364 votes for Merkel, 315 votes for no one at all. That’s not exactly a ringing vote of confidence. Nonetheless, that may have been the close vote in which the forces of freedom had not quite enough to save Germany. Merkel will have four more years, or more precisely three and a half, to complete her destruction of Germany and its demise as a free society. The Muslim migrant inundation will continue, and Germany will grow ever more wonderfully diverse.

“Bundestag reelects Merkel as chancellor,” by Maxime Schlee, Politico, March 14, 2018:

Angela Merkel received the final rubber stamp to lead her fourth government on Wednesday with Germany’s lower house of parliament officially electing her chancellor.

Among the 692 MPs to vote in a secret ballot at the Bundestag, 364 voted in favor of another term for the 63-year-old Christian Democrats (CDU) leader and 315 voted against (nine abstained and four votes were invalid). With only nine votes above the needed majority — which lay at 355 votes — Merkel’s victory is her narrowest since she first took office in 2005.

“Clear election, smooth start. Now with all strength for Germany!” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the CDU’s general-secretary and a close Merkel ally, wrote on Twitter….

“There were more opposition votes than I expected,” Andrea Nahles, leader of the SPD’s parliamentary faction, told German newspaper WELT, adding that there was no use in speculating which MPs voted against Merkel, given it was a secret ballot.

“The high number of dissenters at Merkel’s chancellor election unmasks the enormous centrifugal forces within the grande coalition,” Christian Lindner, whose liberal Free Democrats pulled out of coalition talks with Merkel’s conservatives shortly after September’s election, tweeted.…