The survey found that 32% of eligible voters believe Germany has worsened since Merz took office in May, while just 22% say the country has improved. A further 37% perceive no change at all.
So 68% are satisfied- that’s quite ok in today’s political climate 🙃
Merz really, really did a large scale election campaign fraud: Campaigned on a platform of “no new debts, no new taxes”, promised a lot and, well, they are now taking on new large scale debts, are talking about increasing taxes and abolishing holidays while moving to the right. Yeah, it’s worse.
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I know it’s nitpicking, but Merz is chancellor, not president. Chancellor and president are two distinctly different offices in Germany.
His campaign being based on lies is not the same as election fraud.
There is no indication of relevant fraud happening with the 2025 elections themselves.
Merz isnt president
💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗
He certainly is prersident of the hearts.
💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗
everyone with half a brain cell knew beforehand that given Germany’s position, he most definitely would have to take up new debt (… or, alternatively, tax the rich - haha, fat chance).
so I know why CDU/CSU voters feel betrayed because Merz claimed he could do without but seriously… they had it coming.
but, he was elected. and that doesnt go away just because you cant fulfill campaign promises.
That link brings me to an article called
Germany updates: Merz hails ‘new chapter’ in German-UK ties
Neoliberal «moderates» paving the road to the fascist right again. Happened in the US. Next up is UK, France, Germany, maybe Canada… Meanwhile, the Left everywhere, the only actual alternative, is derided as «delusional».
A good part of the left is delusional. The left worldwide largely forgot about its core issue, wealth and income distribution, in favour of ridiculous and highly divisive identity politics, throwing the working class, its former core clientele, to the fascists.
Unless the left finally realise that it’s a class war, not a culture war, they’ll only ever be able to appeal to a small privileged elite dwelling in the social sciences faculties of institutes of higher education that contents itself in cosplaying as the proletariat in their spare time.
On top of that, the German Left also is full of Putin bootlickers and hopelessly naive “pacifists” who confuse pacifism with passive submission to force.
While I agree the German left has too many Putin fans and vulgar pacifists. Your point on identity politics is a pretty reactionary point. Left politics means social justice. Class reductionism with social conservativism is not leftist politics. This is why you were compared to Wagenknecht in the past.
Had to look it up. Cui bono? One party seems to be played without understanding how they are used and suppressed.
Class reductionism is disparagingly used to describe theoretical and political frameworks that prioritize the significance of class relations over all other societal hierarchies. The term is used to criticize theories, policies or strategies that neglect to directly address racism, sexism or other social oppressions in favor of broad economic policies that are targeted at addressing the working class as a whole. Critics of class reductionism claim that this approach sidelines people, particularly working-class people, who want to take up the fight against other oppressions more directly, and fragments political movements on the Left as a consequence.[2] Class reductionism has been described as being opposed to identity politics and postmodernism.[3] The term has also been used to describe Marxist theory as a whole.
Basically class reductionism is used to promote the idea that equality of equity/elimination of class will solve all social inequality, but it is most often used against minorities such as queer people. You can’t have social justice while ignoring the discrimination of minorities. It also goes for focussing on “identity politics” without fighting inequality of equity. You need to fight for all who are disadvantaged and not just some.
I don’t understand what you mean with equality of equity.
It’a a losing strategy to fight with limited resources every possible battle. Targets have to be prioritised. That the demand to fight each battle at the same time is even considered speaks for the deep influence of the elite on the left discourse.
Why can’t the class war be fought first? Shouldn’t that resolve all other inequalities? Who would suppress queer people under communism?
Limited resources is a shitty excuse to not fight racism, sexism and queerphobia.
There is that Wikipedia page for this debate. This is a big debate. Arguments don’t seem to lead to a result or a result would have been mentioned. I only know that it’s bad strategy to spread resources thin. If winning is not important then an endless series of skirmishes that considers all topics equally is an option.
I would still love to know
Why can’t the class war be fought first? Shouldn’t that resolve all other inequalities? Who would suppress queer people under communism?
Yes many the guys who said the old traffic light coalition failed, succeed in a larger fail. The CxU lobbyists in the cabinet go from clusterfuck to clusterfuck daily. The try a kafkaesk German version of MAGA. You don’t want to hear more about this.
Who would’ve known (besides those who know some basics about politics)?
I’ve got it! Let’s elect another neoliberal/conservative. That’ll cure what ails ya!
The 37% that experienced no change will not feel the pain for several years as these policies take time to hollow out the country.
The CDU have implemented policies and taken actions that will result in a lower quality of life for the people of Germany. We must tax billionaires out of existence and protect our countries people and assets. 100 millionaires should not exist, and people like Merz should not be insulated from the pain and suffering they are all too willing to inflict on others.
Anyone who is surprised by this should have their head examined.
This is scary. The AfD might come to power.
Thank you for this in-depth analysis (/s, just to be safe. The article consists of three sentences and doesn’t even say who made the polling.)
You have to scroll down past the birth-rate and migrant article to get to the main body (I don’t know why).
Third of German voters say situation is worse since Merz took power
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has entered the summer break with lukewarm public support, a new YouGov poll for German news agency DPA shows.
Try this direct link: https://p.dw.com/p/4xaaB
I’m not from Germany, so what could I know, but Scholz looked extremely indecisive. Did he make any decisions at all? In comparison to Scholz, any chancellor would appear like a crazy reformator. And people mostly dislike reforms.
In comparison to Scholz, any chancellor would appear like a crazy reformator. And people mostly dislike reforms.
Merz does exactly what has been happening for the last 20 years, except maybe for Scholz’s brief interlude: Axing social systems and handing money to the so-called elites. If anyone spooked the people with reforms, it was Scholz’s government. I very deliberately say his government because his ministers did all the work while he, as you said, mainly stood around trying to act “besonnen”.
well he might have thought: “Well it worked for Merkel, why not for me too?”
has been happening for the last 20 years
20 years? Did you forget Hartz 4 by Schröder and the Greens?
No, this has been going on for a lot longer.
Don’t let that fool you. Scholz’ measured attitude may make him seem passive, but his government was very active in terms of reform. Merz talks a big game, but the main contributions of his government are to revert changes from the previous ones, while also raking up massive debt to support his budget (something that he has actively campaigned against and blocked during Scholz’ tenure).
Actually, while Scholz himself was not presenting exactly like a decisive leader, his government was the most productive we ever had with both the most projects on their to-do list and even being able to start or complete the highest percentage of their own project when compared to previous governments.
We “ever” had is a bit far fetched imo. Certainly more than what happened during most of Merkels reign, but then again Merkel never failed to pass a budget.
You’re too young to remember Helmut Kohl, are you? Merkel was a frantic activist maniac compared to “Birne”.
Yeah, my first notion of politics was the song from the Gerhard show.
You made me remember - lets suffer together https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GTggD1vShoA&pp=ygUWZ2VyaGFyZCBzY2hyw7ZkZXIgc29uZw%3D%3D
We “ever” had is a bit far fetched imo.
Yes and no. This was investigated and the numbers do agree with respect to the previous two governments per four years each.
From Bertelsmann Stiftung (German) translated via DeepL:
With a total of 453 promises, the 2021 coalition agreement contains around 50 percent more concrete projects than the 2018 coalition agreement and almost two and a half times as many as the 2013 coalition agreement. However, in its three years in government, the traffic light coalition has only implemented just over half of these (52 percent) with 236 projects - 45 percent have been fully implemented and 7 percent partially implemented. 98 projects (22%) were still in the process of being implemented when the traffic light came to an end. Implementation had not even begun on a further 118 projects (26%).
The traffic light system has therefore failed to meet the high standards it set itself. After the two previous governments each implemented almost 80 percent of their promises, the traffic light balance sheet is much worse, with just over half of the promises implemented. Nevertheless, in absolute figures it has even implemented slightly more projects (+7) than its predecessor government and significantly more (+88) than its predecessor government.
Merz is the very opposite of a reformator.
That would be a “deformator”, I guess.
Nah, the thing with Merz is that he more-or-less transparently lied during the campaign, brought in multiple lobbyists as minister, brought in multiple politicians with previous corruption scandals as minister/party whip and now these people are behaving exactly as you think they would. They’re trying to do Trump light, and unfortunately they’re not totally unsuccessful in that.
Externally, Merz is making pointlessly macho announcements to other countries (and is then often not following up, e.g. along with Macron, he gave an ultimatum for a ceasefire to Putin … which just passed and was never heard of again). Domestically, Merz continues verbally beating up the poorest while investigating tax cuts for the richest. Dobrindt is making inhumanity and inefficiency at the border cool again, in the process fucking up relations to neighboring countries like Poland. Reiche is evaluating how to fuck solar and wind power to be able to import more fossil gas. Schnieder is investigating how to fuck the cheap-ish national train ticket while making fossil-powered cars and flights cheaper. Now-party whip Spahn, whose corruption led to somewhere between 2.5 and 10bn€ being lost on FFP2 masks since 2021, is tirelessly repeating that he is being prosecuted for nothing and feels zero guilt. And in the past few days, the CxU parliamentary group prevented the election of a constitutional judge because of a right-wing campaign cooking up a bunch of lies about her.
That’s a lot of shit, especially given they’re just 70 days in office.
