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Germany: Chancellor Merz has never been more unpopular (www.dw.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/europe@feddit.org
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[โ€“] 104 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

To be fair, he and his government have been working tirelessly for this. They've been

  • lying about the necessity of new debt (then immediately taking up unprecedented amounts of it)
  • promising reforms that never came
  • calling the working part of the population lazy bums, all the while preparing tax breaks that will disproportionally benefit large companies and the top 10%
  • fucking up and slowing down the transition towards renewables amid yet another fossil fuel energy crisis
  • copying the disgusting populism of the far right all the while claiming to be trying to contain them (instead of doing the obvious and initiating a constitutional review of the party by the Supreme Court)

What annoys me more than the man himself is the fact that everyone paying even a modicum of attention could have seen this coming from a mile away. And they voted for his party anyway.

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  • [โ€“] 15 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    Pretty much Lets not forget "Reiche"

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  • [โ€“] 6 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    And now that they're disappointed with him, polls move further to the right, so they still don't get the problem.

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  • [โ€“] 8 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    I fear they aren't trying (or likely) to "get" anything. I think we need to come to terms with the fact that for right-wingers, there's nothing rational about their political decisions. Yes, they will rationalise it after the fact when pressed by pollsters, claiming they're mostly concerned about migration or the economy. But if you really drill down, you'll find that many of them live in parts of the country where there are hardly any migrants, and that the economic policies of their favoured right-wing parties would hurt them more than anyone else.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    But if you really drill down, youโ€™ll find that many of them live in parts of the country where there are hardly any migrants, and that the economic policies of their favoured right-wing parties would hurt them more than anyone else.

    For example, most migrants live in cities. Many cities have strong Green and little AfD votes.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 4 months ago

    Precisely! Where do we see the highest percentages of AfD? Rural areas in Eastern Germany, which have been
    a) hit hard by the economic shifts of reunification
    b) have suffered from severe population drain because young people follow opportunity, and that does lie in the cities rather than in the countryside. c) hardly see any migrants due to a) and b), but are full of people willing to listen to a good scapegoat story that gives them somebody to hate for the conditions they live in.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago*

    for right-wingers, there's nothing rational about their political decisions.

    I agree. But what we're seeing is voter migration from e.g. the social democrats to the fascists. Those can't all be "hardened" right wingers (yet) who are lost to democracy. Otherwise, why would they ever have voted social democrat before? There's a lot of people who are disappointed with politics and feel that no government ever did anything for them. But they turn to the people who openly tell them that they'll fuck them over even worse.

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