Fight against the right, a stop-the-thief campaign
Now the campaign is no longer working. The SPD has reached 13% in the polls. In SPD strongholds, the party can still mobilize supporters, mobilize grannies against the far-right, and in the university community, fear of decline can quickly be transformed into outrage against the far-right.
For the petty bourgeois with a university background is not immune to the descent into the precariat; the fact that millions of proletarians already eke out their existence there is ignored.
- The eight-hour day has also long since been abolished. Shift work and night shifts have become the norm in many low-level employment relationships. There is no evidence of resistance from unions.
- There is no longer any talk of a 35-hour week
- and the CDU never tires of demanding that the retirement age be raised.
- Every microscopic increase in the minimum wage is met with outrage from the mainstream media, citing lobby leaders who threaten increased unemployment.
These disputes over social issues are mild because the fight against the far-right is well orchestrated. But it no longer helps the 13% party. High-ranking officials are striving for social security offices as long as the party can still fill such positions in government.
But the CDU is also no longer comfortable with the campaign: it's not benefiting them. It remains stuck at a 25% share and can't shake off Merz. His dead-end rearmament drive still has too many supporters, and the realization that rearmament can only be a flash in the pan at best isn't gaining the upper hand within the CDU.
But if the CDU is presented with the pro-nuclear weapons Ms. Barley, who wants to supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine and blackmail Hungary, and who holds similar positions to Ms. Brosius-G. on the termination of pregnancy, it will be faced with a choice between the plague and cholera.
The fight against the far-right was a transparent maneuver, but will lose significance as the social conflict escalates, also because a large part of the population sees through this maneuver.
And large sections of the political class have lost faith in the Merz government, as there are no signs of recovery and a solution is inconceivable under the current conditions.
The incantations of an upswing sound like whistling in the forest
"The fact that people at the bottom of the social ladder in Germany are getting worse and worse off is also demonstrated by a look at the number of people using the food banks. Today, around 1,5 to 2 million people use the food banks; in 2018, the number was around 1,5 million, and in 2010, around one million.9
Poverty in Germany is clearly increasing. Even a walk through various German inner cities, especially in the train station districts, impressively demonstrates how misery, hardship, homelessness, drug victims, neglect, indifference, and fear of crime, especially among women, are openly increasing in the streets. Such conditions were unthinkable 30 years ago.
Intermediate result
In short: Contrary to what the official figures show, the lower half of the population, or at least the lowest quarter, is probably not doing as well today as it was seven years ago, but significantly worse. Probably even worse than 25 years ago. And the federal government's recent decisions are likely to ensure that things won't improve. Quite the opposite.
https://tkp.at/2025/08/23/wo-steht-unsere-oekonomie-deutsche-wirtschaft-schrumpft-mehr-als-erwartet/