GERMANY’S SCHOLZ NEARS HIS ENDGAME. HERE’S WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN:
Few other countries can choreograph a government collapse that’s as painstakingly slow and deliberate as Germany is doing right now.
Monday’s vote of confidence in Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the German parliament, which he’ll almost certainly lose, is just the latest step in a process that started in early November and culminates in a snap election on Feb. 23.
And even though the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is bound to try to throw a spanner in the works in the coming week, what happens next is largely predictable.
The constitution, designed to prevent the kind of tumult experienced during the Weimar Republic — which helped enable the rise of the Nazis — contains a series of provisions intended to make the unravelling of a government as stable and orderly as possible.
Here’s our guide to what to expect.
As Glenn insta-quipped right around this same time nine years ago, “We have the worst political class in our history. The Germans, at least, can say that’s not true for them. . . .”