A jerk goes through the SPD – in many ways

Friedrich Merz had “broke out of the political center”, SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich was outraged, and he had already warned against it the day before. In vain: The Union actually achieved its application for migration policy on Wednesday in parliament, past the red-green minority government, and a majority with votes from the AfD. A precedent that could find a sequel on Friday: Then the Union wants to have a draft law voted, again knowing that the right -wing populists could be the tongue on the scale.

The question is: what does that mean for the Social Democrats?

Anyone who hears into the party gets different answers. Striking: too much wind under the swinging only a few comrades promise for their own, but rather slow election campaign. Instead, a possible dilemma could arise.

SPD parliamentary group leader Mützenich believes the country on February 23 before choosing a direction. Then decide whether the voters impress the Merz maneuver as a “mistake of an irresponsible policy” or continue the “slide”. “We will do everything we can to that it is not the case,” says Mützenich.

The message is clear: the Chancellor’s party is stable, not least as a reliable bulwark against the extreme right, and does not fail to use democratic customs. “Middle instead of Merz” is the slogan, which the SPD campaign promptly put into the world and which is supposed to settle in the mind. However, this swings in Mützenich’s statement: the voters could also prefer the “slide”.

The black-blue bustle specter mobilizes both the party and potential voters of the Social Democrats, tell. When the voting results in the Bundestag were read out, a real jerk went through the SPD parliamentary group, an energy boost, new fighting spirit. But is that enough to catch up with the Union?

“The SPD is still in the political center and will defend it, the party of the Union has massively motivated and welded it together,” emphasizes Tim Klüssendorf, spokesman for the SPD Links and member of the Bundestag from Lübeck. Something happened on Wednesday that should not have happened. The Union had “consciously” accepted voices from the AfD and thus moved away from the political center “that had agreed together to clearly differentiate themselves from the extremists”. Klüssendorf to star: “The Union has now terminated this agreement unilaterally.”

According to the current encoder, the SPD is not even in striking distance to the Union, for many months, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz as the bottom of all candidates for the chancellor. In addition, the SPD’s fire wall rhetoric in the European elections last year did not want to get caught, nor did the attempt to position their Chancellor as the last responsible statesman in turbulent times. The SPD entered a catastrophic result.

Although the SPD narrative is now being added to new oxygen, even without much of its own: former Chancellor Angela Merkel criticizes her party friend Friedrich Merz and above all his course to accept AfD votes. The first CDU Minister of Minister is at a distance. However, it remains to be seen whether this actually goes up the survey curve for the SPD and the fresh motif for the election campaign also turns into a momentum.

Because the SPD is concerned that the Union Chancellor candidate Merz might have hit a nerve among the population. According to an INSA survey for the “Bild” newspaper, even a majority of the SPD voters (56 percent) can gather behind its proposal to reject migrants without papers and asylum seekers at all German borders. Although Merz ‘cutting asylum plans are at least politically, but also legally delicate-and in compromise, as the CDU leader propagates it, is probably not feasible.

The biggest profiteer may: the AfD. The joint voting success with the Union has already upgraded the populists, normalized, according to the SPD. “Unfortunately, we have to take note,” says SPD politician Klüssendorf: “The taboo of forming majorities together with the right-wing populists no longer exists.”

From the point of view of the Social Democrats Friedrich Merz, who has opened the pandora’s box with his course – for city councilors, district councilors, in case of coordination in the Bundestag is the main responsibility for this. Can the Chancellor, can the Chancellor?

After the vote on Wednesday, many in the SPD are increasingly lacking the imagination of choosing the CDU boss as Chancellor if in doubt. If a grand coalition, led by the Union, is the only option of the election, the Social Democrats would put massive pressure under.

Leading Social Democrats bravely keep the narrative high that the will to voters decide who goes together with whom. But the way to a possible GroKo could be associated with very hard negotiations. The worst case, as in Austria, lead to the demolition of the talks – and to strengthen the populists.