March, 2021
Berlin – If I were a German citizen, eligible to vote, likely I would support candidates of the SPD or Die Grünen. Not the CDU, not the FDP, not Die Linke.
Die Linke have demonstrated that they are better critics on the outside, to keep people honest, than competent officials on the inside. Gregor Gysi has been an entertaining case in point.
The FDP had a chance to govern responsibly in coalition with the CDU a few years ago, but declined over petty differences. That forced the CDU and SPD into a coalition, which neither wanted, and sorely compromised the SPD so that it has lost voters and is now only the shadow of what it was in the days of Willy Brandt and (my favorite) Helmut Schmidt.
The FDP's irresponsibility made the execrable and dangerous AfD party the leading opposition party in the Bundestag. How dangerous? The Bundesverfassungsschutz has recently taken steps to put it under surveillance as a threat to democracy in Germany.
The CDU — Christian Democratic Union — has governed responsibly, for the most part, for which it deserves credit. Chancellor Angela Merkel has led Germany well, on balance (especially on refugees and the pandemic), although on fiscal policy I wish she were more sozial and had made fewer austerity demands on other countries in the Eurozone. In Baden-Württemberg, the CDU has joined with the environmentalists of Die Grünen in a successful coalition for several years.
The CDU would be a good model for the Republican Party in the United States to follow, as Republicans struggle to free themselves from the grip of Trumpism. The CDU is a center-right party firmly committed to democratic values. Its roots go back the immediate post-WWII period, when America and the Marshall Plan were re-establishing Germany as a democracy and an economic power.
There is an analogy that fits the situation. When the Great French Wine Blight struck in the 19th century, French vintners turned to grafting American grapes onto their vines for resistance to the pest that caused it. American Republicans should think about grafting CDU values back into their party for resistance to the political pestilence that similarly afflicts them. After all, the CDU has a deep connection to America. In a sense, Republicans would be re-importing the American values they once stood for themselves.
I have not been in Berlin since late 2019 (because of the pandemic) and must rely mostly on newspapers and personal conversations to try to keep up with what is going on. I also rely on ARD television streaming, especially Die Tagesschau, which never seems to change, nor should it. It is straight news and its long-time viewers (I saw it first over fifty years ago) are most grateful for it.
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| Merkel Portrait by Bettina Düesberg Lausitzer Platz 12a Berlin |
