Wind of change

The world is closing in
And did you ever think?
That we could be so close
Like brothers
The future's in the air
I can feel it everywhere.
Blowing with the wind of change

The German rock band Scorpions held ten concerts in Leningrad in 1988, a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Two years later, in 1990, he released an album Crazy world and on it a sweet ballad Wind of Change which overnight became a worldwide hit, the anthem of the new brotherhood among nations, the end of the Cold War. The author of the song and band leader Klaus Meine was enchanted and inspired by the spirit of perestroika, the "wind of change" that blew from the Soviet Union.

The world was at a historical positive turning point. At least it seemed that way. Liberal democracy seemed as solid as the steel produced in Germany, which had just had its teeth broken by the totalitarian system of the Eastern Bloc. Helmut Kohl's Christian Democrats (CDU) won 1990 percent of the votes in the 43,8 Federal Parliament elections, the Social Democrats (SPD) 33,5, and the Liberal Democrats 11 percent. For the first time in a united Germany, citizens from the east of the country participated in the elections.

In the United States of America at that time, after two terms of Ronald Reagan, the White House was occupied by George Bush Sr. Mikhail Gorbachev was still in power in Moscow. The unification of European nations within the framework of the peace-market project under the name of the European Union was looming.

photo: ap

BEHEAD EUROPE

Thirty-five years later, the winds of change have long since changed direction. Vladimir Putin is waging a war in Ukraine in which almost the whole world is involved, Donald Trump threatens to blow away the achievements of liberal democracy and throws a glove in the face of Xi Jinping and Europe, Israel, not caring for civilian casualties, is trying to destroy Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon, in the Middle East everything is boiling with conflict.

The financial and refugee crisis, the gas crisis, the crisis caused by the corona virus pandemic, the economic crisis, the stagnation of the economy, the decline in the standard of living have been etched in the collective feeling of Europeans. After Angela Merkel retires from politics in 2021 after four consecutive terms as chancellor, Europe seems bewildered. All the attempts of the French President Emmanuel Macron to impose himself as the leader of Europe have failed, and the head of the government of the strongest European economy, Olaf Scholz, has never shown any pretensions to be someone that others will follow.

INCREDIBLE IDEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES

He did not succeed at home either, within his own "traffic light" coalition consisting of the SPD, the Greens and the Liberals. After intense arguments, it fell apart in the end, to put it briefly, due to irreconcilable ideological differences - the "reds" and "greens" are essentially left-wing parties that stand for a strong state that should allocate a lot of money for social and climate policy, and " yellow" as supporters of the liberal market economy are of almost the opposite opinion on this issue. Liberals insist on individual responsibility, that the state should intervene only in exceptional cases, and that the Federal Government must deal with accumulated debts.

The problem of the coalition was not that there is not enough money in the state coffers, but how to distribute it. Arguments became more frequent and louder - over laws in the field of climate change, migrant policy, aid to Ukraine, subsidizing gasoline and diesel for citizens, renovating infrastructure, arming the German army...

Research showed that Chancellor Scholz's government at the end of the sad ballad is the most unpopular in the history of Germany, Deutsche Welle wrote. The SPD fell to 16 percent, the Greens to 13, and the Liberals fell below the threshold - to three percent.

On December 27, 2024, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved the Federal Parliament and scheduled the parliamentary elections, which were supposed to be held in the fall of 2025, for February 23.

SOLID STEP ALTERNATIVES

Last weekend, one of the shortest election campaigns in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany began to heat up. A feeling of dissatisfaction and insecurity prevails in society due to the uncertainty in which direction the world, Europe and Germany are moving. Germans feel the high price on their own skin every day, in the western part of the country the privileges they are used to are slipping away, in the east the rebellion is growing because of unfulfilled promises about life in Schlaraffia after unification.

Through this tumult of emotions, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a radical right-wing party with neo-Nazi overtones that invokes the former greatness of the Reich, plays on national pride, demands that Germans stop sprinkling themselves with ashes because of Nazi misdeeds.

Alternative's candidate for federal chancellor Alisa Weidel (45) does not, however, shout the slogans raised by the party headed by her about the "false elite", established parties that have "estranged themselves from the people", "lying liberal media", migrants who kidnap jobs for good Germans, the European Union, whose wings should be clipped because it spread too much around German households, but it doesn't even distance itself from them.

The hard-line rightists are led by an economist who is a declared lesbian and has two children with a partner of migrant origin. How is that possible? Just as it is possible that in Vučić's Serbia, where the progressives persecuted homosexuals, Ana Brnabić is the President of the Government and the National Assembly. Populism has little to do with common sense.

Public opinion surveys conducted before Christmas differ by one to two percent, but the current average is that the AfD is in second place with 19 percent, behind the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which leads convincingly with around 32 percent support.

The Left is below the cesus of five percent, and on the verge of entering the Bundestag is the Sara Wagenknecht Alliance, a former wing of the Left that has gone its own way.

photo: ap

EGGS WALK

This will be a very complicated election for the parties of the political center, for CDU, SPD, Greens and Liberals. Because, on the one hand, they are acting against each other, and on the other, they are all together against the AfD, which they see as a threat to liberal democracy and republican values, which makes it easier for this party to impose itself as an "alternative", writes the German "Spiegel".

This in itself is nothing new, but the AfD is growing stronger, despite all the concerted efforts to preserve liberal democracy. All in all, this election fight is "walking on eggs", concluded "Spiegel".

Although it shifts the responsibility for the social misery of the "little man" to the established mainstream parties, the AfD takes exactly the same position on tax policy as the CDU/CSU or the FDP, it advocates the abolition of the solidarity allowance for the vulnerable and the reduction of taxes for companies, it wants to relieve the rich and the economy, says social economy professor Achim Truger for Berlin's TAZ. However, the Alternative's demand for Germany's exit from the EU and the absence of any concept for replacing the deficient professional workforce would, in the event of its coming to power, throw the country into a deep recession, Truger believes and defines the party program of the AfD as "hard-line neoliberalism garnished with nationalist hostility towards EU and anti-climate policy".

SUPPORTING ELON MASK

All the upswing of Alternative has recently received rocket support from America: "Only the AfD can save Germany", posted Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and a close associate of the newly US President Donald Trump, on his social network X. So he added that Chancellor Scholz is an "incompetent idiot", and that the AfD shows "political realism" and a "desire for innovation", that it stands for "smart energy and economic policy". Even during Trump's first term, the US administration wholeheartedly supported extreme right-wing parties and movements across Europe that are hostile to the EU.

It is an accurate diagnosis that Germany is currently lagging behind economically, that it is not competitive and that there is no economic growth, says one of the economic advisors of the Federal Government, Veronika Grimm.

However, the AfD is not a real liberal party, its idea that Germany, if it does not already step forward, would withdraw from the EU to a large extent would put the country on the margins geopolitically, and its proposals to restrict immigration to a large extent could not possibly be realized, he explains Grimm's.

"Keep your hands off our democracy, Mr. Musk," exclaimed the green vice chancellor and economy minister of the outgoing government, Robert Habeck. Musk will not listen to him, he will continue to support the forces undermining liberal democracy with his billions and performances so that he does not tailor the world according to his own measure.

There are now allies for that in the White House. By supporting the AfD, he inflamed the European Union.