Merkel’s most brazen error was
her iron-fisted approach to the Greeks. A nation down on its luck, Greece installed wily populists in Athens in the heady, pre-Trump, pre-Bernie days of 2015. The global establishment considered it a one-off. So, Merkel eventually won the exchange—though some, including this writer, think they
should have defaulted and left the European Union altogether.
Merkel and her joyless financial lieutenant, longtime minister
Wolfgang Schäuble, may have bet right the Greek government would flinch. But a year later, the British public didn’t. The
“neoliberal” economic faith that guided Merkel’s thoroughly “normie” years in office utterly failed to anticipate Brexit and then the populist upheaval in Germany’s defense guarantor, the United States of America.
It was the beginning of the end for Merkel.
Continental Europe’s iron lady exits the stage after 16 years in power, with neither Germany nor Europe clearly better to show for it.
www.theamericanconservative.com