan-European Empire, by showing her unexpected “motherly” side with the immigrants.

Photobombing done right?

It may be strange, looking at all the rapes and other chaos caused by her decision, but her absurd action in opening up the border to Syrian refugees and anyone else from the Third World, was actually popular at the time, especially with those voters she was contesting with her main opposition the centre-left SPD.

As things got worse, as costs skyrocketed along with the rapes, as police searches for people of “Southern appearance” became ubiquitous, there was even a gruesome silver lining in all this chaos for Merkel, because she could then move back to the “law and order” right, where her leftist opposition could not follow her. Not enough to fix the problem, of course, but just enough to be more appealing to those worried centrist voters and soft Leftists. The SPD, hamstrung by its inherent leftism and its history of signalling like a doormat on migrant issues, couldn’t even attack Merkel for creating the problem in the first place. Looked at cynically, this was one of the most brilliant maneuvers of Merkel the Politician.

The German voter was thus left with the choice of continuing to support Merkel, throw away their vote on a demonized nationalist alternative, or opt for Leftist parties they knew would make the situation even worse. Indeed, without the migrant crisis, it could even be speculated that German voters might have been a lot more willing to entertain a change of leadership by giving the election to the SPD.

There is something about Merkel that makes you want to dismiss her as a drab, fusty old woman of mediocre intelligence and misplaced maternal drives, but the objective facts – a stranglehold on the Chancellorship since 2005 by a woman of limited natural appeal – suggest that rather than Donald Trump, who now seems painted into a corner, it is Merkel who has been the master of 4D chess. So, it is clearly not impossible that she knew all along that bringing the migrants into the country would first enable her to win over those centrist and soft Left voters who found fault with her sternness towards the Greeks, and, secondly, create a situation in which the only realistic mainstream option to deal with the crisis was to trust the woman who had created it.

But, as with Cameron over Brexit – a clever move to contain the threat posed by UKIP that managed to blow up in his face – tactical brilliance has had a price to pay. One could almost see here a Faustian bargain. Merkel has been smart, a little too smart, in fact excessively smart to the point where that smartness has marched all the way around the block and booted her up the arse, so that she has become the tool to effectively betray the system of which she has been a part, a system whose foundation lies in the denial of German identity and German interests, a system that sought to stifle the natural, healthy existential urges of the German people, in short, a system that needed betraying in every way possible.

She has succeeded in opening the door that the system was predicated on keeping locked and closed. After 70 years in the wilderness, German nationalism is finally back. Let’s hope it wipes its shoes and behaves itself a bit better this time.

Also published at AltRight.com