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this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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As Clinton said: "It is the economy stupid". The conservatives had two economic crisis during the last 16 years. After the big financial crisis 2008 Merkel could have been deposed, if the SPD would have been willing to go into a coalition with the Left. They next crisis was Covid, which brought the current government. At the same time the SPD is not that popular to begin with. 2017 they got 20% of the votes and the last conservative canidate was really unpopular so Scholz was able to beat him. Now they are 5% lower, which is bad, but no crazy. The Liberals have only ever won with protest votes anyway and they can not hide while in government. So that is normal too.
Also really important to mention that this is about half time. The next federal election is in two years. So right now is the time politicans do the unpopular, but necessary stuff. Then the population forgets that that happend. The heating bill is a great example. It was hugely unpopular, but it passed and nobody talks about it anymore.
What is really bad is the current budget crisis and you have to admit that having an unconstitutional budget is a massive problem and a failure of the finance minister to do his job. Obviously this is unpopular.
Anyway there are two more years to go. The economy propably recovers until that point and the government ends up setting up a huge gift package to be reelected. There is also plenty of time for a scandal and Merz has done a few of them already.
I think you are missing the actual point here: The heating bill wasn't unpopular per se. It was made so by a massive propaganda campaign in the media full of lies. And it isn't talked about anymore because the propaganda has moved on to the next lie. And after that comes the next.
And nobody cares about reality. Not today, not in 2 years. People that fall for every single lie today, will fall for lies in two years. They are not suddenly developing the ability to discern reality from what right wing tabloids and their favorite facebook group tell them.
also:
What scandal do you expect? He did openly lie again and again, he parroted right-extremist's talking points again and again. He loudly advocated for reducing AfD votes and then is basically their biggest advertiser. He also threatend everyone cooperating with them with exclusion from the party and then excused and indirectly indorsed cooperation with the AfD. Just yesterday we got a report about Merz asking the government nicely for money from the climate transformation fund he got scrapped by sueing two days after the court ruling just for laughs and giggles. And the whole CDU has moved to full scale obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism. Yet Merz and his party get votes for it. There is no magical scandal of an opposiiton party that will change those voters minds. That would require them to have the power to do and fuck up anything. Are you expecting Merz to ritually sacrifice some children in public?
The heating bill was unpopular because it is a massive hit to the gas industry, which has a famously great lobby and amazing connections to the media. Germanys gas imports are down by 71% comparing September this year with 2021. That is mainly due to the lack of Russian gas transit via Germany, but it massivly hurts the industry. Half of Germanys gas consumption comes from heating buildings, which will be solved by the heating bill. That kind of attack would not happen in an election year.
As for Merz the current polling of the Union party would be considered bad under Merkel. For Laschet a stupid joke was enough to kill his chances of victory, Merz does worse on a monthly bases. He should be at the 40% mark and not at 30%.