It is very rare that the United States criticizes an ally for its domestic issues. Yet, under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, the United States Department of State lambasted the Friedrich Merz Regime in Germany for “significant human rights issues” in a new report. As the German Volk suffer the political, economic, and social consequences of the failed liberal order, their government has repudiated its carefully cultivated reputation for embracing human rights in favor of a sinister regime of censorship and repression.
As early as 2010, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that multiculturalism “ha[d] failed, utterly failed.” That was before a Saudi migrant plowed through a Christmas market in Magdeburg in December 2024, killing six people and injuring 323 others. It was before the gang rape in Freiburg, and it was before the sexual assault of over 1,200 German women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve in 2015-2016. Shocked and indignant, the German People expressed their outrage; their government responded by banning criticism of their policies online.
The State Department’s report describes how German “authorities prosecuted both online speech and the repetition or reposting of speech,” and added that “nonstate groups and private persons tried to inhibit freedom of speech, including members of the press.” German law imposes harsh fines on internet companies that do not censor content on demand, including American companies. A 60 Minutes exposé in February illustrated how the German authorities are “policing [the internet] in a way most Americans could never imagine.” CBS’s cameras followed as armed policemen raided a man’s apartment at dawn, seizing his laptop and cell phone. The alleged crime? Posting a cartoon on social media that the government deemed offensive. Is this the Germany we ostensibly “liberated” in 1945?
Thankfully, the German People are finally awakening to the disaster unfolding before their eyes, and the New York Young Republican Club is here to support them. Our Club has a track record of speaking out on issues that few others will, and Germany’s dire situation is one such cause. Last week, we hosted Robert Amsterdam, the sole American defender of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the depredations of an unhinged Volodymyr Zelensky. Like Merz’s government, the Ukrainian Regime under Zelensky is acclaimed as a bastion of freedom that is “fighting authoritarianism” when, in reality, the Ukraine is one of the least free places in Europe today. Priests are tortured, churches are stolen, and a faith is left in tatters – all in the name of “freedom.” It is fortunate that the State Department is choosing a new tack: criticizing human rights abuses whether they sit in Berlin or Beijing, Kiev or Kabul.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has demonstrated impressive strength in pressuring our allies as well as our enemies. If Germany continues to abuse the rights of its people, it may be time for the Merz Regime to be firmly shown the door. Fortunately, a bombshell new poll yesterday showed the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) now holds record popular support, leading Merz’s centrist Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in the polls. Germany needs a party that puts Germany First, insists on a policy of remigration, and creates a New Civic Order from the ashes of liberalism.
Sensing public opinion turning against him, Chancellor Merz took the unprecedented step of classifying the AfD as an “extremist organization,” embracing a judicial process to ban them from the political conversation. But a potential ban of the AfD is futile; just as the Democrats’ attempt to jail President Donald J. Trump fueled his reelection, an effort to ban the AfD will ensure its ascendency.
A triumphant AfD is what the guardians of the failed liberal order fear most of all. Germany should give it to them. To riff on August Heinrich Hoffmann’s most infamous line, AfD über alles.