German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is having a no-good, miserable, not-much-fun summer, after not having had such a great spring.
The state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on 7 September were a shellacking of epic proportions for his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Party, dropping from 40 seats to 15, and tumbling off its perch after 24 years of running the state government. Even if the upstart populists, Alternative for Germany (AfD), did just miss an outright majority by a whisker, short by three seats with their 39 total, they blew the doors off of both the comfy Landtag seating arrangements and the established political hierarchy.
In the immediate aftermath, Merz gave a horrific 'Whut just hit me?' version of a press conference, further encouraging his already shaky party members to start looking for alternatives to his leadership, if not outright for the exits.
In the intervening few weeks, Merz's been everywhere, trying to do everything but what he needs to do to right his Teutonic Titanic, and it's showing.
For one thing, his message has been that foreign affairs trump the little piddly personal problems of Germans, with some RUSSIA! RUSSIA! RUSSIA! thrown in for effect.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz apparently doesn’t care about his own country at all.
— 🅲🅾🆇🆇 (@queru_lant) September 14, 2026
“I am trying to convince my party, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, that foreign policy is far more important than the domestic political debates we are having.” pic.twitter.com/Fa2lwjyfx9
That's not what Germans want to hear, as AfD co-leader Alice Weidel reminded him during an especially spicy Bundestag floor back-and-forth after the September blow-out.
The only answer he had was to accuse her of advocating for 'ethnic cleansing.'
He is lying. CDU destroyed Germany.
— Luciano (@Luciandrade) September 9, 2026
Weidel is absolutely right.
The End.
Incredibly weak but inflammatory gaslighting, and his citizens know it.
They also remember when.
2000 sagte Merz, das Boot sei voll. 2026 nennt er Abschiebung „ethnische Säuberung“.
— 爪卂ㄒ丂ㄩ卄丨爪乇 Prinzessin der Sonne (@Shinsho_ni) September 12, 2026
Am 9. September 2026 warf Kanzler Merz der AfD im Bundestag vor, „Remigration“ sei ein Synonym für ethnische Säuberung nach Herkunft und Hautfarbe. Die Partei erstattete Anzeige. Der Satz wiegt… pic.twitter.com/09f55pFmaU
In 2000, Merz said the boat is full. In 2026, he calls deportation “ethnic cleansing.”
On September 9, 2026, Chancellor Merz accused the AfD in the Bundestag of “remigration” being a synonym for ethnic cleansing based on origin and skin color. The party filed a complaint. The sentence carries heavy historical weight and targets a party represented in parliament.
On October 15, 2000, the same Merz, as CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader in the Gropius Passages in Neukölln, said the opposite of today’s cudgel: The boat is full, too many foreigners, deportation too slow. He cited crime, high foreign unemployment, and fear on buses and trains. If the democrats didn’t address it, others would.
The AfD didn’t exist in 2000. No one classified the CDU as a danger to democracy because of it. 26 years later, the same speaker uses the vocabulary of violent expulsion against others—for enforcing the legal obligation to leave the country.
The problems Merz named in 2000 haven’t gotten smaller. What has changed is who is still allowed to speak about them.
Germans remember what their country used to be like.
A new national poll is out in the aftermath of the Saxony-Anhalt bloodbath, and the AfD has officially cracked the 30 percent threshold.
Und da haben wir es:
— Doktor Dementi (@doktordementi) September 14, 2026
30% AfD
20% CDU bundesweit.
Merz is over. pic.twitter.com/wnLTEysTTW
...And there we have it:
30% AfD
20% CDU nationwide.
Merz is done for.
And this Sunday, another pivotal set of state elections is up in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, on the Baltic Sea. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has had the helm there, with a woman named Manuela Schweisig as its Minister President since 2017.
She seems nice in that peculiar sort of icy, German, Ursula von der Leyen way, doesn't she?
Oh, you could tell she just lurved being a pandemic power player.
1/ SCHWESIGS DRAKONISCHES WEGSPERREN VON URLAUBERN, kurz darauf einkassiert vom OLG Greifswald:
— stefanie (@Quo_vadis_BRD) September 14, 2026
„Trotz negativem Test müssen Urlauber noch sieben Tage im Hotel in Quarantäne. Ist das nicht maßlos?“
Bei der Befragung vom 12.10.20 verteidigte Manuela Schwesig,…
1/ SCHWESIG'S DRACONIAN BLOCKING OF VACATIONERS, SOON THEREAFTER OVERTURNED BY THE OLG GREIFSWALD:
"Even with a negative test, vacationers must still spend seven days in quarantine in the hotel. Isn't that excessive?"
During the questioning on 12.10.20, Manuela Schwesig, Minister President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, still vehemently defended her aggressive approach toward vacation guests—see video.
For the massive criticism of her regulations and the decision by the OLG Greifswald just a few days later, see the next comments.
The German high courts had to slap her back to earth several times.
As these COVID videos of Ms. Schwesig are getting plenty of traction on X right now, I'm guessing she and the SPD might not be as popular as she once was in the era of bendover for the authorities.
Now, the CDU in that state used to have a respectable 15 percent or so in the Landtag, but darn if things aren't looking gloomy for Herr Merz again. There are hints they might not even break the 5 percent threshold to get a seat, period, and Merz himself is so toxic that the lead CDU candidate wants nothing to do with him.
Germany's CDU faces possible humiliation in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 12, 2026
CDU is polling at just 6–8% with eight days to go, the party could miss the 5% threshold entirely and be locked out of the state parliament for the first time.
Lead candidate has distanced himself from… pic.twitter.com/80wEwBaRIH
...Lead candidate has distanced himself from Chancellor Merz, who was booed at his only campaign stop.
AfD leads at ~38%, with the race polarized into an SPD vs. AfD contest that's crushing the CDU in the middle.
This comes two weeks after AfD's 44% landslide in Saxony-Anhalt.
This Sunday's battle is shaping up to be SPD v. AfD, with Merz's party twitching nervously and helplessly from the sidelines.
As for the charming Minister President Schwesig's chances of hanging around for a third term, well...good luck, if the polls are anywhere close to what the vote ends up being.
Wir bauen unseren Vorsprung in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern aus. Die SPD wird am 20. September ihr blaues Wunder erleben. Und die CDU... welche CDU? pic.twitter.com/wOi29pdnz6
— Tobias Teich, MdB (@tobiasteich_by) September 14, 2026
...We are expanding our lead in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The SPD will experience its blue miracle on September 20. And the CDU... which CDU?
Maybe she should have been a little more willing to bend.
Merz's approval rating has hit 13 percent. The 'putsch' word is being deployed, while the younger party members openly talk of breaching the firewall and publicly urge the chancellor not to run for another term.
Clara von Nathusius of the Young Union (JU) sees no chance of a resurgence in voter support for the CDU with Chancellor Friedrich Merz . "We have a massive credibility problem. This isn't solely due to Friedrich Merz, but it's a factor," the JU's federal treasurer said on the ARD program "Report from Berlin." "And that's why, unfortunately, I believe no more elections can be won with this chancellor," she added. When asked to clarify, von Nathusius stated that this means: "Not running again."
Following the CDU's election debacle in Saxony-Anhalt, internal party criticism of Chancellor Merz is growing. In the state election on September 6, the AfD received by far the most votes in the state, with almost 44 percent. The CDU plummeted by almost 20 percentage points to 17.2 percent.
What reaction would the politician from the CDU/CSU youth organization have liked to see in response to the disastrous election result? "Above all, I would have simply liked honesty," said von Nathusius. She would have liked Merz to state in his government declaration what "we as the CDU/CSU" stand for. The JU treasurer listed the social market economy, "tackling migration," and "finally, policies for families again" as key points.
Jostling for successors is already underway.
Putschgerüchte machen in Berlin die Runde. Was passiert mit Kanzler Merz, falls die CDU in sieben Tagen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern an der Fünfprozenthürde scheitert? Zwei Ministerpräsidenten werden als mögliche Nachfolger genannt. https://t.co/jDQOakmXrS
— DER SPIEGEL (@derspiegel) September 13, 2026
Rumors of a putsch are circulating in Berlin. What happens to Chancellor Merz if the CDU fails to clear the five percent hurdle in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in seven days? Two state premiers are being named as possible successors.
But, as my favorite German blogger explains, there is no easy way to install a suitable substitute, especially if the target has given no indication he's voluntarily willing to depart the pattern.
...Apparently, it is above all the state leaders of the CDU who are convinced Merz has to go. This would be because his disastrous performance is harming their own local prospects, and it is at the state level above all where the pain of AfD ascendance is felt most acutely.
There is, however, no easy way to get rid of a German Chancellor. Merz has never expressed interest in resigning, and neither he nor anyone in his office has suggested he might bring a confidence vote to the floor of the Bundestag. Merz thinks he’s doing a fantastic job, he has no idea what a fuckup he is, and he has no plans to give up. This leaves as the only other possibility a constructive vote of no-confidence supported by the CDU against Merz. This, too, is pretty much inconceivable. The present plan is thus for the state premiers of the CDU to approach the Chancellor and convince him to give up, perhaps by credibly threatening a constructive no-confidence vote to oust him. At that point, Merz would have little choice but to pass the baton to one of their own number.
And here we encounter the second major problem, namely that of who should replace our dead Chancellor walking. There needs to be one obvious successor on whom everybody can agree, because the last thing the Union wants is to give Merz’s catastrophic chancellorship a sequel in the form of a catastrophic power struggle. Journalists like to say the obvious replacement is Hendrik Wüst, the dismal left-leaning Minister President of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Yet Wüst is a centrist Merkelian, well to the left of much of the CDU Bundestag faction, and his candidacy already faces quiet, implicit opposition from his conservative rival, the CSU Minister President of Bavaria Markus Söder. Yet equally powerful reasons speak against Söder as Merz’s successor, for there has never been a Chancellor from the CSU and many Christian Democrats would oppose toppling one of their own in favour of a replacement from their smaller, Bavarian sister party. A contrary, outside possibility aired here and there is the right-leaning Boris Rhein, the Minister President of Hessen, but I’m not sure how much of that is wishful thinking.
Merz cannot effect change because he made a deal with the devils - the Greens and the SPD - in order to build his own fragile coalition, so he has no leverage. As eugyppius notes, he can't use intimidation by threatening to walk away because he has no alternatives, having cut himself off from the right by embracing the artificial firewall.
So the CDU stiff-legs it into another possible disaster on Sunday, as the AfD stands by licking its chops. The populists are gaining ever more support simply by watching the desperate, panicked zombie lurch from policy pin to pin, bouncing off all of them without leaving a toothmark.
And there Germany sits until the Merz government finally collapses.
Editor's Note: The Democrats are doing everything in their power to undermine the integrity of our elections.
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