Angela Merkel at Davos: Right-Wing Populism is a Poison

The following video shows German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. Her interlocutor is Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the WEF.

Many thanks to Anton for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:04   When one listens, above all, to the overseas members,
00:09   there is still concern about European right-wing populism,
00:13   I think; we are talking about 10, 15 percent.
00:23   What is your opinion? Will that grow or will we get it under control?
00:29   I think, I hope it will not grow.
00:32   At least we are trying to get it under control.
00:35   But it is a poison. Because it is like this, always when we have unresolved problems.
00:42   And I said that in Germany this was initially the result of the Euro crisis.
00:47   Where, so to speak, there was the impression that others could live at our cost.
00:53   And then the second thing, migration, where one had the impression,
00:57   we are not… something has been taken away from us.
01:00   And when it comes together with economic weakness and high unemployment,
01:05   the danger is simply very great that this force can arise.
01:12   We say, only look after ourselves, and the others are, to begin with, the strangers.
01:16   Then the groups in a society are marginalized.
01:20   And that’s why I started that way; it’s so important that we draw lessons from the past correctly.
01:25   And one point in the Euro crisis — for example — was not a migration issue.
01:30   That we started saying yes, the Greeks are like this.
01:33   The Germans are stingy and the Greeks are very different.
01:37   And once you start talking about people like that…
01:40   The Americans are protectionists, and the Germans are…
01:44   then they have already gone, [laughter] I already said stingy.
01:49   I am finished with austerity now. But then I would say then
01:53   that they generalize and then lay the foundation for that.
01:57   And the Muslims are like this and the Christians are like that.
02:00   Then, then, you have to look into the background of each person individually.
02:03   That is laborious, but as long as you do not put the individuality of each person in the center,
02:07   and already have prejudice if someone is in front of you,
02:10   without your having spoken a word with them, then this is the gateway to right-wing populism.
02:18   [Applause]
 

27 thoughts on “Angela Merkel at Davos: Right-Wing Populism is a Poison

  1. What an inadequate rambling answer. “Poison” shows where her views lie.

    “… there was the impression that others could live at our cost”. Yes, Mrs. Merkel, great hordes of others are indeed living at Germany’s expense, thanks to your illegal opening of the borders. Germany has you to thank.

  2. In order to wake up all west civilization and understand the danger, the west must feel the danger. And as many sources tells us, before the wake up, many millions must die, many millions must suffer. The elites think that the world exist for them, not the opposite. Big companies think in the same way, with a small difference, money and profit. That’s all, folks.

  3. I wonder when was Merkel in error…in 2010, 2011 when she said integration is 100 % impossible, or today?

  4. There was not even one Chinese at this circus? I think China is about the first industrial supplier in the world. They don’t count economically, or ideologically?
    I bet they will support Merkels ideas about importing millions of analphabets for further development in space programs and microprocessors architecture.

  5. Frau Merkel ist an East German Apparatchik. The woman has no sense of history. No sense of the Judaeo/ Christian roots of Western civilization. A disarming demeanor…a soft voice and soothing words are her stock in trade. A man by the name of Bill Clinton might be her cousin. Too bad the State educational system is so deficient. We are doomed because of individuals like this gentle appearing person.

  6. “And when it comes together with economic weakness and high unemployment, the danger is simply very great that this force can arise.”

    And just who might be responsible for this economic weakness and high unemployment?

    Chirp…chirp… Nothing but the sound of crickets from the Left.

    • You use the word “progs” which is short for “progressives”…Explain please because in my book she is calling for the end of free speech and in what way is that “progressive”?

      • “Progressive” is the nice term now used by totalitarian collectivists, once called “communists.” If you want a one-world communist government under UN leadership with no borders and hate people like Trump (elected by “poisonous” populists) you are a “progressive.” Which is ironic since they want to regress to a tribalist situation we long grew out of – progressives are regressives.

        • So then if you think they are regressives call them regressives, do not add to their lie by calling them progressive!

  7. So what she is essentially saying is that when communistic despots like her screw up the culture, the economy and the safety of ordinary folk in pursuit of ramming a foul global supremacist ideology down their throats, someone might come along and offer the people a better deal. And they might prove popular! Well, well. Some caring soul should distribute free dictionaries to that lot with the definition of “populism” highlighted.

    It is classic delusional Lefty behaviour is it not? – instead of attacking the problem, they attack those who point it out.

    • Are you saying Merkel is quote communistic ?

      Really?

      can you explain your thinking on this?

      • Syrian=Greek=German=No difference.

        Or

        Spanish debt=German credit=Euro=ECB balance sheet=all the same=we all go down together.

        Or

        You say what you want but it has to be as we say.

        Or

        It is all about the individual, as they are different, just like everybody else.Only the state protects individuals from their differences because it is common and not individual.

        Communism, social capitalism, supranational dictate.

        Global equality… they don’t like you because you are different… droids…zombie thinking.. blah blah and etc. etc.

        Can you explain your absence of comprehension for us, Quigles?

        • Can you explain your absence of comprehension for us, Quigles?

          To be really truthful I cannot explain that and perhaps the problem is not with me because I am fairly well read int he Marxist classics and I understand the actual history of the socialist movement from its origins to today quite well.

          I will only take a small part of what you write…

          “Communism, social capitalism, supranational dictate.

          Global equality… they don’t like you because you are different… droids…zombie thinking.. blah blah and etc. etc.”

          What has droids and zombies got anything to do with any serious conversation? Nothing so why introduce such […] terms? I mean this is a really serious website devoted to a serious subject…Islam.

          I do not understand any of that, “Communism” does not dictate because it does not exist. What you have today is not hunter gatherer, not slavery, not feudalism, it is capitalism. There is no working class power in any country on earth. And there is no socialism anywhere.

          But there is a capitalist system and that is what must be insisted upon. Sure there are many differences within capitalism but there is one capitalist system.

          These are such basic concepts. By the way, my name is an Irish name and I am proud of my name and proud of being Irish.

          • Have we descended so far into confusion that I have to restate such basic terms. Perhaps that is the real lesson of these exchanges. The debasement of concepts betrays a debasement of basic human knowledge. That is what should be concerning.

  8. The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.

    First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

    Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

    Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.

    ATLANTIC CHARTER, AUGUST 1941.

    Adherence to the principles set forth in the Roosevelt-Churchill Declarations by the governments allied with Great Britain was formally declared at the second meeting of the Inter-Allied Council, held in London on September 24, 1941. […]

    The following resolution was then adopted unanimously:

    “The Governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and Yugoslavia, and representatives of General de Gaulle, leader of Free Frenchmen, having taken note of the declaration recently drawn up by the President of the United States and by the Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill) on behalf of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, now make known their adherence to the common principles of policy set forth in that declaration and their intention to cooperate to the best of their ability in giving effect to them.”

    Inter-Allied Council Statement on the Principles of the Atlantic Charter : September 24, 1941

    On New Year’s Day 1942, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, Maxim Litvinov, of the USSR, and T. V. Soong, of China, signed a short document which later came to be known as the United Nations Declaration. The next day the representatives of twenty-two other nations added their signatures. This important document pledged the signatory governments to the maximum war effort and bound them against making a separate peace.

    United Nations Declaration
    The complete alliance thus effected was in the light of the principles of the Atlantic Charter, and the first clause of the United Nations Declaration reads that the signatory nations had:

    « . . .subscribed to a common program of purposes and principles embodied in the Joint Declaration of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland dated August 14, 1941, known as the Atlantic Charter »

    Declaration by United Nations, 1st January 1942.

    Angela Merkel has no understanding of why we all fought against the Nazis in WW2.

    Unfortunately, neither do our own political leaders.

    We all know how Winston Churchill responded to the prospect of rolling over and letting the Germans tell us how to live our lives:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/churchill_decides_to_fight_on

    And what do we get? Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May. I wouldn’t hire any of them to drive the scaffy larrie, man.

  9. “…there was the impression that others could live at our cost. And then the second thing, migration, where one had the impression, we are not… something has been taken away from us. And when it comes together with economic weakness and high unemployment, the danger is simply very great that this force can arise.”

    a social engineer uncovered? This would imply that Merkel was waiting for strong economy and low unemployment to bring about the migrants… I got the impression that she thinks that a society is something like chemistry – you mix this and that, but be careful not to mix too much of that…

    What it boils down to is that she probably really thinks she’s above us (nationalists/anti-migrants/race realists) in intelect and knowledge, because she refuses group-stereotyping.

    But she doesn’t get that she’s actually stereotyped whole mankind into her sterotype of “all people are the same!”

    I mean, stereotyping is a perfectly normal and universal way of dealing with insufficient information – and she rejects that.

    She is dangerous for she doesn’t understand her enemies and doesn’t care, for she has all her answers and doesn’t need any other perspective.

    “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

  10. This woman is certifiable. The best argument to limiting any politician’s maximum term of office to 2.
    I am inclined to believe Merkel is merely insane, not a paid facilitator of a cultural marxist attempt at bringing about the NWO through the total destruction of Western civilisation. Cloward-Piven? No, I must be crazy. No one could have that much hatred, disdain and pute evil in soul, could they?

  11. Ms Merkels response to a clear problem is inclarity, mostly. She does not care for other peoples’ responses. Populism as poison…she IS clear about that.

    Beware lucky Germany….

  12. Barbara Ethel…I am defending Marx and Marxism against your phrase “cultural Marxism”

    Let me quote you in full…

    “This woman is certifiable. The best argument to limiting any politician’s maximum term of office to 2.
    I am inclined to believe Merkel is merely insane, not a paid facilitator of a cultural marxist attempt at bringing about the NWO through the total destruction of Western civilisation. Cloward-Piven? No, I must be crazy. No one could have that much hatred, disdain and pute evil in soul, could they?

    I think Merkel has been better described above. She specialises in appearing like an ordinary “housewife” perhaps that is the most noticeable thing I take from her “method”. In her rambling and confusing way where you have to struggle to understand what she is getting at, she is most dangerous because she is a key part in closing down free speech.

    I have not studied Cloward and Piven. You need to explain to me what that has to do with Merkel.

    Are you claiming that they (those two) are Marxists?

    Is your argument that Merkel is a Communist or Marxist, both are pretty similar words in my book.

    But what is a “Cultural Marxist” which you write about?

    I do know that this is a phrase never ever used by Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, and these people had a lot to do with founding Marxism.

    This phrase used so much today does confuse me.

    Let me point out to you…Marx would never have called for the end of civilization…I think you must either not have studied any of his works or you have read a little from some secondary source. I would say though that that was the line of Bakunin the Anarchist leader.

    Hoping for some kind of explanation.

    • Cultural Marxism is a more recent phrase used to explain the apparent merger of cultural class difference and economic socialism into a one size fits all proletariat solution governed by your one and only “all knowing state” with its bounty of decrepit technical corruption.

      • Sorry I do not understand any of your answer. Nothing in it makes any sense to me. Socialism and Communism for over a century was understood to be brought about by the working class taking power and organizing society for the good of everybody and every animal and every thing, not for profit. What happened to that definition? Perhaps the term “Cultural Marxism” is used by the ruling class that is capitalism in order to confuse. Certainly as conceded it is a new creation. And that should make people cautious in using it. I get suspicious when I see people talking in jumbles of words that, despite being well read in the classics of Marxism, mean nothing to me. And people falter in their explanations and why they keep repeating the same.

  13. Towards the end Merkel says…

    “And the Muslims are like this and the Christians are like that.”

    As pointed out she is denying that Muslims historically have been like this, she is denying that there is a history to Muslims and Islam. This is a history which is being actively repressed. it is the learning of this history that is the key or one of the keys to answering Merkel.

    And drawing on further on this theme in our recent experience of a year or so in Syria Islam has been indeed like this and Christians and Animists and Alawites etcetera have been like that.

    As pointed out Merkel denies all difference and all knowledge, itself based on an understanding of history.

    She goes on to link this denial of knowledge to a Christian concept of individuality.

    Am I not correct in saying that Merkel is from a Christian background in East Germany and opposed to the Stalinist regime…Perhaps her Christian roots should be examined. I do know that the hundreds of Muslims into Ballaghaderreen Roscommon were brought there by local Christian do gooders.

    02:00 Then, then, you have to look into the background of each person individually.
    02:03 That is laborious, but as long as you do not put the individuality of each person in the center,
    02:07 and already have prejudice if someone is in front of you,
    02:10 without your having spoken a word with them, then this is the gateway to right-wing populism.”

    Merkel as pointed out reduces everything down to immediate senses, which is individualism, and discarding of all historical theory and method. The ultimate anti intellectualism.

    And to sum up what role does Christinity have to do in all of this destruction of environment and civilization?

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