Merkel is horrible for a lot of things, but your example is a terrible one... She's a conservative, and the conservative economic doctrine is austerity for the

Merkel is horrible for a lot of things, but your example is a terrible one... She's a conservative, and the conservative economic doctrine is austerity for the masses, but handouts for businesses. She and her economic minister presided over the Euro crisis terribly, causing hardships in Spain, Italy, Greece. People commited suicide because of it! Since Germany was the biggest economy in Europe of course what Berlin said was what Brussels would parrot. And I'm glad she said Syrians were welcome, but after many years of telling Germans and other Europeans that they needed to tighten their belts, suddenly she said "we can do it!". It's freaking understandable that the people who've been indoctrinated that without the belt-tightening there'll be nothing left for their pensions are pissed off at the idea that several hundred thousand refugees would be fed, clothed, housed, etc, with their tax money. Again I'm glad she welcomed the refugees, but after spreading austerity doctrine all over Europe, the populist rightwing reaction is understandable. The rightwing party AfD is now a significant fraction in German state and federal parliaments, if you want to be cruel you can say Merkel did a better job of growing Nazism than a certain previuos German leader who had Europe-conquering ambitions..