By Peter Tiede and Hans-Jörg Vehlewald
It sounds so simple: politicians should listen to the people and literally “watch their mouths”. But do they? No!
The Germans feel misunderstood. You have a completely different opinion than the federal government on key points.
Or vice versa: Those “up there” don’t do what those “down there” want, need or can still tolerate. The result: popular frustration!
More than 70 percent of German citizens are dissatisfied with the government at the halfway point of the traffic lights. Citizens no longer have it that way with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (65, SPD): 66 percent think he is not doing his job well. Not even a third think Scholz is a good chancellor. A low point!
The dissatisfaction is evident in the core issues of the Germans:
migration
No other topic is becoming more important for citizens than the migration crisis: In the summer, 51 percent of those surveyed by BILD through the survey institute INSA said that the issue of migration was particularly urgent for them – 18 percent more than in December 2022.
Refugees on a boat in the Mediterranean Photo: picture alliance / ROPI
▶︎ Issue of asylum: 84 percent of Germans complain that too many refugees are coming to Germany, 83 percent are calling on the federal government to take measures to reduce the number of asylum seekers (Civey survey for “Spiegel”).
▶︎ Issue of benefits in kind for asylum seekers: Development Minister Svenja Schulze (55, SPD) rejects the CDU proposal that refugees should receive benefits in kind instead of cash. The reason: “high bureaucratic effort”. Schulze also sees no “pull factor” through social benefits and demands from CDU leader Friedrich Merz “only a single piece of evidence” that proves the connection.
border controls
The government is negotiating European solutions – meanwhile, more and more migrants are crossing the German borders illegally. But Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (53, SPD) continues to reject regular, stationary controls on the main routes to Poland and the Czech Republic.
As early as March, 76 percent of Germans surveyed by INSA for BILD said they were in favor of tightening controls at the EU’s external borders.
Smuggled in on the back of a van – discovered by the federal police in Brandenburg Photo: Federal Police
Nuclear power out
Germany has shut down its nuclear power plants. The Greens have the scalp that their forefathers hunted on their belt.
Only the rest of the country sees it differently: According to a representative INSA survey for BILD, 52 percent think the nuclear power plant shutdown is wrong, only 37 percent think it is right (11 percent did not provide any information).
In Bavaria, where the last reactor (Isar 2) went offline at the end of July, 56 percent were against switching it off. Only 37 percent consider the decision to be “right” or “absolutely right”.
Gendering
The Chancellor doesn’t care how the Germans talk. Only: Under him, the citizens of authorities, offices and ministries are attacked from the side without being asked (“citizens”). The sound image in public broadcasting is similar: the simplest linguistic rules can be broken ideologically as the editor pleases.
Germans don’t want ideologues to spoil their native language: only 16 percent said in a representative survey by Dimap for the ARD broadcaster WDR that gender was important to them.
Really bitter for the WDR: 59 percent of those surveyed – regardless of whether they are men or women – do not want to hear gender German. You are specifically against gendering in the media.
Combustion engines will be phased out from 2035
The federal government is preaching – and funding billions in – electric cars for everyone! Whether this makes any ecological or economic sense in the car-making nation is secondary; whether the normal family can even afford the expensive driving fun.
People feel this: According to a Forsa survey, 67 percent are against it, 89 percent complain about the commitment to electric cars as the only alternative to gasoline and diesel cars.
Transgender debate
59 percent of Germans reject the gender change from the age of 14 (even against the parents’ opinion), as the federal government has now initiated. Only 28 percent are in favor (50 percent generally think the regulation makes sense), INSA found for BILD.
Heating hammer
The height of complacency: According to the last survey (INSA, beginning of September), 81 percent of people in the country are dissatisfied with the federal government with regards to its heating law. According to Civey, 62 percent are calling for a new debate in the Bundestag, where the traffic light simply pushed through their law in August.
Exciting: ONLY among Green Party supporters is a majority of the opinion (69 percent) that the Bundestag has sufficiently discussed the heating law.
How expensive will heating be this winter? Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-tmn
The supporters of all other parties are convinced, in some cases by the largest majority, that the law was pushed through parliament too quickly. SPD: 58 percent, Left: 61 percent, Union: 88 percent.
This means that the new heating law apparently couldn’t come quickly enough for the Green voters (elected to the Bundestag with 14.8 percent). The rest of the citizens would have liked to have had a longer discussion about it.
At least when it comes to the issue of migration, Berlin seems to have realized that things are getting dicey. For months, mayors from all parties, district administrators and citizens have been complaining that the migration crisis is back and that the reception centers are full.
At the weekend, the Chancellor also said: “The number of refugees who are trying to get to Germany is too high at the moment…”