Chancellor is a discontinued commodity: The country needs the SPD and a certain man

in Hollywood, the case is clear: the most popular actor is offered the best roles. On the art market, the most popular painter of his time achieves the highest prices at auction. In the concert business, it is a matter of course: the most popular singer does not enter the studio stage, but the stadium. Olaf Scholz during the general debate on the 2025 budget on September 11, 2024 © dpa Only in the SPD does one man believe that different rules apply to him. According to the latest Forsa survey, 90 percent of all voters say Olaf Scholz is unfit to be chancellor, and yet he claims the roles and the stadium for himself and believed that on election day he would be presented with the Federal Chancellery again as an audience award.

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SPD problem: It has put a product in the shop window that does not arouse desire

You don't have to be a clairvoyant to predict to the SPD leadership that this will not happen. Olaf Scholz's chancellorship is pale and wilted. Roland Kaiser will be singing at Wembley Stadium and Til Schweiger will be playing the next James Bond before Scholz gets a second term in office. He has – to put it bluntly – been a failure with the public and the critics. That can happen. That is not a drama. That is democratic normality. The drama of the present SPD is basically that it does not want to accept the laws of the market economy and democracy for itself. It has put a product on display that is not desirable and therefore unsellable – in Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and also in the rest of the republic.

The men and women of social democracy don't have to jump out of the window. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil should now do what any brave retailer would do: redecorate. The autumn goods belong in the warehouse and the new collection on display. So that people can press their noses against the shop window again.

The format for the 2025 season has already arrived. Boris Pistorius

Especially since the format for the 2025 season has already arrived. Which brings us to Boris Pistorius. The SPD defence minister has been ranked number 1 in the opinion research institute's lists for months. People are wearing olive green again. It is by no means the case that the SPD is no longer needed. The liberal thinker Ralf Dahrendorf, who saw the end of the social democratic era in his 1983 essay “The Opportunities of the Crisis: On the Future of Liberalism”, was simply wrong:

• The welfare state, the great redistribution machine, continues to run at full speed. In an ageing society, the health care system and pension insurance are not in a crisis of legitimacy, as Dahrendorf believed, but rather form the centre of a community based on solidarity.
• Globalization has relativized national agreements, but has not eliminated them. Fair pay for good work will never be out of fashion.
• The social democratic promise of advancement through achievement remains highly attractive and embodies the longing of a lifetime for everyone whose surname is not Miele, Krupp, Albrecht or Quandt.

In short: The SPD does not need to declare bankruptcy. It just needs someone at the top who can credibly embody the core promise for the core target group. And someone who can restore law and order. Because an SPD that sends the tow truck to someone who parks illegally and sets the tax inspector on the little tax evader, while legalizing drug deals and tolerating illegal immigrants, is not attractive to the little people.

Pistorius is a knowledgeable man

The SPD party executive may see this as postmodern, diverse and cool. But for its own electorate it remains incomprehensible: politics without the people. They are now waiting for someone who will give the state back its authority without being authoritarian himself. As Interior Minister of Lower Saxony, Pistorius gained deep insights into the security apparatus and also got to know the forces that are trying to undermine this state. He is not naive. He is a man of knowledge.

Putin's attack on Ukraine has made him more serious, but not hardened him. The man knows about the need for military rearmament. But he also knows that wars are decided at the negotiating table and not in the trenches. If the Germans had the choice between a new Cold War or a contemporary interpretation of the policy of détente, they would know how to decide.

Even if almost all media give a different impression: The election chances of CDU leader Merz will not be decided in the state chancelleries of Düsseldorf and Munich, but in the Willy Brandt House. The right opposing candidate makes the difference. The parties' current offer suggests four legs. Anyone who can hear will hear it: the people are not calling for Merz and the people are not calling for Scholz. A choice is necessary.

An SPD leadership that closes itself off to this desire has lost its “instinctive certainty,” to speak with Friedrich Nietzsche. The philosopher could not speak with a snare, but he could understand the gravity of political conditions: power makes you stupid. Everything good is instinct.”

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