Europe’s centrists are finally paying the price of their extremism

Friedrich Merz has been German chancellor for less than a year and half, and his approval ratings are at record lows. His centre-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), which just lost one state election and was obliterated in another, is in free fall across the country.The German media cannot talk or write about anything else, blaming Merz for weak campaigning, for boxing himself into an unpopular coalition with the social democrats, for failing to energise the youth as the ultraright Alternative for Germany (AfD) has. All true, all secondary.What is actually dying in Germany is not just a hitherto dominant party, but the image of centrist politicians as moderate technocrats. After three decades of this facade of moderation and competence, it is now becoming clear that they were neither moderate nor competent.Alas, first gradually, then suddenly, the masks are falling to the ground, and now the majority can see them for what they have always been: Zealots ruthlessly pursuing dead-end, misanthropic policies that have gutted German society’s capacity to sustain itself and brought it to the verge of an unnecessary war on European soil.Zealotry dressed in a grey suit and sp...