Germans love stability. Their whole political system is designed to prevent change or, at least, to slow it down to a glacial pace. Germans also love to complain. That’s why they can’t stop grousing about the obvious stagnation (another word for “stability”) of their country. They also love compromises that to many others would seem foul and ineffective but appear reasonable and, again, stable to them. That’s why they are stuck between wanting nothing to change and everything to finally get better.

Yet, from time to time, that German system of national frustration recycling breaks down at the top. Such a collapse has just occurred. On Wednesday, November 6, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed Finance Minister Christian Lindner. He thereby also ended the so-called “traffic light” coalition that has ruled Germany – for bad and for worse – for almost three years.

Named after the colors of the participating parties, the coalition consisted of Scholz’s own “red” SPD party (the Social-Democrats, who are so centrist they might as well be conservatives), the Greens (right-wing NATO-fetishists and fanatic Russophobes who also like to ruin the economy), and the “yellow” FDP (center-right “free-market” liberals whose worst nightmare is taxation). Since former finance minister Linder is also the head of the FDP, booting him out in what the New York Times has rightly described as a “spectacular breakup” led to all other FDP ministers – except one who rather abandoned his party than his cabinet position – also exiting the government. This leaves the latter in existence but dead in the water, commanding only a minority in the federal parliament, and incapable of actually governing.

Now the question is what comes next. Or to be precise, when: Since the parliamentary opposition, mainly the centrist conservatives from the CDU, is not politically suicidal and therefore will certainly not provide majorities for Scholz and his rump government, early elections are inevitable. If the coalition had lasted its full term, they would have taken place at the end of September next year. Now they will happen some time in its first quarter.

When exactly is currently a matter of contention. In constitutional terms, how to get to these emergency elections is clear: Scholz will have to call a confidence vote in parliament to predictably lose it. This will allow the German president........

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