Election Upheaval and Volkswagen Woes Dhow Germany’s Ruinous Price for Being Uncle Sam’s Lapdog
Germany was hit with a double whammy this week as proof of the ruinous price its people are paying for their feckless government’s role as the United States lapdog.
Germany was hit with a double whammy this week as proof of the ruinous price its people are paying for their feckless government’s role as the United States lapdog.
First, there was the political bombshell of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition parties receiving a drubbing in elections. Then there was the shocking economic news that Volkswagen, the country’s flagship automaker, is planning to close down factories as a result of crippling production costs.
The reverberations are shaking the political and economic foundations not just of Germany but the entire European Union.
Both of these body blows to Germany stem from the same root cause: the Scholz government’s slavish following of U.S. foreign policy. (To be fair, the lackey syndrome pre-dates Scholz and was manifest too under his predecessor Angela Merkel. And again to be fair, it is not just a German condition. The whole of Europe is a lapdog to Uncle Sam – and paying a painful price for that dubious role.)
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) came first in the state election for Thuringia in what was seen as an embarrassing thrashing for Scholz’s Social Democrat Party and its coalition partners. The AfD made big gains, albeit coming second to the Christian Democrat Union, in elections for neighboring Saxony.
A lot of hysteria has accompanied the election breakthrough for the AfD which is invariably described as “far-right” and compared with the historic Nazi party. Tempering that hysteria, however, is the fact that the new leftwing party BSW also made impressive gains in the elections.
A more accurate reading of the results would be that the German people have used the elections to express deep disillusionment and anger at the established parties on a range of issues, including economic hardship, uncontrolled immigration and a strong anti-war sentiment.
The AfD and BSW based their election appeals on ending Germany’s huge military aid to Ukraine (over €23 billion, the second largest after the U.S.). They are also calling for an end to hostile economic sanctions against Russia and a return to normal, friendly relations between the two countries.
Both parties have also been critical of Berlin’s
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
