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The Christian Democrats more than halved, the AfD nearly doubled
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The election results in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt particularly shocked
former Chancellor Merkel, as she explained in an interview with the news channel
NTV.
I transcribed ans translated her remarks. Her unedited, verbatim German text is attached to
this blog as an appendix.
You can see it in the polls in the days leading up to the election, but
when you see it in black and white on Sunday evening, it’s simply shocking -
at least that’s how I felt.
This is a turning point - a real turning point - that we’re
witnessing in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, and to add a
personal note, as a CDU member, it breaks my heart; I really have to say
that.
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Our former chancellor, visibly struggling to find the right
words
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But now we have to consider, for example, the reach that the AfD has on social
media - in other words, its influence over the flow of information. It’s not
enough to simply say, “Well, we don’t use TikTok”- we have to face this
head-on and meet people where they are. We won’t be able to win them all back
- I want to make that explicitly clear - because the AfD also wants to abolish
public television. So how do we achieve this now?
In the spirit of the Enlightenment, we really must not allow a situation
where, when it’s said that unemployment has fallen in Saxony-Anhalt and
individual prosperity has risen - a position that could win a majority or
nearly win a majority - the leading candidate then says, “Maybe so, but
that’s not how it feels,” because then the emotion is being played upon.
Emotion suddenly becomes just as important as the facts.
And if we allow that - and this, again, is a responsibility we all share -
that was the progress of the Enlightenment: that the collective could
agree on facts, and based on those facts, people then arrived at different
preferences for political parties and so on.
But no one has ever disputed that the facts matter. When we communicate
with one another now—and we’re actually supposed to be having a meeting to
discuss specific facts - people say, “I’m just not feeling it today. We
can’t talk about it.” If that mindset takes hold, then we’re taking steps
backward in terms of civilization - at least that’s what I believe - and
we need to raise awareness of that again.
I’ll be completely honest: I don’t have the answer. I just know that some
things - AI aside - are perhaps even more important than they were before:
addressing citizens on an individual level. And this is becoming crucial
now, because everyone has their own information sphere.
But what’s also being demanded of candidates, for example - they now have
to, so to speak; it’s no longer the case that the slogan comes from the
Adenauer Haus* and then you walk out the front door and tell them that,
and they say, “Nah, we’re not interested.” I have a question - I mean, the
candidates also have to be really on top of things.
*The CDU party headquarters in Berlin
What’s happening to some extent now is that the AfD is so dominant that
the others are already intimidated and don’t even show up anymore - and
that’s not illegal yet - so as a democratic party, I have to seek out
contact with citizens all the more.
So much for Angela; she tries desperately, but doesn’t have
the answer.
Red Baron fears that our Western democracies may be destroyed by people’s
selfishness and stupidity.
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The reasons to vote AfD
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Let’s try to analyze the situation for Germany: Why did people in
Sachsen-Anhalt vote for the AfD? A poll shows:
21% are dissatisfied with the Merz administration.
Pluralism and democracy are always good as long as freely elected
governments can hand out benefits. In that case, citizens even accept -
sometimes grudgingly - that the distribution isn’t always fair and that the
gap between rich and poor keeps widening. But with sufficient economic
growth, the pie gets larger, so everyone gets a bigger slice.
But when economic growth stagnates or even “shrinks,” and tax revenues
are low, there’s nothing more to distribute. When it comes to the point
where our government has to take back some of those previously granted
benefits, it hurts.
In a stagnant economy, apparent growth can only be produced artificially by
taking on debt or increasing the share of the pie at others' expense.
An example is China. Chinese automakers are now flooding the European market
with cheap, government-subsidized electric cars after the American market
shut them out. The European auto industry is powerless against these dumping
prices.
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Fast-rising Chinese national debt
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The price China is paying is a rising national debt. They couldn’t care less.
With the cornucopia of benefits empty, the erosion of democracy begins
insidiously, and it accelerates when reforms roll back established
privileges. AfD’s co-chair Alice Weidel swears: “Those at the top are flat
nose pliers* (dimwits) who can’t get anything done.”
*Flachzangen in German, coined by Alice
In her statement, Weidel represents the 22% of AfD voters who are
discontent with the political system.
Decision-making in a democracy almost always involves compromise, and that takes time, so people voice dissatisfaction with the democratic system. Do they prefer a “strong” man or woman?
Germany’s postwar constitution was written to produce a “militant”
democracy, with a robust toolkit for battling extremism.
As early as 2023, the Saxony-Anhalt Intelligence Agency for the
Protection of the Constitution classified the state chapter of the AfD as a
confirmed far-right extremist movement: “It holds views that undermine the
central principles of the Basic Law*, such as the guarantee of human dignity
under Article 1 and the principle of democracy under Article 20. The AfD in
Saxony-Anhalt seeks to abolish parliamentary democracy in its current form
and attempts to delegitimize the democratic system and its institutions.”
*The German constitution
Winston Churchill already said in the House of Commons on November
11, 1947, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it
has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all
those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Where do we go from here?
And once again, a rift is opening up between Europeans who see the far
right as a threat to democracy, and a growing number who see it as
democracy’s savior.
The former warn that the far right will dismantle checks and balances,
while treating minorities as second-class citizens. So far, Meloni, after
a flirtation with Trump, seems like a good European, but shouldn't we
reckon with the German fury?
The latter see the far right as a bulwark against an out-of-touch governing elite that
has eroded their national identity and endangered their livelihoods. On
average, people in Germany’s eastern federal states are worse off financially than
those in the west. They criticize Germany's spending on refugees and aid to
Ukraine, while many older people have to get by on small pensions.
Next step: How to form a government in Sachsen-Anhalt.
Appendix.
Das Merkel-Interview bei NTV:
Man sieht das in den Tagen vorher in den Umfragen, aber wenn man’s dann am
Sonntagabend schwarz auf weiß hat, dann ist das einfach schockierend,
jedenfalls mir ging’s so.
Das ist ein Einschnitt ein wirklicher Einschnitt, den wir in der Geschichte
der Bundesrepublik Deutschland erleben, und um jetzt noch was aus etwas
Emotionales zu sagen, mir als CDU Mitglied blutet das Herz, das muss ich
wirklich sagen.
Jetzt müssen wir aber überlegen, welche Reichweite zum Beispiel die AfD in
den sozialen Medien hat. Also welche Informationshoheit. Dann ist es damit
nicht getan zu sagen, ja aber wir gehen nicht auf TikTok, sondern dann
müssen wir uns dem schon stellen und die Menschen da auch abholen, wo sie
sind. Wir werden sie nicht, ich will das ausdrücklich sagen, weil die AfD
auch das öffentlich-rechtliche Fernsehen abschaffen will, nicht alle
zurückholen und wie schaffen wir das jetzt?
Wir dürfen im Sinne der Aufklärung wirklich nicht zulassen, dass es, wenn
gesagt wird, die Arbeitslosigkeit ist gesunken in Sachsen-Anhalt und der
individuelle Wohlstand ist gestiegen, mehrheitsfähig ist oder fast
mehrheitsfähig, der Spitzenkandidat dann sagt: "Kann sein, aber das wird
nicht so gefühlt", denn dann wird das Gefühl bedient. Das Gefühl ist
plötzlich genauso wichtig wie das Faktum.
Und wenn wir das zulassen, und das ist wieder eine Aufgabe von allen,
das war der Fortschritt der Aufklärung, dass sich die Summe der Menschen auf
Fakten einigen konnte, und auf der Basis dieser Fakten kam man dann zu
unterschiedlichen Präferenzen für politische Parteien und so weiter.
Aber es ist nie in Abrede gestellt worden, dass das Faktum das Wichtige ist.
Wenn wir jetzt miteinander kommunizieren und eigentlich sollten wir ein
Meeting haben und uns über bestimmte Fakten austauschen, dann sagt man: "Ich
fühl mich heut nicht so. Wir können nicht drüber sprechen." Wenn das die
Hoheit übernimmt, dann gehen wir zivilisatorische Schritte zurück, das
glaube ich jedenfalls, und das muss auch wieder bewusst gemacht werden.
Ich sag jetzt ganz offen, ich hab die Antwort nicht. Ich weiß nur, manche
Sachen, KI hin und her, sind vielleicht noch wichtiger als sie vorher waren:
Die individuelle Ansprache der Bürger, und es wird jetzt ganz wichtig, weil
ja auch jeder seinen Informationsraum hat.
Aber was wird da auch von Kandidaten zum Beispiel verlangt die müssen jetzt
sozusagen, es ist nicht mehr die Parole kommt aus Adenauer-Haus und dann
gehst du vor die Haustür und sagst ihnen das, dann sagen die, nee,
interessiert uns nicht. Ich hab die Frage, ich hab die Frage, d.h., die
Kandidaten müssen auch richtig fit sein.
Was jetzt zum Teil passiert ist, dass die AfD so dominant auftritt, dass die
andern schon verschüchtert gar nicht mehr hingehen und das ist ja noch nicht
verboten und deshalb muss ich jetzt umso mehr als demokratische Partei den
Kontakt zum Bürger suchen.
**
