Annalenba Baerbock, Olaf Scholz – a life on two planets (analysis)

This week let’s take a look at two of the three candidates for the Chancellery, Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock. They lived and experienced the week on two planets. Scholz as Treasury Secretary in the USA, practicing a stroll on the world stage, Baerbock was dragged deep between the paragraphs of a book in which she wanted to explain the world. Scholz presented himself as a great statesman who speaks to central bank chiefs and finance ministers on an equal footing and initiates a global tax revolution. Baerbock, who actually came from international law, got smaller again because she wanted to get bigger.

At its core, I find the so-called “plagiarism affair” a bit pathetic. This is humiliating for Baerbock, but also for us, because you have to ask yourself: How did it get to the point where we are at this level, at the copy-paste level? When Baerbock’s star goes down, you go down a little with it. Because actually you want to argue with her about other things.

Baerbock is dissected

To describe the passages as “plagiarism” is tough, a little shabby, even if the book is now to be completely taken apart. Why did she write it? In essence, it is about the pattern that damages the candidate for chancellor: that Baerbock wanted to be bigger and made himself smaller. The thieving joy of their opponents now resembles that when the top of the class is caught copying.

The idea that she or a ghostwriter “copy paste” text passages from the Federal Agency for Civic Education is not wanted, but it is not an offense. Have done many times, in high school or undergraduate studies. You do it as a journalist if you put three or four numbers in the text – but then it is better to formulate it yourself. Only: We are not applying for the Chancellery, which suddenly seems very far away for Baerbock.

The harsh, angry reactions of the Greens show how overwhelmed they are now, how nervous their nerves are. This gives rise to victim narratives that people are approached too harshly and thrown at dirt because they threaten existing structures. Nonsense. The Greens are attacked hard because they want to conquer the Chancellery and then turn the country inside out – and have chosen a candidate who is likeable and fresh, but in her movement like the Gamestop share. Steeply up and down again – so was there a green bubble? Nevertheless, one has to state: Baerbock is being dissected, tackled harder than previous candidates, even back then as Peer Steinbrück, who buried his chancellor dreams with a middle finger.

In the US, too, with Olaf Scholz, it was about greatness, and it is an enigmatic but constant greatness that is externally reliable and stable. The SPD candidate kept silent about Baerbock, even if one would have liked to put a centimeter on his grin, which he kept showing.

Scholz’s success

What Scholz presented in Washington is a milestone in the matter: 130 countries are committed to a global minimum tax, 15 percent, worldwide, it is also Scholz’s project, which he has been working on, as he says, since he became finance minister. Should the project be adopted at the G20 meeting in Venice next weekend, that would also be its success. Scholz spoke of a “colossal advance”, and that in front of a well-chosen backdrop, the Capitol. That has been his message for weeks: I do this, I take care of it, I lead, as Finance Minister I take care of this and that, for democracy and justice, for everything that holds the world together. Ergo: There is only one person who can be chancellor and that is the vice chancellor.

That is very far from the green competitor, the blemishes of the show can only be seen up close: Scholz announced the deal on Thursday on a street corner, unfortunately on the back of the proud capitol, which is surrounded by fences and “Area Closed” signs is. Five meters behind Scholz, construction site cones shine that were specially rearranged, an excavator was just driving past, and a gardener is mowing the lawn of the Supreme Court on the left. That it doesn’t curve when Scholz announces the revolution!

And when Scholz and Entourage leave on foot, fresh from conversations with Congressmen and the Senator from Delaware, Chris Coons, and talking about the breakthrough, the end of the tax race down, the man naturally mows his curve, and roars behind the “area” in the background Closed “fences a man with a leaf blower and drowns out Scholz. He doesn’t show anything, parries questions about Amazon and exceptions for British banks, then says everything again in English. Breakthrough, success, race to the bottom. He can.

… if it weren’t for the SPD

And that’s what it’s all about at the moment: that Scholz is standing in front of cameras for a few minutes, next to the Supreme Court and behind him the dome of the Capitol. The leaf blower doesn’t bother us, and neither do journalists’ inquiries about why the official dates in the program are so rare – and why there is no joint appearance with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. What is he really doing here, and what is staging? Difficult question, the picture and the result count.

It’s a completely different altitude and movement than Baerbock’s and has been for weeks: undeterred and carefree, but also unreal. Without outliers, but also without abysses. Scholz’s values ​​are good, those of the SPD are more at the minimum tax level. Questions like “Mr. Scholz, let’s be honest: How do you want to become chancellor with 14 or 15 percent?” He grins away. He is what remains when Merkel is gone, just with more leadership, more tackling. That’s the story: He can have 100,000 apartments built in Hamburg and compete with Amazon. According to the calculation of his strategists, the people at the ballot box will think about it again, and a good 20 percent will be enough if the Greens are below it and the FDP is won. The idea, absurd at first glance, that he would become chancellor suddenly becomes a little more likely. Could work.

In the end the question remains: What is Armin Laschet’s “Germany Fund” actually doing, which should be part of a “decade of modernization”? Any other time.