If you watch Olaf Scholz at work, you get pity: someone hesitantly mumbles a few sentences into the microphone, but only when there is no other choice. The chancellor must now be able to demonstrate success, otherwise his displeasure will endanger the traffic light.
“Where’s Olaf?” is a running gag in Germany these days and when the most powerful man in the state becomes a joke, nervousness quickly mixes with laughter. After all, the mood of the Germans could be better: the danger of war, inflation, a pandemic and a ten-thousand-year winter are all leaving their mark. Even the last comedian was sufficiently amused that Scholz is not Cicero. But shouldn’t he be a little… more present? Scholz looks like the new boss who is reluctant to step out of the office and in front of his staff.
The chancellor has a quiet, North German soul, and as a Schleswig-Holsteiner I feel that. But the constant questioning about his whereabouts and, presumably, the threat of armed force from his PR team finally dragged him in front of a camera. With a face like a five-year-old in front of a steaming plate full of spinach, Scholz mumbled through the war and pandemic issues of the “Heute Journal”. There he also answered the pressing question of who is chancellor at the moment, he or the extremely present Gerhard Schröder. Scholz replied confidently, “that’s me”. He sounded like a chief official from the Chancellery, not like a power politician with the authority to set guidelines. Has really no one “ordered leadership” from him?
Why is Scholz like this? Some reasons are tactical. Kevin Kühnert urged obedience in ntv’s “early start”: Anyone who now insinuates that the federal government has no clear course, is helping Putin (and is a traitor to the fatherland – at least that’s what it sounded like). The Greens had already made such a sound. It is correct: If Scholz were to lay all tactical considerations in dealing with Russia on the table, it would be as stupid as mirrored sunglasses in a poker game.
In addition, the power architecture of the traffic light requires a moderating chancellor. Scholz had promised that he wanted to make others shine. The three-party alliance is a historic first. It has to withstand strong centrifugal forces: when it comes to fighting the pandemic, the FDP is on the sidelines, everyone is divided on compulsory vaccination, and on questions about Russia, the rift goes through the election winner, the SPD. A chest-drumming gorilla, who dictates every step and picks the flowers for every success, cannot lead such a structure.
In addition, Germany is not a country that appreciates great speakers. Anyone who puts too much effort into performance, i.e. expression and language style, is quickly suspected here. The Germans like it real and earthy, they are suspicious of ornaments, they have never learned it any other way. They didn’t have a courtly culture, which is why they took refuge in romance and the search for the “sublime”, the real. While in the United States, for example, learning to speak is considered professional and speechwriters are celebrated stars, in Germany politicians and executives are treated as if they were all natural talents. Or Scholz.
But Scholz can be quite different if he has time and peace, a controlled environment. His appearance on “Joko und Klaas” was empathetic, his performance was solid, his voice sounded alive, not like a conversation in the confessional. He had time to practice and repeat. So is Scholz simply overwhelmed by live situations? And what does that mean? Can you murmur silently through an entire legislative period or even 16 years?
The contrast to Angela Merkel is striking. To describe the former chancellor as a stage pig would be very impolite and wrong: the politician tolerated and used cameras, but she did not look for them. But she communicated in a highly professional manner. One of her first official acts was her own video podcast. Appeared at that time he in Game Boy resolution, it was 2006 after all! Scholz was innovative in the election campaign, with bright posters and good slogans. As head of government, he shows himself – hardly.
In major crises, Merkel spoke to the population in short, simple sentences – that also served the “mother” image and caused ridicule, but she reached many people in this way. “We can do it”, “The situation is serious, take it seriously”, or, in the financial crisis: “We tell savers that their deposits are safe.“These are not elegant, not beautiful sentences – but they don’t sound incomprehensible or bureaucratic.
Scholz sentences, on the other hand, are long, knotted together like bed sheets in a prison break. He hardly scores, but he stops in the middle for whole seconds – and those seconds are very, very long. This is what the most important sentence looks like in “Today Journal” out:
“And that’s why it’s so important that we’re very clear in what we’re saying and in what we’re preparing to do, which is that it would come at a very high price that the (two second pause) territorial (one second pause) Sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine (half a second pause) to endanger and attack there militarily and I believe this message was also understood.”
I’m sorry, what? Pauses in speaking on such a large stage and in a tense situation are fatal. One wonders: what is Scholz thinking about? Didn’t he prepare? Is the course not clear? Is Scholz unsure? The question about Ukraine should not have surprised anyone in the Scholz team.
Is the mumbling dangerous?
It wasn’t just Alan Posener who took the break for that reason in the world” in terms of content: “He only stumbled once: namely when he tried to say that a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine would entail a high price,” writes the journalist, interpreting the stumble as a “Freudian slip”. Chancellor knows that the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine has long been violated.
Is Scholz’s mumbling, the “Scholzomat”, a risk for traffic lights – or even for Germany? The media are hysterical by nature and therefore the opposite of Scholz. He is known to be a rower, he even staged himself on a water ergometer, in a slightly oblique allusion to Frank Underwood in “House of Cards”. “But you know what takes real courage? It’s brave to keep your mouth shut, no matter how you feel about it,” he once said.
What Scholz could help now is praise from one elder statesman. “He can do it” by Helmut Schmidt or something like that would be ideal, like back then Peer Steinbruck, but Schmidt is prevented. A smaller caliber (Gerhard Schröder) will not help.
Scholz needs the diplomatic breakthrough
A word of power from the chancellor in other matters would look good, so a smokescreen, but in pandemic matters he will not be able to assert himself against obstructions such as Winfried Kretschmann and the confusion of jurisdiction. Smaller topics would scarcely make an impression.
The greatest success, a Scholzian success, would be a diplomatic breakthrough in the Ukraine crisis. It would be typical, as Scholz could share laurels with his foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. Let others shine, that’s what he had promised. A doer in secret, not a stage pig. But the dispute over television channels that has now also flared up with Russia does not bode well.
Scholz will probably have to row against the loss of authority for a while.