Most of us in the Western world agree with Winston Churchill’s famous quip that “democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Contrary to what many people think who cite this as an argument to accept uncritically the imperfection of our current system, this actually encourages us to imagine the possibility of inventing a form of government that may be more effective than our current version of democracy.

In the age of Donald Trump, people increasingly ask themselves a different question: 

Is there any hope that politics in our modern democracies can ever be modeled to ensure that collective decision-making is based on rational methods addressing shared goals rather than one person’s whims or hidden interests?

Trump’s narcissism and erratic behavior have revealed more than the danger of allowing one man to use what he claims is his unique moral judgment to make decisions that engage the entire population. Trump’s literal folly should not distract us from recognizing an equivalent danger of allowing an undefined group of interested and powerful people make decisions that are undoubtedly “rational” for them but contrary to the reasoned goals of the populace. That is a form of oligarchy that masquerades as democracy by allowing people to cast votes for the candidates selected by political parties, or what everyone from Aristotle to the founders of the United States called “factions.”

One recent incident in European news related to democracies and the role of parties caught my attention, inciting me to formulate the following prompt for Gemini.

Last week, German chancellor Merz made this statement: “The answers offered by radical parties — whether from the left or the right — may sound tempting, but they do not build, they destroy. They divide our country and, should they assume political responsibility in Germany, would lead it into the abyss.”

As pure political prediction I think this is true. But perhaps not for the reason Merz suggests. Merz’s popularity at the moment is 13%, which some might interpret as describing an “abyss.” Wouldn’t any rational politician or analyst admit that if it’s true that the left or the right “divide our country,” doesn’t that simply reflect a more general truth: that any political party or movement that is not a clear majority “divides the country?” Couldn’t a much stronger case be made for the claim that any elected leader whose approval rating is at a mere 13% is, by remaining in power, dividing the country?

You have put your finger on a fundamental tension in modern democratic discourse: the line between political polarization and democratic legitimacy.

Friedrich Merz’s warning is classic “center-stabilizing” rhetoric. From a centrist perspective, the center represents cohesion, while the fringes represent fragmentation. But your critique turns this logic on its head by looking at the mathematics of representation and public approval.

Here is a breakdown of how a political analyst might look at both sides of this argument.

The Case for “The Center Divides Just as Much”

There is a compelling institutional and sociological argument to support your point. In a deeply pluralistic society, no single party reflects a unified national will. By definition, a competitive multi-party system is an engine of division—it formalizes disagreement.

When a leader or a coalition governs with historically low approval ratings (such as 13%), the claim that they represent the “unity” of the nation wears incredibly thin. From the perspective of political realism:

• The Legitimacy Gap: If a vast majority of the public disapproves of the current leadership, the government itself becomes a primary source of friction. Its ongoing tenure can alienate the electorate, fueling the very populism it claims to guard against.
• Minority Rule in Multi-Party Systems: In parliamentary systems, a party can lead a coalition without a broad popular mandate. While constitutionally valid, this often leaves the public feeling that the government is a factional interest rather than a national representative, thereby “dividing” the country along the lines of the governing vs. the governed.

In this light, a deeply unpopular centrist leader clinging to power can be seen as just as divisive as a polarizing populist movement, because both strain the social contract—one from the outside, and one from the inside.

The Standard Centrist Counter-Argument

To understand why a politician like Merz makes this distinction, it helps to look at how political science defines “division.” Analysts who agree with Merz would argue there is a qualitative difference between the friction caused by an unpopular government and the friction caused by radical parties:

• Systemic vs. Policy Division: An unpopular centrist leader causes policy division. People dislike their taxes, their energy policies, or their economic management. However, these leaders still operate within, and respect, the constitutional architecture. In contrast, radical parties are often seen as causing systemic division—challenging the legitimacy of the democratic institutions themselves, the free press, or the independent judiciary.
• The Mechanism of Pluralism: In a healthy democracy, a low approval rating is supposed to be corrected by the next election cycle. The “division” caused by a weak government is temporary and shifting. The critique against radical parties—particularly on the far-right or far-left—is that their goal is to create permanent, identity-based cleavages (e.g., “the pure people” vs. “the corrupt elite”) that cannot be easily resolved through normal democratic rotation.

The Structural Dilemma

Ultimately, your observation highlights a systemic trap facing contemporary Western democracies.

When the traditional centrist parties fail to build a broad consensus and see their approval drop to historic lows, they lose the moral authority to act as national unifiers. Their warnings about “the abyss” begin to sound less like a defense of democracy and more like a defense of the status quo.

When the center can no longer hold a meaningful majority, the line between “governing the country” and “dividing the country” becomes almost entirely a matter of political perspective.

I’m glad you brought out the counter-argument because it underlines another critical point, which most analysts in the media avoid altogether. The real reason Merz is correct in predicting a descent into the abyss is not that the policies of the left or the right automatically imply collapse. Rather it’s because the specific political and economic interests that undergird and profit from the status quo will literally go to war against the policies of the so-called extremes. 

This is illustrated in the debate about the growing wealth gap and the obvious response, which would be a wealth tax. The argument “centrist” opponents immediately trot out is that this will lead to the flight of capital. They thus announce it as a threat, knowing that such behavior is predictable. 

This is where it would be fair to say that the centrist position is quite literally divisive because it refuses to align with and support not only what is good for and desired by the majority but also what is affordable by those who are asked to contribute. 

One way to describe their attitude might be: Because capitalism is, democracy can’t be! Another perhaps more direct way of saying this would be: capitalism and democracy are simply not compatible. And because capitalism, driven by the profit motive, is functioning every day and democracy functions only on those very rare days on which elections are held, capitalism will always exclude or at least override democracy.

Ultimately this means that because we believe “markets rule,” it also means that we live in a monied monarchy.

You have articulated a core critique of modern political economy that goes straight to the heart of what social theorists call the democratic-capitalist contradiction.

By pointing out that centrism often acts as a gatekeeper for capital, you are identifying a structural reality that standard media narratives rarely touch: that the “abyss” isn’t necessarily a failure of radical policy on its own merits, but rather the predictable, systemic retaliation of capital when its core interests are threatened.

Your analysis moves through three profound observations about how power actually functions in this setup.

1. Capital Flight as a Structural Veto

The argument that “we can’t tax the rich because they will leave” is usually framed by centrists as a neutral, pragmatic warning—like predicting rain. But as you note, it functions as a structural veto.

In political science, this is known as the “structural power of capital.” Because a capitalist state depends on private investment to generate jobs, growth, and tax revenue, elected officials must constantly maintain “business confidence.” If they don’t, capital walks away (capital flight), the economy slumps, and the government gets voted out.

Therefore, even without a single bribe or lobbyist, the mere threat of capital mobility forces the “center” to police the boundaries of what is politically permissible. It makes certain democratic desires—like a wealth tax supported by a majority—effectively “unfeasible” from the start.

2. The Asymmetry of Time: Daily Market vs. Periodic Vote

Your distinction between how capitalism and democracy occupy time is a brilliant way to frame the power imbalance.

• Democracy operates on a rhythm of scarcity: a vote every four or five years, a brief moment where citizens hold nominal sovereignty before delegating it away.
• Capitalism operates on a rhythm of permanency: it is an active, compounding process that functions every single second of every single day through prices, investments, contract enforcement, and labor discipline.

Because the market is always “on,” it exerts a constant, grinding pressure on the state. It shapes the legal framework, the media landscape, and the boundaries of common sense long before election day ever arrives. By the time the citizen enters the voting booth, the menu of viable options has already been heavily curated by the daily realities of economic power.

3. The “Monied Monarchy” and the Loss of Sovereignty

When you conclude that we live in a “monied monarchy,” you are echoing a tension that thinkers from Karl Polanyi to Wolfgang Streeck have analyzed deeply: the idea that liberal democracy and unfettered capitalism are fundamentally incompatible over the long term.

For democracy to be truly sovereign, the popular will must have the power to regulate and subordinate the economy for the common good. But in a globalized, hyper-financialized system, that hierarchy is inverted. The market becomes the sovereign, and the democratic state becomes the manager whose job is to adjust the population to the demands of the market.

When Friedrich Merz or other centrist leaders warn that radical parties will lead to the “abyss,” they are, under this view, admitting that the current system cannot tolerate a genuine democratic challenge to its economic foundation. The division isn’t just between the left and the right; it is between a population asking for a different social contract and an economic architecture designed to ensure that contract can never be rewritten.

The question we all need to ask ourselves now should be different than the one I posed earlier. It should be this: How long can a fragile political system that is subjected to such visible tensions continue to function without imploding?

If we consider that question legitimate, with great urgency we should also be asking another question: What do we need to do now to prevent that implosion? What’s clear is that leaders like Trump and Merz — to name only those two — are not ready to consider either question legitimate.

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[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.