The End of Mutti

The long-heralded departure from German and thus, joint as these positions seem to be, European politics of Chancellor Merkel, suspended in disbelief and a seething kind of horror upturned in disbelief over what result the free election of a united German people might bring in, the ninth such under the federal constitution of which one - the 1998 "butter election" - won outright by the SPD, another in the wake of the 2001 reset by a margin of 6,027 voters, and perhaps by that margin ushering in an era as long as Kohl's, soon to be closed to tunes both pitiful and of sorrow uncertainty. 

And has thus the man now set to replace her, from a set of two perhaps as pitiful as the circumstances, reinvigorated the SPD, a historic force, christened by an eminence such as myself as one of the foremost of the Western world, alongside the British Tories and the American, non-Canadian Republican Party (to this, and scrapping the ambiguous Wayne-esque "Western", one ought to mention the Liberal Democratic Party, non-bird; the Gongchandang now soon two thirds the SPD's remarkable age, the Bharatiya Janata Party; prematurely but I would sooner play the role of Cassandra than Suetonius)? Well, taking into account the grand realignments supposedly at work in the Western political canon, and its limitations in the case of Germany (supposedly shielded from certain trends, most potently until the last Bundestag election which brought back ordoliberal sincerity as well as a curiously Ostalgic anti-European force for chauvinistic German hegemon... whatever, as well as the death of the most appalling scion of SPD who seemed, for a moment, crowned to lead its realignment) one could as well lean on the used, but very much un-disproved cane of flunctuation, with the party of power for 16 years being mathematically unsound to hold out for much longer, as it had been in 1998, despite obvious greater victories. The result? A half-invigorated SPD, polling six million votes worse than it did in 1972, three million worse than the catastrophic result in 1983, which consigned it to another 15 years in opposition. In truth, the result shows, apart from above-stated truisms of the inevitability of defeat the impotency of liberal-progressive as well as "alternative", alt-right (Communist-nostalgic) forces to prevail. The grand variable, heralded for long as the new force for German politics, and unlikely to escape that reality, is the sobering result of Die Grünen; not "the Greens", which would imply a comparison to the current within Swedish governmental politics far flung from the spirit of the 1970s/80s which spawned them, and so far from the clear-cut case of effective Green government, the case of Baden-Württemberg posing hopefully prophetic, that one would rather not mention them within the same sentence. Personally, I think, had the Grünen nominated Kretschmann, a sincere and seasoned voice and an outstanding head of government to challenge Scholz and Laschet in their supposed core strengths, we might well have ended with a green column closest to the ceiling, and shouts across Europe, including where no shouting is due (well, as the general murmured, we shall see soon enough). And a hotchpotch of coalition work to do, with a 23 % surging Greens working with a displaced and humiliated 22 % CDU and SPD at 21 %, either a humiliated and unreliable junior partner, and a strong FDP at 15 %, its near-historic resurge a mystery, the only certainty in such a reality - as in ours - being that while an increasing veneer of the German people have turned to the AfD for "alternative" politics, these must not be reflected in the executive branch, whatever the costs. Whatever will come next, that is. We will make it, fear not. Noch einmal, noch zweimals. 

The politics of coalition building, perhaps unlikely - and for that reason, very likely - to feature an inverted SPD-led cabinet of black and red, now nominally under Kanzler Scholz, will for all its familiar deal-brokering nonetheless be overshadowed by the mists of a new dawn, if not exactly in the foreign field. Investments in the military will continue, perhaps joined-rivalled by those in affordable housing, but I find it unlikely to be jolted to the tune of many volts we will see again a Keynesian "socialism-but-without-social-management" scheme. The reason for that, and the pinnacle which will have to be broken to restore that forgotten, fondly remembered and also very despotic and despised era I will discuss later, but it is not one like to be overthrown by Germany and never by one of the coalition partners. Investors, hold no fear. For as long as the scope of international free flow of capital and trade and the global distribution of production remains, we shall not tread on your interests beyond what is necessary to uphold them. Will not be questioned. Never. That door, while always bulking open and especially during election years is firmly closed, thank you. 

So, lacking another hagiography to write for the commendable and unassuming woman leaving the scene, and (yet) short of one to infer from the men standing in her wake, I will turn my eye to the realignment looming. The Liberals, under the same Lindner who returned the yellow to the Bundestag in 2017, a victory that always seemed a bit unearned and expressing the dissatisfaction with the all-powerful Union after her fateful 2015 slogan, will bear down on any attempt, now hardly looming, to force a left-wing turn gawked and bellowed out by ostensible left-wing publications (or should that have been "ostensibly"?). A red-green-yellow traffic light option, certainly the best way to read in the trends flowing - not a logic honoured during the past years, mind you - will risk being one of the quiet, status quo ante dominam centre, if even that. Thrusts and trysts between green and yellow will be multitude and risk capsising it on two fronts, even if the SPD will undergo a similar development and result as the new hegemon to steer (West) German Sozialwirtschaft, liberal democratic paragon. 

What about more fateful changes? Already, and well before the poll, the fortunes of the uncompromising opposition-marked AfD were changing. And since the NPD and any force beyond isn't exactly standing on its feet (remember, they held an MEP two years past!) and Die Linke is more politely but arrogantly snubbed as a coalition partner, if frequently included in the options and staples discussed, and has - with its power couple Oskar and Sahra - seemingly lost the prestige of a potent left-wing opposition as much as the SED did after the break of its wall. The future, if it is on the left, is also yet to spy its scion. Or could this be its man, the one promised by fate and the hopes of socialists coddled into obscurity and consensus by the end of the Cold War and this fateful peaceful reunification of not only "right-wing" and "left-wing" Germany, but of left and right? Well, he is not a Gerhard Schröder, nor - I think - a Karl Herbert Frahm, and for that reason may have grander impact on the policy field, less in the optical. His course is, almost inevitably, to be that of Mutti, even if he is not named the corresponding sobriquet - that, as well, if anything held by the great scion of the CDU, he who will not be surpassed, or we shall yet see. The defence budget and Germany's military role will increase, as will - inevitably, given the departure of the British - the need for German revival, now strengthened by their Catholic and Eastern European partners, in lieu of the French.