Who the crush follows
This week the parties seem to be entering a brief period of rest: the candidates for chancellor have been clarified, the last taunts (Söder) exchanged, the last lamentation (Habeck) faded away, and now the camps are realigning themselves to their
leadership figures Laschet, Baerbock, Scholz
and
theirs
possible alliances.
Parties work a bit like flocks of birds, there is a new leadership, the flock turns and follows the new leader - at least normally.
Only at the Union does it remain exciting how quickly the swarm intelligence accepts the victory of Armin Laschet, who has at times been written off as lame.
A few days ago, the frustration at the grassroots level was still great in many places, as my colleague Anabelle Körbel reported, and some members threatened to boycott the election campaign.
Photo: DER SPIEGEL
Once again it is clear that in a democracy, good losers are almost more important than good winners.
In any case, Söder now no longer seems to want to follow suit.
At an appearance in front of the Berlin trade association VBKI on Wednesday morning, he refrained from even the smallest nasty things, although the audience gave him steep assists: "Shouldn't the basis be more involved in the candidate freelance in the future?" Asked one participant.
"Will the CDU / CSU have the courage to conduct a real political election campaign: freedom instead of socialism?" Asked another.
And how helpful could Friedrich Merz be for a Chancellor Laschet?
Enlarge image
Markus Söder, CSU
Photo: Lino Mirgeler / picture alliance / dpa
Söder always smiled mildly, referred to the strategic sovereignty of the CDU chancellor candidate and limited himself to caressing the soul of the Berlin businessmen with attacks on the "socialist nonsense" of the rent brake or the "imaginary justice debate" of a wealth tax.
So the Union base is not calm, especially since the Söder fans can refer to the unchanged high popularity ratings of their star - and to a crash of the Union by a blatant six points since Laschet's candidacy was decided.
However, the support for the party of the "Candidate of Hearts" has suffered: In the Sunday question for Bavaria, raised by Insa for the "Bild" newspaper, the CSU collapsed by ten percentage points compared to the last survey in January.
For that, the CSU can thank the mask ruffians.
It's child's play to gamble away good poll results.
Improving bad values is the art.
Nevertheless, I dare to predict that the vast majority of Laschet skeptics will leave their pout during the election campaign.
What else can you do?
What happened in the Republic of 21
How do we want to talk to each other?
We have been discussing this question with you, dear readers, in Republic 21 since the beginning of April. As a reminder: This is the name of the SPIEGEL project, in which we are devoting ourselves to the major political and social issues of our time until the federal elections.
THE MIRROR
Tomorrow, Thursday, my colleague Marius Mestermann will investigate the question of how dangerous disinformation can be for the process of political opinion-forming in our increasingly digitalized world - and what that means for the summer of the election campaign in Germany in 2021.
The USA is a chilling example here: Donald Trump has been spreading falsehoods there for years, he was able to ignite undisturbed on Twitter until his supporters stormed the Capitol.
It's almost scary how much quieter Twitter has become since Trump's account was shut down.
Who are his millions of fans following now?
On Sunday, May 2nd, Rachelle Pouplier will show in a large video report how much communication has changed in the age of social media - and what verbal attacks even schoolchildren can be exposed to online.
The stars of the video platform TikTok are not spared either.
Rachelle also spoke to experts about how to protect yourself against such agitation.
The video report will be published on our website on Sunday.
Next week we will continue with our next key question in Republic 21: How will Germany become fairer?
What the polls say
After it has been clarified who is going to run with whom, the question remains who could rule with whom. The opinion research institute Civey surveyed for SPIEGEL how popular which constellations are with voters. Unsurprisingly, what my colleagues wrote in their cover story this week is confirmed: There is no getting around Annalena Baerbock, the candidate for all cases, and her Greens.
According to the Civey survey, black-green and green-red-red are the most popular government constellations, even if both are only around 20 percent each. The fact that an alliance does so well without the Union is new, say the Civey experts. It is also because the Greens' electoral group has grown so much - this inevitably means that their coalition preferences gain more weight. And almost 40 percent of the Greens voters name the alliance with the SPD and the Left as a favorite.
Surprising: The GroKo model still receives twelve percent approval.
This can also be explained demographically: the alliance of the Union and the SPD is still very popular with the electorate in the 65+ age group - and in terms of numbers, the elderly are the largest group of voters in Germany.
The younger the citizens are, the less they sympathize with the GroKo.
The constituency of the week: # 101
Karl Lauterbach
, the SPD health expert, has been a walking contrast to his party since the beginning of the pandemic.
With bombastic popularity and media omnipresence, Lauterbach stands out from the SPD like a unicorn from a herd of Haflingers.
And there is something else that sets Lauterbach apart from the comrades: his electoral successes.
Since the doctor and health economist ran for the Bundestag for the first time in 2005, the SPD has steadily declined, while he has won his constituency Cologne IV / Leverkusen four times directly.
Also this year Prof. Dr.
rer.
lanz Lauterbach, of course, and the competition is trying to make the path to the direct mandate at least a little more difficult for him.
Enlarge image
Karl Lauterbach, SPD
Photo: CLEMENS BILAN / EPA
Almost all parties have put up new candidates for this constituency, and almost all of them are female and some of them are very young: The CDU is sending Serap Guler (40) into the race, the integration state secretary from Turkey and former member of the state parliament. The FDP nominated the 26-year-old German-American Cornelia Besser, and Nyke Slawik is running for the Greens. Slawik, the NRW top candidate of the Green Youth, was even born in her constituency of Leverkusen in 1994, but still in the body of a boy. In portraits of her it is said that at the age of 13 she wished to live out her feminine identity. But only since 2012 has she officially been a woman for the German state. Whether Beate Hane-Knoll will stand again for the left and thus challenge the fourth woman Lauterbach,has not yet been decided.
Enlarge image
Serap Guler, CDU
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / picture alliance / dpa
The CDU woman Serap Güler is likely to be the fiercest competitor for Lauterbach, who only narrowly won the constituency in 2017.
So it is a good thing for the SPD man that another opponent, who might have cost him votes, is no longer running in constituency 101: Mark Benecke, 2017 direct candidate of the satirical party "The Party".
Benecke Lauterbach is even the closest in terms of expertise: He is a biology and psychologist and has specialized in securing evidence in murder cases.
But this time Benecke wants to try his luck in the constituency of Heinsberg.
How does the change come about?
It turns out: "Party" boss Martin Sonneborn has a sinister plan, which he exclusively reveals here for you, dear Lage Readers: Benecke generously gave Lauterbach power in Leverkusen, Sonneborn says, in return, "The Party ”and the SPD“ agreed to meet at the five percent threshold ”for election day.
Politics can be really brutal.
The social media moment of the week
Corona measures, corona vaccinations, corona protests - the political Twitter does not give much more, even after more than a year of pandemic. But here, too, there are always small shockers.
For me, a Twitter moment this week was a video that was recorded in the small town of Schmalkalden in Thuringia. Schmalkalden - it took me a moment to remember how I knew the name. During my time as an AfD reporter, I went to Schmalkalden for Björn Höcke's citizens' dialogue in 2018. I remember the question and answer session with Höcke, when suddenly young people spoke up, probably students who had been sitting quietly in the back of the room the whole time. You felt Höcke politely, but so critically and persistently to the tooth that the moderator at one point, in exasperation, begged whether "someone else" would not even want to ask a question?
Unfortunately, such people could not be seen on the Schmalkalden video that circulated this week in connection with a demo against the Corona emergency brake.
In it, an angry group armed with colorful umbrellas harassed and attacked three police officers who were trying to arrest a demonstrator.
"Get out of here!" - "Merkel fascists!" - "Get out!" - the video is dominated by the polyphonic roar of anger and the deafening screeching of a woman.
Two policemen were injured.
In the past, the process might have been worth a little report in the mingled.
Today, when you can see and hear the protesters in the video, such an event unfolds a nationwide impact.
And the pictures show: the attackers look completely normal.
Really bourgeois.
The stories of the week
I would particularly like to recommend these politically relevant stories from our capital city office to you:
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/corona-debatte-und-allesdichtmachen-da-hilft-kein-impfen-mehr-kolumne-a-5c3911d1-e74e-4d52-864a-1269bb1b18a6
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/gruene-ueberhaben-cdu-und-csu-in-umfragen-ist-das-der-annalena-baerbock-zug-a-6c86fe80-9127-4018-8e74- 4be05cd36170
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/warum-der-erfalt-der-gruenen-von-robert-habeck-abhaengt-a-69699a68-1f2b-4af4-8831-5447f60549f0
Heartily,
Your Melanie Amann
And once again the note on our own behalf: You can order this briefing as a newsletter in your e-mail inbox here.
