After Merkel, the Deluge

Whatever George Will is drinking, I do not recommend it.

A few days ago Will was drooling over the greatness of Angela Merkel. You know, the woman who just about destroyed her country be allowing over a million Muslim migrants free entry. By now the nation has managed to inure itself to the ensuing crime wave, largely by refusing to report migrant criminals as migrants.

Will, who was once a conservative, is drooling over the fact that Merkel is the closest thing to a European embodiment of Barack Obama. Actually, they are both taking cues from German philosopher Immanuel Kant… but don’t let that deter you.

Merkel is the high priestess of open borders, the goddess of cosmopolitanism. She is going to speak at the Harvard commencement this year. Will believes that she has produced the best Germany since 1871. How did that turn out, George?

As it happens, France and Great Britain have been aboard the cosmopolitan train for decades now. Great Britain even chose a woman to lead it out of the European Union. How’s that working out? As for Emmanuel Macron, he is presiding over a country where homeless migrants are camped out in Paris while a yellow jacketed protest movement has driven his approval ratings into the sewer.

These countries are kissing cousins with Germany. Great Britain voted to Brexit in response to Merkel’s open arms policy. Will looks at the situation and thrills to the fact that Germany is holding together.

Sort of. Will does remark that Germany’s political parties are veering to extremes. The Alternative for Germany right wing extremists are now arrayed against the radical leftist Green Party. The fact that Germany is becoming politically polarized does not seem to faze Will. It should. He sloughs off the problem, suggesting that he is so enamored of Merkel and Obama that he is blind to reality.

Will seems to share Germany’s enchantment with Barack Obama and its revulsion over Donald Trump. He writes:

No European nation was as enchanted as Germany was by Barack Obama's studied elegance and none is more repelled by Donald Trump's visceral vulgarity. This especially matters at this moment when events are underscoring Germany's necessary dependence for security on the United States: Germany lives in the neighborhood with two nations, Poland and Hungary, that have illiberal populist regimes. And not far over the horizon Vladimir Putin is destabilizing and dismembering Europe's geographically largest nation, Ukraine. Germany's dependence was inadvertently highlighted by Macron's delusional statement that there must be a "true European army" to "protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States."

Of course, Germany is working hard to maintain the Obama Iran Nuclear Deal… because what good is an ally if it does not try to undermine your foreign policy. And what good is Germany if it supports the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, with an emphasis on terrorism that seeks to kill Jews and Americans. Does Will seriously believe that the Iran Nuclear Deal was a triumph of diplomacy, rather than a cowardly sellout?

But, Will’s is not the whole story. Ed Driscoll at Instapundit wisely juxtaposes the following story, reported by the Daily Mail, with Will’s mental drool. As it happens, the Germany economy is in trouble. Reality bites.

Industrial production is collapsing and the country is about to enter a recession.

The Daily Mail has the story—one that most news outlets have scrupulously ignored:

Germany is on the brink of a recession after Europe's financial powerhouse faces a collapse in industrial production.

The German economy stunned traders this week when it plummeted almost out of nowhere.

Industrial production fell to -1.9 percent in November - a year-on-year low of -4.6 percent - which has fuelled uncertainty in the world's fourth largest economy.

A recession in Germany could have a devastating impact on the fragile Greek and Italian economies.

'Yesterday's manufacturing data in Germany provided alarming evidence of a much more severe slowdown in the second half of last year than economists had initially expected.' Claus Vistesen of Pantheon Macreconomics told Business Insider.

He said the economy had been rocked by a 'perfect storm across all sectors.'

The collapse was so swift that Vitesen initially told his clients he did not believe the data was accurate.

Stefan Schilbe of HSBC told Business Insider that a recession was now likely, as Germany faces its lowest industrial production since 2008.

In recent days, evidence has been piling up that the eurozone recovery lost more momentum than anticipated at the end of 2018, particularly in Germany. 

The paper invites us to assess the potential consequences of Brexit and of Macron’s problems in France. It warns us not to be too optimistic about Germany. If one were of a contrarian mindset one would conclude that the Will column is a harbinger of an ugly tomorrow for Germany. Merkel has already relinquished her role as head of the Christian Democrat Union. One suspects that she is getting out while she can… the better to blame the ensuing deluge on her successor.

Remember the line: après moi le déluge.