ZDF documentary “Inside CDU”: What does the C stand for?

Once again the Chancellor has no explanation. He said this in a podcast when asked why the Union has not been above 30 percent in any survey since the federal election. The second season of the ZDF documentary “Inside CDU” has answers.

The election campaign that the documentary team accompanies, whether in Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg or Saxony-Anhalt, is full of empty phrases and middle-aged, graying men who utter them. “Something has to change,” you hear, for example, “We have to do our homework,” or “It can't go on like this.”

What is this actually about, you ask yourself all the time when these sentences are spoken to citizens who are dissatisfied? What needs to move forward is the reforms, and it will become clear at some point. The pension reform, for example, which now urgently needs to be pushed through. The general public will be happy!

Trying to appear down-to-earth and approachable doesn't help either. “Shall we drink a bottle of beer together?” Linnemann asks his team after the election victory in Rhineland-Palatinate. Oh yes, I'd love to, that sounds cool and relaxed! A local politician from BaWü actually wanted to become a musical actor and now sings Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in the car.

Then students in Saxony-Anhalt play “Ode to Joy” on their wind instruments, Amthor asks the audience to stand up and a teenager puts his hand on his heart. And Sven Schulze says in a very sociable way on his bike tour: “I sink it’s a good sing, you can do somsing for us here” – to black volunteers.

One could actually almost feel sorry for this party, if it weren't for the fact that it is saving the lives of most people in the name of German prosperity - whose prosperity is that actually? – worsened.