In the aftermath of Saxony-Anhalt's state election, Germany finds itself at one of those rare historical junctures where a single regional result casts a long shadow over an entire nation's identity. The far-right AfD's victory — and the revelation that three in five voters chose parties Chancellor Friedrich Merz considers hostile to the rule of law — has forced a reckoning not only with the health of German democracy, but with the country's commitments to Ukraine, NATO, and the postwar liberal order it helped build. Merz, visibly shaken, reached for the language of constitutional principle, k