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With her apology in the Bundestag on Wednesday, Angela Merkel was able to win over much of the population from stalemate, and with her appearance in Anne Will on Sunday, she lost it again just as quickly. In an impressive midweek speech, the Chancellor took responsibility for misconduct in the crown crisis in just a few words. In the grueling talk, he tried to push back this responsibility with more words.
After the Mea Culpa of the human Angela, the meandering of the man of power Merkel followed. The talk show turned into a tactical debacle; to the lesson on dismounting as a politician, although the moderator provides one template for self-declaration after another.
When Will asks at the beginning of the program if he apologized to Merkel on Wednesday for having reached the end of his authority and ability to act, the chancellor replied dryly: “No.” As Will later suggests, possibly greater power over Infection Protection. Act Merkel does not rule out the possibility of partnering with the federal government to control the individual efforts of state princes, but it also does not want to be too specific: “We always need the federal government and the states together.”
But this unit just doesn’t come together. Will cites critics who speak of meetings between the federal government and the prime minister, which often end in chaos, as “organized irresponsibility,” and Merkel apparently believes that she can really expect wrestling parties to be on the brink. of a common situation. Solution with the following words: “We have everything ready, but the question is: do we reach the same conclusions?” A head of government between oracle and impotence.
It goes on for an hour: Will punches, Merkel blocks. If the moderator asks specifically, the politician rambles. Apparently also because he can’t think of any answers. At one point, with almost poignant bluntness, she said she wanted to think a bit more about possible solutions. Not for weeks, but for a few days.
Merkel’s classic move
Anne Will is a critical but very polite interviewer this Sunday. Really ideal for Merkel, who, after her apology, needs exactly this kind of follow-up to allow her public self-flagellation to be followed by public self-discovery. But the bow is followed only by the usual political pettiness of power. Where on Wednesday Merkel stood protectively in front of the heads of countries that had also not covered themselves with fame, she is now pushing the knights forward again to make them look even more stupid. A classic Merkel move.
Does the state government of the capital hesitate to relax? The Chancellor warns: “I really don’t know if testing and walking around, like they do in Berlin, is the right way.” Isn’t North Rhine-Westphalia tightening security measures despite an incidence value well above 100? Merkel thinks: “We have the emergency brake. We have sworn standing to uphold them. Unfortunately, it won’t do it everywhere. ” That is why the failure is blamed on the federal system and its representatives, which simply cannot be reversed.
Lots of political science, little self-criticism, few concrete solutions: interviewer Will struggles with words in the face of poor performance at some point. Meanwhile, he even uses comic language to elicit a flash of inspiration from Merkel in the style of Daniel Düsentrieb. According to the presenter, she believed that Merkel would offer more on the show, in keeping with the motto: »Hell! I found the Philosopher’s Stone. “But the Chancellor is not in jet mode tonight and he says,” The Philosopher’s Stone doesn’t exist. “
What does the population want?
To counter this constructively, Will refers to Portugal, where a much more massive danger situation has been acted very wisely: in Portugal, the incidence value in January was still above 800 in some cases and has since been reduced to 29, although the country fell since the beginning of the most dangerous variant of the British Crown that had been affected. The key to success was a constant closure of contacts.
But that is exactly what Merkel is obviously very afraid of; During the conversation, she repeatedly refers to the population that you have to carry with you and not just condescending. Merkel: »In a democracy this is not done par ordre du mufti, but by conviction. Otherwise, one says: What kind of authoritarian chancellery is that?
But what does the population want? In her panic at not appearing authoritarian, Merkel may have lost her sense of what people are willing to do. He repeatedly referred to his pastoral fatigue without drawing any political conclusions from it. It is true that only what the majority of the population supports can be enforced. But most of them are prepared to take tough action. Anne Will cites a poll according to which 31 percent of respondents approve of the current measures; 36 percent call for even stricter measures.
Sure, people have finished, they can’t anymore. But perhaps they are even more awake than Angela Merkel is capable of perceiving in her own exhaustion.