They couldn’t have reached this low without you, Angie. And everybody here in Germany knows it.
This is where seventeen years of “taking the wind out of the opponent’s sails” slaps back in your face. You’ve turned what was once a conservative CDU/CSU into another SPD (Social Democrats – bourgeois socialists). You’re greener than the Greens. The Free Democrat FDP who stuck to their guns are back and more liberal (in the good sense) than ever but don’t have to have you as coalition partner anymore. Many staunch conservatives who still could jumped your CDU/CSU ship and are now with the EVIL AfD who no one will work with because nobody, your party included, likes competition, so they must be EVIL. And nobody likes the Mini-Merkel-Man you selected to succeed you. Other than that, though, things are looking good. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Merkel implores Germans to back conservatives as they hit record low – Chancellor Angela Merkel made an impassioned plea to German voters on Tuesday to back her would-be successor Armin Laschet at this month’s national election, as an opinion poll showed support for their conservatives slumping to an all-time low.
The Forsa poll for RTL/n-tv put support for the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) at 25%, extending their lead over the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, who dropped 2 points from the previous week to 19%, which n-tv said was a record trough.
Although “man” might be a little übertrieben (exaggerated) here.
They toss the manly-man types out on their ears here in Germany. Or Merkel does, I should say. You know, the popular ones? The ones the voters down below actually want? The swamp folk above do whatever she tells them to do. And that’s just what happened here.
Germany’s conservatives threw their weight on Tuesday behind Armin Laschet, a cautious centrist, as their candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor in a September national election instead of his more popular Bavarian rival.
Markus Soeder, leader of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), conceded defeat in his week-long battle with Laschet, chairman of the larger Christian Democrats (CDU), to lead their alliance, dubbed ‘the Union’, into the Sept. 26 election.
“The die is cast – Armin Laschet will be the Union’s candidate for chancellor.”
Or with her country, for that matter. But it won’t be much longer.
Merkel’s Conservatives Mired in Scandal and Incompetence…
The Union has been in turmoil ever since it became known that to conservative lawmakers are thought to have enriched themselves with business deals involving medical protective equipment – at a time when workers across the country were fearful of losing their jobs, when the self-employed were facing ruin and when doctors and nurses were risking their health. Political representatives benefitting from a crisis that has gripped the entire country is not a good look…
A majority of the population, though, might be inclined to overlook such missteps if things were actually working. If people had the feeling that the government was doing its job protecting the population from the virus and ably leading the country through the pandemic. But that is not the case.
Die Union rutscht in einer Umfrage um vier Prozentpunkte ab und hat den positiven Effekt der Corona-Krise wieder verspielt. In der Kanzlerfrage läge Laschet hinter Grünen-Politiker Habeck – aber vor einem anderen direkten Konkurrenten.
Not. “Never ever,” as the Germans like to say in English. It’s what Merkel & Co want that counts.
Or maybe they used Dominion voting machines to select this guy? Jeez. This is almost as bad as back home in the Banana Republic of America.
Germany: Poll shows low support for new CDU head as Merkel successor – Armin Laschet, just elected to chair Angela Merkel’s CDU party, seems little preferred by Germans as a candidate to succeed her as chancellor in September. One pollster puts him on 12% with Bavaria’s Markus Söder on 43%.
The other two candidates competing for the job of CDU party boss had actually stood up to her in the past. They never had a chance.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party on Saturday chose Armin Laschet, the pragmatic governor of Germany’s most populous state, as its new leader — sending a signal of continuity months before an election in which voters will decide who becomes the new chancellor.
Laschet defeated Friedrich Merz, a conservative and one-time Merkel rival, at an online convention of the Christian Democratic Union. Laschet won 521 votes to Merz’s 466. A third candidate, prominent lawmaker Norbert Roettgen, was eliminated in a first round of voting.
But who am I to criticize how other countries run their elections? I am a citizen of the Banana Republic of America.
Today we see the end of the West German Dream, of an egalitarian “social market economy” with “prosperity for all,” added to the death of the East German Dream of a socialist society leaving capitalism’s insecurities, crises, and class divisions behind.
When Angela Merkel became chancellor in 2005, the two big “Volksparteien” (the mass “catch-all” parties, the Christian Democratic CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic SPD), together still commanded 69.4 percent of the vote. Yet during her chancellorship, these parties have been forced to govern together in three ever-shrinking grand coalitions. Today, a year after federal elections saw a far-right party enter parliament for the first time since 1952, these two forces no longer represent a majority of Germans. The polls give them a combined tally of just 42 percent.
And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of folks. Or Volk, if you prefer.
The German Social Democrats’ (SPD) existential crisis can no longer be treated as a typical party crisis. The party captured a mere 9.7% of the vote in regional elections in Bavaria this month, and it is trailing both the populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the Greens in national opinion polls. With another important regional election fast approaching in Hesse, polls indicate that the SPD will lose still more support, albeit not as dramatically as in Bavaria…
Most likely, the fall of the CDU/CSU-SPD duopoly will undermine German hegemony in Europe, even if no other country can replace Germany in that role. At the same time, the weakening of the SPD will diminish the socialist faction in the European Parliament, where a similar eclipse of two-party rule could be in the offing. Yet without the twin pillars of the European People’s Party and the Party of European Socialists, the parliament will be incapable of making even insignificant decisions. As Germany and the SPD go, so goes Europe.
And as Angela Merkel herself says, there is nothing to whitewash about her party’s decision to refuse reelecting her man Volker Kauder as CDU party whip. They elected the Merkel critical Ralph Brinkhaus instead.
The natives are getting restless. The AfD keeps growing in popularity. Her coalition partner SPD is still dead and getting deader by the minute. Now her own party members are trying their hand at open rebellion. Other than that, though, everyhing is looking just fine.
“Das ist eine Stunde der Demokratie, in der gibt es auch Niederlagen, und da gibt es auch nichts zu beschönigen.”
The latest Emnid “Sunday trend” survey indicates that Germany’s CDU/CSU Union and SPD “grand” coalition government continues to loss favor with German voters – and is not nearly as grand as the name implies.
Like the SPD experience last week when it fell behind the AfD in similar popularity ratings, the CDU/CSU has also continued its slide and are now only at 29 percent. With the SPD’s current 17 percent rating, the grand coalition would only reach 46 percent of the vote if elections were to be held today.
Everyone is puzzled about what the reason for these low ratings could be. Not.
Die Parteien der großen Koalition verlieren bei den Wählern an Zuspruch. Von den Einbußen der Unionsparteien und der Sozialdemokraten profitiert bislang nur eine Bundestagspartei.
According to the “Germany trend” survey taken by the ARD, the popularity of Germany’s dominant sister party union of CDU/CSU (Angela Merkel/Horst Sehofer) has dropped to 29 percent, its all-time low. Meanwhile, the ostracized right-wing populist party AfD has climbed to 17 percent, its highest rating so far. If an election were held this Sunday, the union and the SPD (the current grand coalition government) would no longer have a majority and land at 47 percent.
Now I’m going to go way out on a limb here but I think all of this has something to do with Germany’s still unresolved migrant crisis.
Union sackt auf Allzeittief – AfD steigt auf Rekordhoch.
Observing Hermann 