Angela Merkel

And I'm like, okay, well, if this is an issue that's gone on for six years, then maybe that's not the problem.

And if you really, if you dig in, scratch the surface really, seems to me the absolute overwhelming issue, what was the big change Merz made the day he got into office is unlike Angela Merkel, who was kind of, you know, she was from Eastern, East Germany, and she set the stage for more cooperation with Russia.

She was reluctant to get into the Ukraine thing.

Merz just immediately caved, distanced from Russia, which is terrible for the price of gas and stuff, and went into Ukraine.

We're gonna talk about where that country went.

We're gonna talk about the mass immigration that was done here the same way that Angela Merkel did it to Europe.

And that's why AFDA and all these parties are surging right now.

That's MAGA's surging here.

It's that we have to have this welcoming, tolerant attitude.

And it's all the policies that flow from it.

The same way Angela Merkel got asked about it recently, and she just dissembled.

If you can't understand the ideology that is fueling this terrorism, then you've already lost the war on terror.

It's there emphatically and in really grotesque forms, but it's not the central motivator.

The most manifest version is Islamophobia and the AFD owes its surge in popularity above all to the refugee crisis in Europe of 2015 and the perceived betrayal of German national interest by then Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was supposedly of the right and from East Germany, and nevertheless pursued what is called like an open door policy.

And then exactly as you quite rightly emphasize, there is this, in some ways, surprising degree of resentment against the latest ways of refugees to come to Germany who are as white and blonde as you could possibly ask for, but they're from Ukraine and they are victims, after all, of a war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine.

And yet in the AFD's construction of recent political history, That is not seen in the commonsensical way that you might expect of these people just seem as being as victims, but rather Berlin and the rest of the West is accused of essentially a policy of warmongering.

people.

And they said, you know, they sort of went along with Angela Merkel saying, well, this bailout might be a good thing.

Mm-hmm.

There was an extreme version of the worry that Germany would assent to a so-called common debt instrument that would mean a union of all the, you know, budgets in the European Union.

And in 2015, there was a spike in violence in the Syrian civil war.

And very strangely people started walking out of Syria and into Europe, you know, crossing Lebanon and Turkey and, and walking up into Greece.

And, and, um, at that point, um, Angela Merkel, um, uh, was just unable to say no.

And it's an example of the culture that we were talking about.

people.

And they said, you know, they sort of went along with Angela Merkel saying, well, this bailout might be a good thing.

Mm-hmm.

There was an extreme version of the worry that Germany would assent to a so-called common debt instrument that would mean a union of all the, you know, budgets in the European Union.

And in 2015, there was a spike in violence in the Syrian civil war.

And very strangely people started walking out of Syria and into Europe, you know, crossing Lebanon and Turkey and, and walking up into Greece.

And, and, um, at that point, um, Angela Merkel, um, uh, was just unable to say no.

And it's an example of the culture that we were talking about.

We're gonna talk about where that country went.

We're gonna talk about the mass immigration that was done here the same way that Angela Merkel did it to Europe.

And that's why AFDA and all these parties are surging right now.

That's MAGA's surging here.

But that being said, like, this whole notion of, you know, that Bush has been pushing since 9-11...

Remember, it's not just this phrase.

It's that we have to have this welcoming, tolerant attitude, and it's all the policies that flow from it, the same way Angela Merkel got asked about it recently, and she just dissembled.

If you can't understand the ideology that is fueling this terrorism, then you've already lost the war on terror.

They won 39 out of 83 seats.

Well, Chancellor Frederick Mertz, remember Angela Merkel, that same party, CDU, was reduced to 17.2%.

I'm not going to go on about that because I've got somebody, I mean, I'm going to forget the rest of the intro.

I've got with us somebody who is new to Borderlands.

So a combination of, if you like, a protest vote against the mainstream, but also a degree of cultural concern about migration, about the way society is changing.

has led to this, as you say, quite amazing result.

Some would argue that if you trace it back, this growth or this dissatisfaction you talk of may have started from the times of Angela Merkel when she showed such a huge heart, those are my words, nobody else's, in taking in migrants and saying, look, we have a responsibility.

Do you think...

There's a lot going on in Germany.

I think we talked about the fact that Angela Merkel did away with the coal-fired and the nuclear plants, and they're buying their natural gas from Russia, and the cost of building cars in Germany is going way up.

Volkswagen is talking about letting 100,000 people go and

closing three plants.

And if you really if you dig in, scratch the surface, really seems to me the absolute overwhelming issue.

What was the big change Mertz made the day he got into office is unlike Angela Merkel, who was kind of, you know, she was from Eastern East Germany and she set the stage for more cooperation with Russia.

She was reluctant to get into the Ukraine thing.

Mertz just immediately caved in.