German General election ends in 4 hours

[Pat Mustard]

Coalitions are inherently weak.

Not always. If all parties agree a common set of goals before forming a coalition and the biggest party manages to not think it's governing on its own then they work, often very well.

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It was clear from the polls that they get scary many seats, and they did - they are the third largest force in parliament now, an absolutely stunning and historic result.  

The theory is that the social democrats deliberately stay in the opposition such that the government coalition and the social democrats in the opposition can outleverage the fucking cryptonazis in all important situations to effectively neutralize them.

Yeah, on the way home, listening to BBC, it was reported that they'll have 93 seats or so. That is a sizeable minority.

It seems to me that the sensible coalition with its allies can ensure that no AfD planks may pass legislative muster; but the large showing they made, with its inroads on centrist support, is something that I see as both surprising and worrisome. Surprising because our media here, in what little coverage it's given to your polling there, clearly underestimated and therefore underreported the amount of support AfD has (shades of our American 2016 campaign there), and worrisome because especially after Brexit, the Germans have seemed to be the sensible ones in Europe.

At least you guys didn't elect a Trumpian Chancellor -- there's that.

A big part of their success this election is that voters in Europe are sick of the orthodoxy, i.e. corporatist neoliberalism, yet the big party with the best chance of actually capitalising on this, the SDP (the heirs to the Socialists), are still wedded to the Bliarite "Third Way", which is essentially pursue Thatherite (in the US Raygunite) policies while tinkering with a few social policies on the edge to retain the pretence of a human face.