It’s a complex, confusing issue, even for Germans, in part because everyone agrees that the Dublin process is a mess, and the union’s failure to fix it is a sore point even for its defenders.

What is more confounding, though, is the fact that the migration crisis is over in Germany. In 2015 and 2016, the German administration was overwhelmed by the influx on every level. Gyms and airport hangars became housing facilities. Soldiers were trained to administer in hearings for pleas for asylum, because the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees could not cope. That’s no longer the case.

This is not to say that the country is not still grappling with the consequences. Europe still lacks a functioning common asylum system. But contrary to what the C.S.U. and A.f.D. assert, the German state is not failing, and order is returning.

For all its shortcomings, Europe has actually managed the crisis quite well, in practice. Its external borders are stronger, and better policed and managed. Cooperation with Libya’s border-patrol militias, however ethically suspect, has brought down the numbers crossing from that country to Italy. So has the agreement with Turkey to host migrants in return for financial aid. In 2015, more than 450,000 pleas for asylum were filed; in 2016, about 745,000. So far this year, there have been only 68,000.

According to figures by the German Federal Agency for Migration and Refugees, only about a quarter of those applying for asylum in Germany in 2018 are already registered in another European country. This means that the C.S.U. risked blowing up the government to push through a regulation that applies to about 100 individuals a day, scattered over all of Germany’s points of entry.

In a sane and sound political system, threats to blow up governments and force new elections are reserved for the truly momentous disputes; small things are resolved through compromise. That’s how Germany worked for decades.

This logic no longer applies. It has been replaced by the logic of escalation. The sentiment of crisis is perpetuated rhetorically in an attempt to whip up public opinion to then point to public opinion as a justification for radical solutions. And not just by the fringes, but by mainstream politicians. Populism needs an outer threat to function. It requires a sense of urgency to justify its policies. Populism can’t let crisis go. It is both its fuel and its outcome.