OLaf Scholz made himself small in order to get to the top. He’d been trying to do that for a while. At the end of 2019, when he was still Federal Minister of Finance and was running for party chairmanship and introduced himself to party members as a lawyer for labor law. So as a man who takes care of the little people and their worries. The story was true, Scholz worked as a lawyer for some time. But the comrades didn’t feel it. Because there was still Olaf Scholz on the stage. Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans, who had made themselves even smaller and whose story caught on in the party, then won the party chairmanship.
But Scholz remained stubborn. He had a two-phase plan. Phase 1: become the SPD’s candidate for chancellor. In view of the lack of alternatives, this was surprisingly easy. Phase 2: Re-establish the SPD as the party of the small, common people who want security and a good living and a government that takes care of everything but otherwise largely leaves them alone. Scholz’s campaign team summed it up. It could be seen in many places during the election campaign, white on red: respect.
Anger paper after election defeat
The decision to use this vague term as a leitmotif was not made on a whim. Behind this is a lot of Scholz’s plan for the next four years. Because closely related to this is the concept of progress, which stands above the coalition agreement and is intended to keep the very different traffic light partners together.
So respect, of all things. Quite a few in the SPD and also former party supporters are likely to associate Scholz with exactly the opposite. Because Scholz was one of the bravest defenders of Agenda 2010, including Hartz IV, under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. So how does the man come to talk about respect all the time? And why do voters suddenly believe him, based on the electoral success?
It was at the end of 2017, the SPD had once again lost a federal election when Olaf Scholz sat down at the computer and wrote an angry paper. “Slowly but unmistakably, parts of the population are losing hope that the future will be better,” he analyzed. Many citizens are concerned. There is progress, but many people don’t notice it – in the worst case, it scares them. Economic output is no longer growing as it used to. The western world is about to be outstripped. Globalization is seen primarily as a threat. As a loss of control.
In this confusing world, people are also expected to continue their education and see everything as an opportunity. But not everyone would come along. “Anyone who wants to remain a metalworker has done nothing wrong,” wrote Scholz. But many climbers that the SPD has celebrated for decades would sound like that. This leads to insults among many non-academics. You lack respect.
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