Politics turned to Left-wing/Green party vs AFD and there is no middle ground anymore. The FDP basically disappeared and there’s a cliff in society over things like the refugee crisis and Merkel’s “everyone is welcome here” politics.
If I’d ever come back to Europe, I’d settle in Switzerland. It just is the better Germany(at least to me).
Is this intentionally ironic?
There is no contradiction. If you want to come to Canada, for example, you have to qualify for one of the programs, e.g. "Express Entry". That is, have education or better yet Canadian education, at least bachelor's degree but better PhD, experience or better yet Canadian experience, profession in a shortage list, proficiency of English and French, enough money for a year, be <35 y.o., have a husband/wife who also has all of those. If I have none of those, should I be welcome? What if I'm part of ISIS and has been sent to found an HQ in Toronto? You wouldn't invite everyone to your house indiscriminately. Why would you to your country (and then also feed them and house)?
Isn't there a grand coalition in Germany for most of the last 15 years between the center-left and center-right which did very well?
With all the scaremongering about a growing right wing party like the AfD, many Germans fail to realize its supporters have always been there and never grew in numbers but before Merkel had been represented by a caucus inside the most popular parties. There have been various connections inside the CDU and the “Seeheimer Kreis” in the SPD that have become marginalized during the Merkel years with her overly pragmatic and uninspired way of administering a whole country and not committing to any visible political principles.
As a famous German conservative politician of the 1970s once said: „There must never be a political party establishing itself on the right side of the CDU“ (or it‘ll be the end of its dominating power). Exactly that, leaving room for the AfD, was one of Merkel‘s biggest mistakes and it’s going to haunt Germany‘s politics for many years to come.