Baerbock's resignation and the Greens' arrogance

Telepolis Baerbock's resignation and the Greens' arrogance Harald Neuber • 3 hours • 3 minutes reading time Foreign Minister tells the world that she will not run for chancellor again. What are Wagenknecht, Höcke and Netanyahu doing now? A comment. In order to be able to classify the latest news about Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, one must first take a look at her party's poll ratings. When Baerbock ran as candidate for chancellor against incumbent Olaf Scholz (SPD), the Greens were at 26 percent in the polls (infratest dimap, May 6, 2021). When Annalena Baerbock announced in a CNN interview that she would not run for chancellor again, the Greens' poll ratings fluctuated between 11 and 13 percent; that was self-arranged, in relation to the most popular or most competent politicians at best in the middle range, with a downward trend. The fact that the Green politicians announced in this situation in an interview with a US news channel in Washington that they would not be running for chancellor sparked a lot of malice online. The "Stern" called it a "very strange message", a "strange self-aggrandizement". Many users wrote of "real satire", and many Greens praised Baerbock as a "team player" in a formulation that was apparently agreed upon internally. However, two things can be said about this process. Firstly, the once failed candidate for chancellor exposes her own hubris with her statement and the choice of location. A politician tells the world that after the defeat in 2021, she is no longer available to run for chancellor again, after she, as a prominent representative of the Greens, contributed to halving her party's poll ratings. Secondly, the lack of classification by the public media is striking. The news was broadcast on the ARD main news program yesterday evening without comment and without classification. The Tagesschau has thus failed to fulfill an essential journalistic task. Why not add a short commentary afterwards to classify it? In other cases, that works too. Apparently, there was a lack of journalistic instinct or distance from the subject of the report - or both. This role was taken on by numerous users on social networks, who pointed out the obvious contradiction between Baerbock's claim and the reality in the country. The fact that the public media, especially the Tagesschau, which broadcast the report in the evening, refrained from this classification makes the medium part of the problem: an increasing alienation between the population on the one hand and the political media sphere on the other. A survey by the opinion research institute Forsa recently brought this to the point. In a federal election, the Greens would currently only get eleven percent of the vote. This figure reflects ongoing stagnation and corresponds to the poor result of the previous week. The results of the survey were published on July 1, 2024. A supplementary Forsa survey for n-tv and RTL has identified one reason for the Greens' poor performance: only 39 percent of Germans have the impression that the Greens represent the interests of broad sections of the population. In contrast, 54 percent of respondents are convinced that the Greens primarily make policies for the upper income and education classes. In East Germany, this perception is even more pronounced at 72 percent. It is interesting that only the majority of supporters of the Greens and the SPD believe that the Greens represent the interests of broad sections of the population. Supporters of all other parties are more convinced that the Greens care about the concerns of the higher-earning and educated classes. The results of the trend barometer paint a clear picture of the political mood in Germany. While the Greens are wrestling with their claim to be a party for everyone, the poll results indicate that they are increasingly occupying a niche position in the perception of voters. Baerbock's appearance is an expression of this attitude and the party's course. It is interesting to observe from the outside that this is apparently not noticed at all within the Greens, just as the recent scandals about night flights or make-up artist costs are not. In none of these cases have Baerbock or the Greens expressed even the slightest self-criticism. It is a policy for their own filter bubble, in their own echo chamber. This in turn is also an expression of the current social situation in which the various actors are retreating into their own spheres; with the unpleasant side effect that they no longer have to expose themselves to corrective criticism, and no longer want to. This works well until the next election.