#wahlabend

Oh no. When I read about the election results I was like, What's the worst thing she could do now? And... yeah. Did she not address the issue in her speech at all??

Why would she? She remains in power after all. She’s beeen chancellor for twelve years. For twelve years, she hasn’t done anything to address any of the dire problems we’re facing. It’s not going to be any different in her fourth term. It’s only about staying in power, maintaining status quo. 

The SPD has been unraveling for some time - pretty much since Schröder made some neo-liberal reforms during the late nineties/early 2000s that were at odds with the principles of social democracy (partly necessary though after sixteen years of Helmut Kohl and the must and decay of the Bonner Republik).

The SPD paid for it dearly during the next election and were then forced into a great coalition as a junior partner - they couldn’t establish themselves against Merkel, and everything that acutally went well during that term was attributed to Merkel and her CDU, all the while the SPD steadily lost approval amongst workers and leftists because they were continuing Schröder’s neoliberal course under Merkel. There’s a reason why great coalitions are widely concerned a Bad Move…. 

Then came Schwarz/Gelb, and the SPD didn’t manage to re-gain its credibility during that term. The next great coalition, and people are so fed up by now that the SPD reached only 20% today. Another great coalition would be pretty much the death of the SPD as we know it. 

It was fairly obvious that the SPD would not succeed - the outcome of the election isn’t surprising at all. And SPD politicians already had their speeches prepared - there was never any hesitation, they declared right away that they would become a party of the opposition.