Friedrich Merz keeps getting in his own way

As in all areas of life, there comes a time in politics when a pattern of behavior emerges. Nobody can talk about a misstep anymore, about a one-off slip-up, about: “Well, he didn’t think about it for a moment.” This point has now been reached at the top of the CDU. At least now.

The pattern looks like this: Whenever the German Christian Democracy thinks that things might be calming down, Friedrich Merz throws a punch.

“They sit at the doctor and have their teeth changed, and the German citizens next door don’t get any appointments.” Says the CDU leader on “Welt TV” about rejected asylum seekers. This is the latest sentence, the next stone. It forms a Merz mosaic, which unfortunately doesn’t shimmer Cadenabbia turquoise at all.

Now there is no obligation to be empathetic in politics. But between plain language and clichés, between the need for action and half-truths, there is a firewall that it is better not to touch. If you want to create trust for yourself, you shouldn’t stir up prejudices about others. Merz has disregarded this basic rule of decent conservatism. Not for the first time.

Friedrich Merz does not have his impulses under control

In the CDU they can recite keywords like the Lord’s Prayer: social tourism, little Paschas, summer interview with the AfD. Taken on their own and viewed with some benevolence, these are slip-ups. In sum and regularity they are not exactly that.

But how do you deal with it when your boss doesn’t have his impulses under control?

It may be due to the radio discipline that the rest of the party – unlike the chairman – imposed on themselves a week and a half before two important state elections that no one dares to attack directly immediately after the “Welt” appearance.

But a certain level of fatigue may have set in, which ensures that apart from the ex-short-term General Secretary Ruprecht Polenz (and former Prime Minister Tobias Hans), no prominent Christian Democrat expresses criticism. Who goes into politics to discipline their own party leader every few weeks?

There is disillusionment in large parts of the CDU. That Merz doesn’t deliver everything he promised? A gift, difficult times, it’s not easy for him, the Merkel legacy, you know… But that every television appearance becomes a risk, that a clean-up crew has to be ready after every interview – they imagined it differently.

The party has appointed leadership. And get someone who needs close care.

The CDU no longer really knew their Merz

The local newspaper of the moderate conservatives today devoted an entire page to the resulting question that the party has to grapple with. “Is Merz the right one?” is written above the article. At the time of going to press, the FAZ colleagues had no way of knowing how spot-on their timing was.

For more than a decade, Merz was for many Christian Democrats the personified hope for the good old days after Angela Merkel. To a new beginning that leads the party back to itself. Where this path leads didn’t matter at first. The main thing is that you finally start running – and Merz in the lead.

In truth, they in the CDU didn’t know much about himself, his strengths and weaknesses. When Merz took over the CDU chairmanship, he was a man of high expectations. Its characteristics? Forgotten until unknown.

Now, after more than a year and a half of Merz’s CDU, we know that he is a good opposition leader. He’s been like that before, he hasn’t forgotten that, it suits him. As parliamentary group leader, Merz finds the right tone against the Chancellor. Tough, but rarely unfair. His people have formed a quick-witted opposition out of election losers fed up with the government. The mood in the group? Fits. And anyone who meets Merz here for a conversation will experience a tidy, even thoughtful politician who doesn’t seem as if he’s just making his decisions on a whim.

But we now also know that the world looks completely different a few street corners away. In the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus, Merz welcomes his guests in a light-flooded office with a white-beige sofa area. Otherwise there is little to nothing that shines. The attempt to give the party a new coat of paint ended in mockery of a false dome and ridicule of color theory à la Adenauer. Merz has worn out some important employees and replaced the general secretary.

The group has a plan. The party is creating new problems for itself. Merz and his team are well organized in the Bundestag. The old Andi Brehme adage applies to the party headquarters: have shit on your feet, have shit on your feet!

Short fuse and gut empiricism

There are two characteristics in particular that ensure that Merz puts obstacles in his own way, sentence after sentence, stone after stone. On the one hand, there is the short fuse. All it took was a guest article from Hendrik Wüst and a statement from Daniel Günther for the CDU leader to come back. The Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia? Nor does he lead a particularly successful government. And criticism from Schleswig-Holstein? Just an individual opinion.

This interpretation of sovereignty does not qualify you for the Chancellery.

Added to this, the second quality, is the good gut feeling for anecdotal empiricism. Merz knows how to detect moods. He remembers what district chairmen and mayors tell him. What characterizes good politicians becomes a problem when it has little to do with reality. If Merz has now noticed that there is trouble with refugees in dentists’ waiting rooms, then it’s worth looking into it. But as CDU leader you should only talk about it if the problem actually turns out to be such.

During the Bonn era, you could tell what kind of mood was wafting through the party. Ships itself. In the Berlin Republic, every statement is followed by a fact check. It is doing Merz an injustice to simply label him as a politician from the day before yesterday. It’s just that he’s doing himself a disservice by always repeating the same mistakes.

How should this continue?

Four days of party conference for new beginnings and renewal

After the elections in Hesse and Bavaria, we hear from some in the party, things could get even more unpleasant for Merz. The contact between Wüst and Günther has become closer. Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein and Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner are also among those who want to have a say when the candidate for chancellor is decided next year.

One should not expect that someone from the circle of the sovereigns will seek an open exchange of blows. But if Merz continues like this, they will only have to put pinpricks. A critical interview here, an ambiguous statement there. Then the hopeful becomes the impossible candidate.

Merz wants to complete the reorganization of the CDU in May. Four days of party conference in Berlin, a new basic program, a real departure. This is how the CDU leader imagines it. If he remains flawless until then, if he can really leave the stage as a radiant innovator, it will be hard to take away his candidacy for chancellor.

If, yes if. Merz only has a good six months left to shake off old patterns.