It was a Social Democratic Secretary General who once criticized the government in the Bundestag with a song: in 2013 Andrea Nahles sang the Pippi Longstocking song in front of Parliament: “I’ll make the world how I like it.”
Now it is a social democratic chancellor who is doing just that: arranging the world in a way that suits his narrative of crisis management. In view of the energy policy disaster, Olaf Scholz explained at his summer press conference that he and his coalition were working off “all the omissions of the last few years, which were really big in this regard”.
Ironically, the man who gives “You’ll never walk alone” the solidary, forward-looking caretaker no longer wants to know anything about the fact that he was Vice Chancellor of the Federal Government, which he now accuses of serious omissions – and these omissions apparently didn’t bother him much at the time to have. On the contrary. The SPD was the Nord Stream 2 party, which showed understanding for Putin’s Russia even after he had invaded Crimea and founded a Gazprom interest group disguised as a climate foundation.
Yes, Angela Merkel’s years in government have not been as brilliant as some parts of the media public have portrayed them to be. But Merkel’s cabinet table was occupied by a number of social democrats who held key ministries: the environment, foreign affairs, labor and finance.
She just didn’t “walk alone”, but side by side with Olaf Scholz. And anyone who, like Scholz, still made the rhombus as an election campaigner cannot credibly jump into the Merkel-critical square as chancellor. That would be squaring the circle – and that’s impossible even in a Pippi Longstocking world.
