"Although Canter gave up on getting the display ads approved, he did keep paying for the Google search term “Angela Merkel,” which it linked to the Oath Breaker site. The Merkel campaign could’ve paid Google more money to displace the ad, but, to Canter’s disbelief, it never did. “We’ve been running search on Merkel’s name, calling her ‘Oath Breaker,’ and pointing to a very ugly website about her,” Canter said, laughing. “If it was us, we’d say, ‘You need to invest to get that ad bumped down.’ ”

For US Americans this might not be anything out of the ordinary, after all, "money=speech" and political campaigns mostly focusing on tearing down the opposition have been the norm for decades.

But for the German political landscape, where political parties are publicly funded to ensure a somewhat level playing field (at least in theory) this is a complete perversion.

Particularly the change in tone in the political discourse, it's become extremely toxic, apparently in no small parts due to the introduction of US American campaign tactics.