"It's fatal": SPD grandee Gabriel delivers the best analysis of the comrades' mistakes

FOCUS online "It's fatal": SPD grandee Gabriel delivers the best analysis of the comrades' mistakes Beate Strobel • 8 hours • 3 minutes reading time Armin Laschet emerged victorious from this federal election: The former prime minister and candidate for chancellor of the Union successfully defended his constituency of Aachen, meaning he will continue to sit in the Bundestag for the CDU. And yet he will no longer play a major role there. Sigmar Gabriel's triumphs, on the other hand, are a little behind him: The former SPD leader, former Federal Foreign Minister and former Vice Chancellor, resigned from his Bundestag mandate in 2019. He is therefore no longer part of political Berlin, but has now settled well into the role of SPD explainer. On "Maischberger" not only moaning about the Berlin Muppet Show Laschet and Gabriel: Neither of them has to become anything in big politics, nor achieve anything anymore. All this lack of having to do anything gives them a great deal of freedom: their dearly acquired lightness gives them a good distance from the pressure cooker called the Bundestag and thus the inner peace that one would like from the people who govern Germany. At “Maischberger” the two staid gentlemen rock comfortably in their swivel chairs. They discuss with well-chosen words and great calm the end of the debt brake and what the USA's withdrawal from the world police could mean for the European order. Here it is not Statler and Waldorf moaning about the Berlin Muppet Show, but two clever minds saying what is going on in a very friendly way. Gabriel criticizes the fatal SPD idea of ​​the worker Never say anything good about your political opponent? This unwritten law no longer applies to them. Gabriel even defends CDU election winner Friedrich Merz and his tactical minimal solidarity with the AfD in the run-up to the election: It is simply “absurd” to suggest that Merz wants to make common cause with the AfD. Gabriel, on the other hand, is more critical of his own party: "We" - Gabriel still sees himself as part of the whole - "have a false idea of ​​workers," he states. The SPD now gives the impression that those "who don't go to work or only do so now and then" are more important than those who toil every day: "That is fatal for a social democratic party." A wise assessment, but one that requires some distance from the SPD's everyday life. Two old men think black-red is a good idea But what is even more significant: Gabriel and Laschet master the feat of talking about the upcoming black-red coalition on "Maischberger" as if it were not a tired reissue of an old idea, but actually a good solution. Of course, both are quite skeptical about the upcoming exploratory talks, since neither the Union nor the Social Democrats are going into the project with a real spirit of optimism, but rather with the awareness that they are doomed to success. On the other hand, we now know where the cheerful selfie-joy of the self-proclaimed progressive coalition of 2021 led. Laschet advises: First "disarm verbally" After the extremely heated election campaigns of the last few weeks, the calmness of the two seniors is simply a relief. This fuels a thought experiment that unfortunately will not stand a chance in a political reality in which everything now cries out for a new beginning: What if the old party political iron were to take over the coalition negotiations? Precisely the generation of calm that no longer has to prove anything to anyone. And who have gained enough distance from party reason over the years to actually focus on Germany. Armin Laschet advises the representatives of both parties on "Maischberger" to "disarm verbally" for now and to become aware of the responsibility that rests on them before the exploratory phase begins. It remains to be hoped that things will slowly calm down again in Berlin. So that such quiet sounds can be heard at all.