The Disenchantment Problem With the German Government

The ARD folks (public TV news, Channel One)....did a survey to look at political standing and national trends with the public.

The first thing that stands out is that three out of four Germans LACK the belief that the German government is doing a good job. This is a trend that I've discussed in a number of previous essays.  The oddness of this problem is that you can't find an element of corruption, someone being fired, or some arrest/detention of government leadership.

In simple terms....the 'candy-shop' is open and doing business, with fifth-grade kids in charge.  They mostly talk about achievements or things boiling over.....hour after hour....with free public forum time or news-chat time via ARD or ZDF, but in terms of this relating to something that the public can be happy about.....it just leads onto the issue of fixing the problem and resolutions can't be easily accomplished. 

So you come to the second issue, the polling for this week:

CDU/CSU: 26-percent
SPD: 15-percent
Greens: 17-percent
AfD: 16-percent
Linke Party: 10-percent
FDP: 10-percent

For the combined effort of the CDU-CSU and SPD....it would not get past 41-percent total.  There hasn't been an election since WW II where the two major groups didn't get 50-plus percent. Back in the 1970s and 1980s....it was fairly easily to reach 90-percent....so they've dropped to a great extent.

The Greens doing well?  What you see is people who've walked away from the SPD, and simply giving their vote in some message to say they are unhappy with the SPD theme/message.

On down on the list of polling features, we come to issue number three....affordable housing.  Around five years ago, this started to become a top three issue in major metropolitan cities here in Germany.  A lot of renovation is taking place and people can't afford the newly upgraded apartments that they lived in for years.  New construction in the area of producing affordable apartments?  Mostly non-existent.  The public perception, if you use this poll?  Almost four out of five Germans think that the government has failed to achievement anything.

The thing to take from this poll is that we are just 12 months into this government.  A dismal end to the Merkel years?  This is the odd way of looking at the tailend of this period of German history.  No great disasters....no corruption.....just plain regular management over things with nothing really special standing out there. 

What happens in 2021 (if we make it that far)?  I suspect that the Green Party will have near 20-to-22 percent of the national vote.  I think the SPD folks are going to be lucky if they can clear 12-percent.  By that point, the public will be looking for some dramatic change.