Germany: Selective Incapacity for Outrage

Here are excerpts (hat tip Erik Svane) from John Vinocur's article in the NYT (Sept 27, 2005) "Schröder is Counting on a Lack of Indignation" (subscription only):

...First, Gerhard Schröder's fierce (some say scary) insistence on staying chancellor overrides what he mocks as the "formal grounds" of the election results on Sept. 18, like the Christian Democrats having the most seats in Parliament, or some 450,000 more votes nationwide than the Social Democrats. Instead, it's based, beyond the figures, on what he describes, eerily, as his reading of Germany's will.

There were references in this column a week ago to Schröder's bunkerish behavior, a political climate here more Bolivian in feel than Berliner Republik, and to the defeated chancellor's near self-destructive, ranting moment à la Howard Dean on national television. Written on Sept. 19, this turns out to be understatement gone wildly out of hand in comparison to later German descriptions.

A putsch attempt, chutzpah, absurdity, Schröder-running-beserk, hocus-pocus, megalomania, German commentators said for starters. Then the Social Democrats were reported on Thursday by a newspaper favorable to Schröder to be planning to rejigger the Bundestag rules so they would become the largest party before a vote on a new chancellor. This time, the anti-Schröder press compared him to Julius Caesar ("Ich, Gerhard Schröder") and spoke of his growing "Putinization" - a reference to the reverence of the rules of his friend Vladimir Putin, whom the chancellor has called a "crystal-clear democrat."

Here comes the second catch. At a roundtable discussion with a group of Germans here, I hardly heard, in contrast to the editorial roar, the hissing flame of German indignation. In fact, alongside the scorn George W.'s inaction during Hurricane Katrina or the U.S. failure to ratify the Kyoto pact reflexively receives in Germany, public evidence of some kind of massive revulsion with Schröder's democratic reflexes is in trace quantities.

The reality is that Germany can have a selective incapacity for outrage. Oskar Lafontaine

used a Nazi-era term to refer to foreign workers here, and his Left Party in the end performed comparatively better than the big mainstream parties did in terms of their and pollsters' expectations.

Schröder can gauge his behavior against this potential absence of indignation. His own opposition to German reunification, to the creation of the euro, to an Allied response to the deployment of Soviet missiles targeted on Germany, a bill of particulars of failed historical insight, didn't amount to a hillock of difficulty in his coming to power.

What is now described by part of the political class as Schröder's exceptional arrogance and contempt for democratic reality may in fact elude the view of so many Germans who consider that Schröder is just plain - and acceptably - forceful.

Successful demagoguery, populism? In any event, Schröder can now revert to a statesmanlike posture for the week while waiting for the results of delayed voting on Sunday in a Dresden election district. There's no plausible score that could erase the Christian Democrats' lead in Bundestag seats or popular votes (those "formal grounds" Schröder dismisses), but a chance all the same for Schröder to gain some new momentum.
In further weeks, Schröder can play for more time by dodging real coalition discussions with Merkel as long as their first order of business, as she insists, is deciding who's chancellor.

He'll be reckoning that, through the pressure of inaction, support from the Christian Democrat dukes and barons who see themselves as potential substitute chancellors will collapse around Merkel, whatever her legitimacy.

The truth is Schröder may be right to think that the likelihood of her fall is greater than him being sent home in a cloudburst of German popular indignation about a chancellor's disregard for the specifics of an election result.

These prospects do no good for Germany, a country without a constituency keen on seeing any drift toward the edges of democracy's gray zone. (emphasis added)

Comments

[SeanM]

Vinocur is always insightful and provides an alternative voice to the normal backslapping here in Europe. Another view is from Christopher Caldwell of the Weekly Standard "Stillstand in Deutschland".

Here is an excerpt:

Schröder made his trademark Popeye-the-Sailor-Man gesture--clasping both hands over his head and pumping them about as if he were shaking a cocktail. That did not change the fact that Merkel got more votes, or remove her customary prerogative to lead coalition negotiations. But it seemed to. "Practice humility," Schröder told Merkel and the CDU. "That's the least one can expect from a Christian party."

I have also found no criticism of Schroeder's behavior from our acquaintances who voted Green or CDU. Those who voted FDP, on the other hand, are planning an exit strategy...

[Sascha]

"Instead, it's based, beyond the figures, on what he describes, eerily, as his reading of Germany's will."

Sounds like Schröder is practicing a bit of Rousseau's volonté générale which was also very popular with the former communist block "Partei neuen Typs": the REAL will of the people is known only to a very small elite, and if the people by chance do not agree with that "will" of theirs, then they are "class unconsciouss" or whatever and it is the duty of the political functionaries to teach them what to want (or get them out of the way by force) ... Oh dear. Poor old Germany.

[Redhand]

What a dictatorial pig this guy is. Germany, of all places, should be wary of incipient Führerprinzip tendencies in the people its electorate vote for. Next thing you know he'll be talking about how his installation as Chancellor is (with apologies to Pravda) the natural choice of "freedom loving peoples everywhere."

[PacRim Jim]

When Germans are in-raged, the truth might become visible for a moment. Trouble is, Germans usually are out-raged, usually in France, always viciously.

[Teutone]

Schröder lost greatly in popularity after the elections:

http://www.n24.de/politik/wahl-2005/?a2005092213572541445

Given the fact that Schröder was massively preferred as chancellor before the elections, to me that shows that Germans indeed dislike his behaviour on election day.

[pigilito]

While in Austria over the past several days I saw no reporting on Schroeder's odd behavior. The Austrian news only noted progress or lack of progress in talks.

[joe]

I worry not that my beers might be at risk.

I have great confidence that Gerhard will lead a new government to impliment the necessary reforms thus saving the socail welfare state.

[FranzisM]

I wonder why there is an expectation of public outrage just because Schröder is spewing crapthink that makes his followers believe they were on the right side? The left has won a 327:286 seats majority, and Schröder is the leftist candidate. The loyalty that brought him there is with him as a public person not just with his handling of his job, so it won't vanish overnight just because his last big piece of crapthink amounts to a rhetorical putsch attempt. The inverted-reality Germany of Gerhard Schröder won't collapse in some miraculous way but is to be rolled back by pushing back its main exponent. And the rest of the country stopped being outraged at some point in the last 7 years when they had seen enough of it and got bored of it.

Yet his choice of this kind of game has put him into a defensive position rather than into an offensive one: If he could trust on his strength then he would talk to CDU, FDP and PDS and make them compete for the best deal. He chose to put all his bets on the CDU, and by doing so put the CDU into a position where it can make the SPD compete with the Greens for the best deal. He probably thought when he would attack his strongest opponent, then all the smaller parties would be irrelevant bystanders. His own lack of a sense for how competition sets the rules of the game made him make this strategical mistake, and I must say I feel more satisfaction than outrage about it.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

However Germans feel about it and disagree with it, are they at least aware that some Americans see parallels of their current behavior with 1870, 1914, and 1939?

[FranzisM]

Very few people here are aware how precarious the situation of the world actually is. In a poll asking for the meaning of the word Shebab-3, most Germans would probably believe it was some trendy Turkish foodstuff rather than be able to identify it as an Iranian nuclear missile. Your comparison to 1914 and 1939 would not be correct if now there was more public awareness of how decisive the situation really is than there was at these points.

[Don]

"parallels of their current behavior with 1870, 1914, and 1939?"

I'm not sure I agree. Seems to me that those three dates mark the beginning, high point, and beginning of the end of Germany's reign as a world power.

Is Germany a world power in 2005? No. The EU as a whole certainly ranks in the first rank of world powers with China, the US, and possibly eventually India - but what proportion of the EU's influence can be ascribed to Germany? No more than 20% is my best guess. So even if the will is there to make trouble like in 1870 - the means are not.

I think the current confusion is a result of two things: Germany remained a pivotal ally to the US throughout the Cold War era, and Germany's opinions retained great weight in the US for that reason. With the fall of the Berlin Wall both sides need each other less. The second reason is the Kyoto treaty, which is regarded by many Americans as at best fatally unbalancedand at worst a suicide pact for the US economy. Nevertheless our German 'friends' spare no occasion to urge us to comply with a treaty we have not ratified and which is comically tiltd to their favor and against us. When the US refused to ratify they have regularly berated us for our 'evil'. Hardly the actions of a 'friend', I'd say.

[Doug]

@Don - Germany was a world power centuries before 1870.