The plight of Germany's powerless centrists

Germany is a tense country these days. Conversations with friends and relatives there invariably turn to politics, and, when they do, things can get heated very quickly. Gone is the casual sarcasm and the grumbling that marked political dinner table discourse in years gone by. It has been replaced by anger and intense frustration. The political mainstream and its supporters sense this disaffection, too, and it frightens them. But their panicked efforts to do something about it are backfiring, alienating even more voters.

Many centrists fear a breakdown of the democratic post-war order

Widespread disgruntlement with the status quo isn’t just anecdotal. It can be measured in numbers. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is only a few months old, yet already a survey suggests that only