The CDU must find its way back to its bourgeois, conservative brand core. Otherwise, in the end, not only Germany could suffer an eco-social shipwreck.
In the long term, the CDU threatens to lose its offices, power and scope for decision-making as a determining power of government.
When thinking about the state of the CDU, Andreas Gryphius comes to mind. “But I was still silent about / what is worse than death / what is worse than the plague / and embers and famine / the treasure of souls / so vilen forced”, so the German baroque poet (1616–1664) closes his sonnet “Tears of the fatherland ».
Certainly, there can be no talk of the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War today. It’s not a matter of life and death. In a figurative sense, however, this image of a party fighting for its status as a people’s party is not so absurd. The soul treasure that was forced from the Union in sixteen Merkel years is her bourgeois-conservative brand core. In the long term, it threatens not only the loss of offices and power, which for a party amounts to famine, but also the possibility of shaping it as the determining government force – the elixir of life for the Union.
The SPD has retained the essence of the brand
That is the difference to the SPD, which with last 25.7 percent has risen to the strongest force, but is still far from its old strength. The Social Democrats have also lost their status as a people’s party. But they have retained their brand essence. That is the bracket that allows the SPD to survive even large tensions with wing battles.
Olaf Scholz, who rose from hopeless embarrassment candidate to the new chancellor of a red-green-yellow coalition in a few months, only used two terms: respect and a minimum wage of 12 euros. Supplemented by “affordable rents” and “build”. Everything was posted in deep red – and the credible message was ready: The SPD stands for social justice.
The CDU lacks a clear position
The CDU, but above all the CSU, did not only quarrel with their top candidate. Armin Laschet also stood for a discouraged as well as troop, which just didn’t offend and somehow wanted to please everyone. But conservatives who marry the eco-social zeitgeist quickly become a widower. Even the FDP no longer sees the Christian Democrats as natural allies.
Carsten Linnemann, who represents the economic wing that Merkel disregards in the party, would like a program process in which there are ten points by 2024 that “set us apart from others”. Members should be able to take a clear position on China, migration, pensions and the welfare systems in their sleep. That is a long way to go. Today the party leadership must be happy when their supporters can justify at least one point that distinguishes them from the competition. The last common parenthesis is the “Christian image of man”, which, however, is interpreted as generous mercy or as a demanding social doctrine, as required.
Very few of the remaining 400,000 party members, not a few of whom may have experienced the Ahlen program of 1947, will be able to name the current basic program (“Freedom and Security”, 2007) straight away. Not to mention the content.
People instead of content in the foreground
In contrast to the SPD, Greens, FDP and AfD, at best superficial program debates are conducted in the Union. As a rule, the cozy party evening is more important to the delegates. Even now, since the CDU has decreed a “relentless reappraisal” of the election debacle, people rather than content are in the foreground. At the congress of the Baden-Württemberg CDU in Mannheim, there was not a single request to speak about the report of the meager 66.5 percent re-elected party chairman Thomas Strobl. And that despite the fact that, according to new surveys, this once leading regional association has even fallen behind the SPD, which traditionally leads a diaspora existence in the south-west, with well below 20 percent.
This once proud CDU is only perceived as a compliant appendage of the Greens – and downright despised by large parts of the bourgeois-conservative regular customers.
Young, female, urban, ecological
The fact that Friedrich Merz has to defend himself against the accusation that he is aiming for a “shift to the right” as the new party chairman says a lot about the state of the party and society: on the one hand, that economic expertise and a commitment to national interests are apparently already considered to be “right” . And: how much Merkel’s left shift, above all, has social democratized the functionaries of the party.
The Merkelians in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus are eagerly calculating that the CDU should not align itself with the much more conservative and over-aged members, but should programmatically woo a diffuse “middle” (young, female, urban, ecological) in order to return to be able to win a majority. This position is supported by pollsters and large parts of the media up to the «FAZ».
The advisors fail to recognize that the CDU has long since lost its “bridging function”. It is quite possible that the CDU will lose power in the upcoming state elections in Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia in 2022 and will no longer even be needed as a coalition partner in Lower Saxony. This means that the traffic lights could also rule in the federal chamber of states (Bundesrat).
Loss of civil power in the EU
It doesn’t look any better at European level. Soon no large country will be ruled by Christian Democrats. This means that the group of the European People’s Party (EPP), which had previously set the tone, continues to lose weight. This loss of power has a demotivating effect on the party down to the local parliaments. With far-reaching consequences: there is no longer a bourgeois camp that can stand up to the eco-social blocks. Christian democrats despairingly and aimlessly seek support.
Even in Bavaria, the CSU is slipping closer and closer to 30 percent. Also because Markus Söder’s ingratiation to the eco-social mainstream of regular customers has meanwhile become bitter. At the same time, the fear of the Prime Minister and CSU boss that the FDP and Free Voters of the Union are also contesting the position as natural advocates of the bourgeoisie is not unfounded.
The CDU will have to accept the status of a small people’s party in the long term. Even for this it needs a profile that makes it recognizable as a conservative counterweight to the left-yellow camp. As a coalition partner of the SPD, Greens or FDP, it is then automatically drawn to the political center, if it is needed at all.
In any case, the party broke all bridges with the AfD and thus contributed to the radicalization of a party whose supporters are largely drawn from the Christian-democratic milieu. The hope that the problem of right-wing competition will be resolved by itself through exclusion and demonization has so far not been fulfilled. In the east of the republic, the opposite is more the case. Here the defiant right-wing nationalists are in many cases a people’s party far ahead of the CDU.
Loss of credibility
Part of the bitter legacy of the Merkel era is the loss of credibility. Even if the CDU under Friedrich Merz should proclaim the conservative turnaround backwards – who will believe the party that it will not fall over again in the next media shit storm? For this she needs programmatic depth – and no political shallow roots. As an opposition party, failure is already hanging around its neck like a millstone in almost all political fields: from the failed energy transition to the inflation of the welfare state and the disdain for military capabilities to the momentous welcome culture. You don’t long for ministers like Peter Altmaier (economy), Jens Spahn (health), Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (defense), Anja Karliczek (education), Andreas Scheuer (transport) or Horst Seehofer (interior). Ursula von der Leyen, as EU Commission President, also becomes a burden for the Union, as the European centralism that she is pushing contradicts the Christian-democratic basic principle of subsidiarity.
The new CDU therefore needs both: the courage to regenerate in the conservative niche and people who credibly represent this position. Not for their own sake, but to save Germany and Europe from an eco-social shipwreck. Or at least offer the voters an alternative.
Wolfgang Bok, Former editor-in-chief of “Heilbronner Demokratie”, now works as a freelance journalist. The political scientist teaches strategic communication at Heilbronn University.