Roland Tichy on Merkel

Read an article in German the other day that I thought was refreshingly honest about Angela Merkel and her political legacy. The author is Roland Tichy, who the German media considers "right-wing"; in many other countries he would be seen merely as a traditional conservative.

Article is at www.tichyseinblick.de...

(Sorry, I can't do anything about the paywall).

Some choice quotes, with comments of my own.

Moreover, any overly long chancellorship leads to distortions, hardenings, democratic impositions. Even the best chancellor, who has been in power for too long, becomes the worst head of government.

Me: 16 years in office is a long time, most likely too long. The sluggishness of the German political system enabled this outcome and pointed out a defect in German democracy: the chancellor's office should have term limits.

However, the fact that a politician without charisma won power in Germany and has been in power for more than 16 years now, precisely because she has no charisma, which is confused with reliability in Germany, says a lot about the state of the country. It seems that the Germans have an aversion to politics within them and therefore want someone at the head of their state who reliably and without burden solves the problems of the state for them.

Me: A damning indictment of the German people, but I wonder how fair a judgment it is. Under Merkel's time in office, political competitors neatly had their careers ended early, and it was the politicians who formed the "grand coalition" governments that are desperate to keep challengers out of power. When the socialists and so-called "Christian Democrats" team up to control who enters the government, there is not much ordinary Germans can do about that.

In order to disguise the panicked and unprofessional actions of the Federal Government, the "welcome culture" was invented with great media power and all those who continued to talk about reality were defamed as "rights", because right-wing was now synonymous with right-wing extremists.

Me: Media in Germany has indeed been a powerful ally of Merkel. I also seem to recall that when media got a bit unruly, they were hit the reliable legal standby of the German elite -- the laws regarding defamation and spreading rumors about individuals.

The Corona pandemic uncovers the chancellor's failure even mercilessly, even if it is hidden and over-frozen by the media loyal to Merkel until recently .... The Chancellor bears personal responsibility for the vaccination disaster and the resulting health and economic consequences, because at her request the Brussels EU administration was entrusted with the acquisition of the vaccine. Again, according to common patterns, reality is being fought as a right-wing conspiracy, this time as vaccination nationalism.

Me: All of the EU is bubbling at the moment over the vaccine situation. The people stood a year of abnormal travel and economic (lack of) opportunity, and are now unhappy that the vaccine roll-out is not progressing smoothly.

The country needs a chancellor who takes a firm view of reality and acts in accordance with political rationalism, who first and foremost feels his responsibility towards the German people.

Me: Obviously a populist view; yet, what is so remarkable about it is that such views have been practically nonexistent in German mainstream media. Tichy's take on these matters is hardly radical, yet they appear so because so much of the other media have been too cosy with Merkel for too long, and thus avoided holding to her public account in the style purported to be a point of pride for the media. Merkel's performance in office has for a long time hardly been questioned at all by the media, which was a huge point in her favor because the German people tend to have faith in the objectivity of their mainstream media.

Me: This only touches upon a small part of the article. For those who can access it, it is well worth reading.

Cheers

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

in truth, these people are much more present in germany than you think. there are newspapers that are more in the conservative, slightly right-wing corner, and they are just as much part of the mainstream media as left-wing gazettes like faz or balanced ones like spiegel. merkel has has led the country through the crisis quite well, until now. but slowly everyone is getting tired and that is why the poll ratings of her party (cdu) are also suffering. i never voted for her, but i have respect for her performance and strength.

Does it mention she is cozying up to Russia to get their natural gas? So much for that Paris accord Ange.

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

In Germany, 'right-wing' carries a different connotation than in the USA.

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

In Germany, 'right-wing' carries a different connotation than in the USA.

No it doesn't.

You might think it does but it doesn't.

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

In Germany, 'right-wing' carries a different connotation than in the USA.

No it doesn't.

You might think it does but it doesn't.

The German experience is that a hard-right-wing government assumed power, removed their democracy and civil liberty laws, drove them to war with nearly the entire free world (which they lost), and in the process millions of citizens were executed, most on a racial basis (they had committed no crime). These right-wing politicians did this in a time period equivalent to three US presidential terms of office.

What Allied troops found: Getty Images

a reply to: chr0naut

So Germany hasn't had active neo-nazi groups for as long as I can remember?

There is another problem with the single-minded focus on the far right in Germany.

Post 1945, a German regime ran an extreme left wing Orwellian police state for 45 years. That regime didn't conduct mass murder like the Nazis, but murdered plenty of political opponents and shot down ordinary citizens for attempting to flee to the West.

These crimes are now treated as yesterday's news by the German authorities. No focus on the old Stasi operators or the border guards who shot their own people in cold blood. What's worse: those border guard troops conduct reunions ... and their is NO remorse on their part for having murdered their own people. The mentality of the old border guards is that those citizens "knew that fleeing the regime was a crime punishable by death and so we were perfectly right to kill them".

This is the kind of hypocrisy that stinks so badly. Where is the German media in all this? Why aren't they conducting investigations of what the old communists got up to ... or maybe, even what Merkel was up to in those days when she was, eh, "agitating" in the East German communist youth movement.

I think it is good that the German government keeps an eye on the far right, but they should stop being BLIND IN ONE EYE. There is plenty of bloody dirt in the ranks of the German leftists, but they get very little attention from either the German media or the authorities.

Cheers

originally posted by: lakenheath24
Does it mention she is cozying up to Russia to get their natural gas? So much for that Paris accord Ange.

This was mentioned in the article, re: energy.

With the energy transition and the Renewable Energy Act, the Chancellor created some extremely happy EEG millionaires on the one hand and the highest energy prices in Europe for the people on the other. In order to preserve the facade of correct decision making, the energy costs are capped in an amendment of the EC, but the finance minister is now paying off the further price increases from tax revenue, so that the citizen does not notice it and the acceptance of renewable energies is growing among the population.

Cheers

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
a reply to: chr0naut

So Germany hasn't had active neo-nazi groups for as long as I can remember?

Yes, they have, and the vast majority of the general populace are not very accepting of them.

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
a reply to: chr0naut

So Germany hasn't had active neo-nazi groups for as long as I can remember?

Yes, they have, and the vast majority of the general populace are not very accepting of them.

Just like America...

I rest my case.