LETTER FROM BERLIN
Angela
Merkel’s new job: global savior
Germans,
of all people, are now called on to be bulwarks of democracy.
By KONSTANTIN
RICHTER 11/17/16, 8:18 PM CET Updated 11/17/16, 9:02 PM CET
BERLIN — Donald
Trump’s surprise victory in last week’s U.S. presidential
election comes as a boost to the American alt-right movement, the
global cement industry (should the wall go up, that is) and, if some
of the commentary is to be believed, to German Chancellor Angela
Merkel.
The fear of a
xenophobic populist in the White House has liberals everywhere
looking to Berlin for moral guidance. They tout Angela Merkel as the
new torchbearer for human rights. They call her the next leader of
the free world. Or as the New York Times put it in a headline shortly
after the vote: “Donald Trump’s Election Leaves Angela Merkel as
the Liberal West’s Last Defender.”
Sounds good. But
anyone with a long-term memory may be forgiven for asking: Good God,
how did it come to this? Since when do we have to rely on the Germans
for the future of global democracy?
Merkel, it must be
admitted, got off to a promising start in her new position. She acted
very leader-of-the-free-world-like when she congratulated Trump on
his success in a press conference last week. She reminded him of the
importance of human dignity, respect for minorities and so forth —
and then added that, on the basis of those values, she’d be happy
to work with him.
It all sounded a bit
like the kind of statement U.S. presidents used to put out when a new
leader got elected somewhere in Latin America. Or in post-war
Germany, for that matter.
What a reversal of
roles. For decades, German governments only rarely challenged
American power. The budding West German democracy after 1945 depended
on the U.S. for economic aid and military protection. The Germans
also got a lot of advice on how to build democratic institutions.
Some people — on the far Left and Right, mostly — resented the
junior-partner role that came with the whole setup. But the political
establishment, by and large, has embraced it until now.
Merkel, who grew up
in East Germany and joined the conservative CDU after the collapse of
communism, belongs firmly in the aforementioned establishment. Though
she can be hard to pin down at times, her allegiance to
transatlanticism has never been in doubt. She has often said she
admires and loves American values, and when she needs to deliver an
important speech — not one of her core competencies — she usually
talks a lot about freedom.
But leader of the
free world? The U.S., with the world’s most powerful military, will
retain its status as the geopolitical superpower no matter what
Trump’s foreign policy looks like. Germany, meanwhile, only has the
Bundeswehr, a comparatively toothless collection of 180,000 soldiers
lacking in both international prestige and nuclear weapons.
If Merkel is going
to strike fear into the hearts of autocrats and other freedom haters,
she’ll have to rely on the power of her rhetoric. And, in this
arena in particular, she is no Barack Obama. Her pragmatic and
down-to-earth approach to governing served her well in her initial
years as German chancellor. But she is first and foremost a
technocrat; she lacks the kind of charisma that leading a global
movement against right-wing populism would now require.
Even in Germany and
Europe, Merkel’s political clout is on a downward trajectory.
Consecutive crises — financial, currency, refugee — have shaken
the European Union to the core. And there have been plenty of
occasions in which the German government displayed not so much
leadership, but a penchant for divisiveness.
Merkel’s
insistence on responding to the problems in the eurozone with
financial austerity was, arguably, in Germany’s best interest, but
it alienated Europe’s debt-ridden South. Then, her unilateral
decision to welcome more than a million refugees to Germany — and
thus to Europe — angered just about everyone else. With right-wing
populism on the rise, Merkel seems pretty isolated. Few are confident
of her ability to prevent the EU from further drifting apart.
Leading the free
world doesn’t seem such an attractive proposition in the age of
Trump.
Merkel’s decision
in September 2015 to open Germany’s borders have hurt her approval
ratings at home as well. Until then, German right-wing populism was
largely dormant. Today, most pollsters give the emergent Alternative
for Germany party around 15 percent of the national vote. A major
terror attack carried out by Islamists — such as the ones that took
place in France and Belgium — would no doubt propel that number to
National Front-kind of heights.
Luckily, Germany’s
right-wing populists have yet to find their Donald Trump and they
spend most of the time bickering. The one thing that unites them is
the demand that Merkel has to go. That may happen sooner than they
think. The chancellor has ruled Germany since 2005. But in recent
years, her grip on power has weakened. With federal elections to be
held next autumn, Merkel has yet to announce her candidacy.
Norbert Röttgen, a
senior CDU politician, told CNN this week that she will run again.
But the German government quickly issued a denial and said a decision
would be announced in due course. Merkel once said in an interview
that she intended to get out of politics at the right time and before
she was half-dead. She also said female leaders know better than men
when to relinquish power. (Her predecessors in the Christian
Democratic Union Helmut Kohl and Konrad Adenauer didn’t know, she
appeared to be suggesting.)
Leading the free
world doesn’t seem such an attractive proposition in the age of
Trump. Perhaps Merkel will soldier on and accept the role so many
want her to take. Or, perhaps, she’ll decide that the “right
time” is now.
Konstantin Richter,
a contributing writer for POLITICO, is working on a novel about
Merkel and the refugee crisis due out in the spring.
Authors:
Konstantin Richter
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