The quiet Scholz, the mumbling Habeck and, if necessary, a heap of money: the government is terribly afraid of riots and is currently doing everything it can to calm the nerves of the people. The Green Ministers show visible leadership.
Have you ever been ashamed of enjoying something today? Is it actually possible to happily eat an ice cream and squint at the blue sky when war refugees land in sight? Have you perhaps said that your presentation hit like a bomb today – and then regretted this formulation when you looked at the news? We Germans live in a tilted picture: sometimes everything looks like war, death and ruin, then the cherry trees are in bloom and the government is giving everyone an unconditional 300 euros.
Panic and normality give each other a scuffle in the German folk soul, sometimes one is up, sometimes the other. The Russians in the Kremlin are threatening nuclear war, but honestly, isn’t that what they’re doing all the time? In general: A security expert explained to Lanz that it will not come to that, after all, after the nuclear bang, one cannot threaten again, that would be tactically nonsensical. “We want as much normality back as possible,” said Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann. He meant the pandemic measures, but it seems to me that he is expressing a possibly German need and in any case a strategic goal of the federal government: When will it be really normal again, as normal as it used to be?
When the chancellor recently proclaimed the “turn of the tide,” no one noticed that he meant a 360-degree turn. Apparently, it’s an ironclad political rule that German citizens shouldn’t get excited beyond a certain point. This policy is the opposite of the action film “Crank”: While the main character there needs repeated adrenaline rushes in order not to die of poisoning, we Germans need Freedom Day, 300 euros or an Olaf Scholz speech so that we don’t die of excitement. Scholz recently opened a Tesla factory, the signal: “the economy is buzzing”, everything is fine, please do not wear yellow vests. “Economy, economy, economy” is, as Zelenskyj painfully put it, our main concern.
The German addiction to normality
Nobody embodies the Germans’ addiction to normality like the chancellor, who really avoids any attention. Olaf Scholz saved himself a historic speech in the Bundestag on Ukraine, initially completely, namely after Selenskyj’s appearance, then a few days later when he lectured on everything not will do – don’t worry! When NATO took the family photo on Thursday, the chancellor was completely absent, he was too late – afraid of the camera?
If Putin wants to put the chancellor in shock, a surprise Facetime call will probably suffice. Winston Churchill gave his blood, sweat and tears speech during World War II, Jimmy Carter swore his people in 1977 to an energy transition that was morally equivalent to a war. But Scholz looks at the urging of commentators from the capital for a speech to the nation in much the same way Horatio Hornblower looks at salt water splashing through the porthole: motionless.
Without Scholz and with a rather disastrous defense minister, the traffic light is above all green: Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck have found the form that would have given them the chancellorship without the messed-up start in the election campaign. Now the two Greens share the chancellor’s office, at least in terms of public image – they worked well as a duo before the election campaign.
Habeck, a Youtuber with a tie
Since the world spirit sometimes tends to make nasty remarks, it shed light on Madeleine Albright’s life this week of all days: the politician, who has now died, analyzes the “Washington Post”, also rose because she felt comfortable in front of cameras – unlike Clinton’s “wooden” secretary of state and the “media-shy” security adviser. The chances of fame always depend on how badly the colleagues perform.
Robert Habeck, Chancellor of the Federal Republic, finds Chancellor words for the chaos, he points the way to a future of rotten compromises (Qatar) in a muddled and contrite manner. Habeck takes up the pain of the people, he makes the dilemmas visible, he doesn’t avoid any questions – and if he does, then in such a way that nobody notices. The written word is the author’s primary medium, the spoken word is more of a kind of hobby, not every picture, not every formulation fits perfectly, but that fits in with the arranged and unarranged overall appearance of North German. He’s the teacher who doesn’t admonish the student before the math exam, but cheers for him, sometimes stands on a table to motivate him and circulates a bottle of wine on the class trip.
Habeck has also mastered video, the ultimate medium of our time, like no other. He doesn’t even have to present himself as Selenskyj, like Tobias Hans, who also had an accident and was campaigning recently. Habeck doesn’t simulate, he really can: with a microphone in his hand he reports reporteresk from Qatarquasi a correspondent embedded in himself, a commentator and not a protagonist of unpleasant world events.
Baerbock disassembles Merz
Habeck is the narrator of his own actions. His ministry produced a video that seemed spontaneous but was perfectly lit, in which the North German apparently told the story straight from the heart. Here and there someone makes a cut to conceal slips of the tongue. Habeck, a Youtuber with a tie. He was worried about whether he could address human rights “in your face,” he says, but it worked out, no problem folks, now it’s time to go home – yes lol hey.
Viewed from the outside, Annalena Baerbock is the Federal Chancellor. She convinces even die-hard conservatives. The minister speaks, leads and counters the end of the peace order. Forget your English, the plagiarism, the arrogance – even critics see: Oops, it really comes from international law.
When the head of the Union, Friedrich Merz, who has meanwhile also mentally fully joined the opposition, dares a cheap dig at “feminist foreign policy” in the budget debate, he makes a huge mistake. Baerbock builds up and dissects the rhetorically by no means unarmed Merz, reports on rapes in the Balkans, conversations with the mothers of Srebrenica, that’s “no fuss, it’s up to date”. It is such a rattling verbal beating that Merz afterwards really touches the masked nose to examine it briefly.
Germany, the sleepy hegemon
What does this mean for the real, formal chancellor? As announced, it shines for peace in the country and traffic lights. With the second relief package, the government alliance presented itself in the usual, harmonious, orderly form. The silent leadership works, but does Scholz want to go down in the history books as the steward of the others? The apparently really extreme camera and media shyness stands in the way of the Chancellor growing into a historical leader in these times of crisis.
If Germany under Merkel was still a “reluctant hegemon,” as the Economist once wrote in 2013, it’s now more of a sleepy one. And yet we have the G7 presidency – did you notice that? A survey confirms the Chancellor’s support among the population, but the SPD and Scholz are already falling behind in the trend barometer. Another study suggests that Germans would like their country to get more involved in crises.
Maybe we can even stand the excitement a bit better than the traffic light says.