Public Political Focus in Germany

It's been roughly 72 hours since the dramatic fall of Martin Schulz from the SPD Party, and his promised position of Foreign Secretary.  If you use the German public TV networks (ARD or ZDF)....you'd now find one single brief article still posted.  There's a large attempt by the public media to move on.....quickly.  Newspapers and news magazines?  Well....no, they are still digging into it and the public makes a fair amount of criticism and commentary.

I read through an hour's worth of material this morning.  Typically, you can divide the public criticism into five categories:

1.  The public statement of Schulz undergoing a meteoric-like rise in early 2017, and then going a meteoric-like fall in early 2018.  This crowd tends to blame SPD insiders for the pump-up action and the news media for falling for the quick rise.

2.  A public statement suggesting that Schulz was not really well known in German circles....that he was a EU-political figure for the past decade. 

3.  A public sentiment that the President of Germany (Frank-Water Steinmeier, SPD) helped to craft this mess in late December as the CDU coalition deal with the Greens and FDP.  Some feel that Steinmeier should have allowed the party to stay out of the coalition, as they had promised in September. 

4.  There's some public sentiment that the entire top layer of leadership within the SPD are helpless and lacking.  The fact that Gabriel learned that he was totally out of a job in the cabinet and the party apparatus itself....through the news media, has given a few folks in German society a bitter view of how the party runs itself.

5.  Finally, you come to those who see Merkel, Schulz, the CDU, and the SPD as a 'sinking ship'.  It's politics in general for these German, who don't trust public TV news, and regard this event as just a good example of how things are broken.

It's a holiday weekend in Germany....with people in a fest-like mood.  You won't see any public TV forums for another seven days.  Schulz has shut off public commentary.  Gabriel, the same.  A handful of friends of each....comment publicly, but mostly via news magazines.  Public TV is finished with the topic and trying to push people on.

There's still the vote within the SPD Party for the coalition deal, and if it does pass, I would speculate that it'll be some 51-to-55 percent marginal pass rate.  If the coalition vote does fail....well, it might create a pretty harsh reality....a minority government or another entire election.  Neither suggest some happy feeling within the public.