Germany: Weakening Democracy Through False Consensus

Since the election in February, which brought Merz to power, the AfD has surged in the polls to 26%, making it the most popular party in the country.

From The European Conservative

By Sabine Beppler-Spahl

If the SPD and CDU can barely muster a majority even when combined, it's because they've lost the ability to genuinely represent majority concerns.

Germany, with its myriad formidable problems, is an unlikely beacon of hope. Yet for certain anti-populist commentators like British journalist John Kampfner, it represents exactly that. Kampfner, author of Why the Germans Do it Better (2020)—a passionate rebuke against his native Britain’s Brexit vote—continues to place unwavering faith in Germany’s political establishment despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

“Germany is back,” proclaimed Kampfner in a recent enthusiastic Der Spiegel commentary where he celebrated what he so admires about German politics: the capacity for compromise, even at the cost of abandoning core principles. He lavishes praise on Friedrich Merz, Germany’s presumptive next chancellor, for assembling a coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) that explicitly excludes the right-populist AfD.

Kampfner applauds Merz’s remarkable about-face on state debt (having championed fiscal restraint during the campaign before pushing through a billion-euro debt program before the new parliament was even seated) as exemplary German pragmatism and adaptability. In another commentary for the Guardian, he approvingly quotes SPD leader Lars Klingbeil: “What differentiates this country from others is that we are ready, as parties of the democratic center, to find solutions and not to leave ground for populist extremism to blossom.”

Kampfner’s judgment is clearly so clouded by his visceral fear of populism that he fails to see reality. There’s a profound irony in citing the leader of a party that hemorrhaged nearly ten points in the February election as an authority against populism. The truth is that populism has been flourishing in Germany for years. Klingbeil’s SPD, which led the previous coalition, received a mere 16.4% of votes—falling well behind the populist AfD’s 20.8%. Recent polls indicate the AfD has only gained momentum since the election, now standing at 26%, making it Germany’s most popular party.

What Kampfner celebrates as Germanic virtues are actually Germany’s greatest weaknesses. While he praises German politicians for their “maturity” (his book was subtitled “notes from a grown-up country”), he misses the dangerous mainstreaming of opinion that has occurred. For years, German politics has methodically excluded dissenters, fostering a herd mentality that has rendered the ruling elite complacent and trapped in dangerous tunnel vision.

Consider the establishment’s stubborn commitment to renewables—a policy the Merz government appears determined to maintain. Just last week, the Wall Street Journal published a scathing critique titled “When the Wind Didn’t Blow in Germany,” exposing this policy’s folly. Despite hundreds of billions invested in wind and solar energy, the share of green electricity plummeted from 56% to 47% in the first quarter of 2024. The WSJ presents Germany’s energy transition not as a model, but as a cautionary tale.

This predicament stems from 2011’s fateful decision to phase out nuclear power, characterized by an unhealthy compulsion toward consensus. Studies reveal that mainstream media commented on the nuclear exit largely uncritically, with reporting colored by culturally determined approaches to nuclear risks. Critics and dissenters were swiftly marginalized—even within their own parties.

Indeed, it was precisely this tendency to isolate and neutralize uncomfortable critics of government migration and energy policies that precipitated the collapse of Germany’s once-mighty mainstream parties and fueled the AfD’s ascent. If the SPD and CDU, formerly Volksparteien (people’s parties), can barely muster a majority even when combined, it’s because they’ve lost the ability to genuinely represent majority concerns.

After a series of actual or attempted expulsions of dissenters like Hans-Georg Maaßen (CDU) and Thilo Sarrazin (SPD), journalist Jasper von Altenbockum published a memorable piece in the FAZ: “The old longing for conformity and identity is the real threat to the people’s parties.” Parties that no longer tolerate differences, deviations, and contrasts cease to serve democracy. The paradox, Altenbockum notes, is that the “creeping wear and tear of the mainstream parties runs parallel to the de-ideologization of politics and society”—precisely the pragmatism Kampfner finds so refreshing and laudable.

The dividing line is fundamentally about how popular democracy is viewed. While Kampfner celebrates Merz’s political maneuvering to secure parliamentary support for his debt program (despite campaigning on fiscal restraint), many Germans were appalled. Superficially, Merz achieved his objective. In reality, however, he sacrificed voter trust, explaining the AfD’s continued surge in polls.

Kampfner clearly believes that circumventing popular votes whenever possible—entrusting decisions to technocrats (the supposed “adults in the room”)—constitutes sound governance, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This explains his approval that Germans, unlike their British counterparts, have never been granted a meaningful vote on EU matters. Notably, he was no less enthusiastic about the previous failed SPD-Green-Liberal coalition under Olaf Scholz than he is about the upcoming one (even claiming Scholz represented the future of progressive European politics).

For most Germans, however, this technocratic governance style has been disastrous. It has left them feeling powerless amid accelerating decline. Germany’s dire situation was highlighted again last week when the government downgraded its 2025 growth projections to a shocking 0%. With GDP having contracted by 0.2% last year and 0.3% in 2023, Germany is experiencing its worst economic decline since World War II.

This decline is largely homegrown, despite government supporters’ stubborn insistence on blaming external factors like the Ukraine war or Trump’s trade policies. The true culprits are domestic policy choices: skyrocketing energy costs resulting from the ideological rush to abandon nuclear power; wasteful subsidies funneled to companies adopting politically favored alternatives despite their massive inefficiencies; the unsustainable expansion of social security spending; and the increase in public service jobs that has pushed the state’s share of the economy to record levels. These self-inflicted wounds reflect a political establishment more committed to maintaining its consensus worldview than confronting economic reality.

Of course, it remains to be seen what the government can achieve. Merz’s cabinet nominations have received favorable responses, even from certain critical commentators. Yet there remains ample cause for scepticism, not merely because the coalition’s SPD—yet to announce its candidates—will control almost as many ministries. The deeper reality is that Germany’s problems are more structural than most commentators are willing to admit. For genuine success, the government would need to radically open public debate and embrace authentic democratic participation. Its dogmatic determination to exclude “populists” at all costs, however, suggests very little chance of this occurring.