President Donald Trump was reelected with a mandate to transform American political life through dedicated immigration enforcement, a pursuit of energy abundance, and a secure national defense.
His administration has pursued these policies with gusto, surprising political friend and foe alike with the depth and breadth of their reforms. But America is not the only nation due for an intervention.
As Trump shakes up Washington to return freedom to the American people, so German politicians must commit to restructuring their immigration, energy, and security policies to align with the German people’s will.
German citizens resoundingly endorsed this renovation on Sunday when they tossed the ruling coalition government out of power and gave 28.5 percent of their votes to the conservative CDU/CSU. The AfD, a populist party to the right of CDU/CSU, bounded into second place with nearly 21 percent of the vote while the ruling SPD sank to third place at around 16 percent of the vote.
The Green Party clung to around 12 percent of the vote, with The Left, a hardline progressive party, as the final party over the 5% threshold with 8.5% of the vote. As a parliamentary system, the Bundestag’s 630 seats will be divided proportionally among the parties who reached 5% of the vote.
Since no single party won a majority, the CDU/CSU will be asked to form the next government.
This will require weeks of negotiations, and with Chancellor-apparent Friedrich Merz promising not to approach the AfD, he will be forced to negotiate with the progressive parties that German voters have just decisively rejected. Those parties insist on maintaining open immigration policy, shoving forward net zero goals, and displaying reticence on defense. It’s worth examining those policies’ effects in Germany.
Germany opened the migration floodgates in 2015 under then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the ensuing failure was stupendous. The latest German government statistics show that just over 16 million people in Germany are first-generation migrants, making up around 18.9% of the entire German population. Naturally, this massive influx has strained social services and fractured cultural cohesion as Germans grapple with integrating millions of foreign nationals.
Tragically, a regular drumbeat of terror attacks by Islamist migrants have occurred throughout Germany in recent years.
Just a week ago, an Afghan asylum seeker, already ordered for deportation, drove a Mini Cooper into a crowd in Munich, injuring nearly thirty. And this incident followed a wave of knife attacks against men, women, and children. To combat this scourge, the German government should parallel the Trump administration’s prescription of enforcement and deportation operations.
On top of this, Germany’s economy is rapidly deindustrializing in the face of skyrocketing energy prices and a failing trade strategy.
Merkel bears responsibility again with her decision to close German nuclear power plants after the Fukushima incident (since continued by the SPD party). Combined with a march set to net zero’s tune, this wanton destruction of energy competitiveness has broken German manufacturing’s foundations as, burdened by some of the highest corporate tax rates in Europe, they can no longer run competitive businesses.
The market tsunami following this energy earthquake has also now made landfall with Chinese demand for German autos plummeting while subsidized Chinese manufacturing exports from cars to solar panels have reduced German dominance in Europe. Here again, the Trump administration’s excising of net zero in favor of energy abundance shines a light on the way to sustainable economic growth.
Reeling from this one-two punch, German voters are finally confronted by enormous security concerns courtesy of Russia’s war in Ukraine and Chinese malfeasance in the Baltic.
Following a German general’s bleak assessment in 2022 that Germany couldn’t defend itself if invaded, German politicians face difficult choices as their Zeitenwende defense fund runs dry.
American leaders have already brought the rehab plan to Europe as U.S. Secretary of Defense Hegseth insisted on a renewed seriousness about defense to protect Germany and reestablish European deterrence.
Alarm on these issues drove German voters to overwhelmingly reject the current coalition government in favor of tighter immigration rules, liberation of energy and manufacturing, and renewed national security.
However, only by embracing the revolutionary zeal the Trump administration has displayed can Germany recover.
Yet, when the German people are crying out louder than ever for leadership, it looks all too likely that politicians will not rise to Vice President J.D. Vance’s call in Munich to address their public’s concerns and so will squander this opportunity for reform and rejuvenation through a weak coalition dependent on giveaways.