It took a while until the party in the federal government came into question as a partner. At first it was hardly possible to work with her even in city councils and district assemblies: Too many representatives first had to clarify their relationship to parliamentary democracy. When this was done after a few years, when many had acquired respect even with specialist knowledge, cooperation was possible, first in municipalities, then in some countries. But at the federal level? Where is it not just about environmental or social policy, but also about foreign policy? The party had a long way to go before this was conceivable. In the mid-1990s, the Greens were ready.
Which says a lot about the situation in which the left currently located. Hardly anyone talks about their SED history anymore, their alliances with the SPD and the Greens in the states of Berlin, Bremen and Thuringia are harmless in a positive sense. But a coalition of these three in the federal government? Until a week ago, the left had received little attention. Then was Armin Laschet kind enough to paint the danger of a red-green-red alliance – which is mathematically possible according to the surveys. Friedrich Merz, Markus Söder, Thomas Strobl and many others from the Union who catch a microphone somewhere are now second to him.
Laschet or socialism? Not really
Of course, they all know that red-green-red is about as likely this autumn as the IAA will be relocated to Frankfurt by Tuesday. But you have to try something to mobilize at least some of those citizens who have obviously been demobilized in the past few weeks – so you try to convince them that September 26th is about Laschet or socialism. So that people still vote for the shock of the CDU or CSU.
But whether the dramatization of red-green-red will really be for the benefit of both the Union and the left? Armin Laschet has made the top people of the left leg in so far as they have now presented an “immediate program” of eight pages in which they list everything to be done if the SPD and the Greens only wanted to.
Only: For the period after September 26th, this paper is likely to have as little significance as the CDU’s “future team” on Friday. This, too, comes too suddenly to be able to answer crucial questions; in the case of the left, these are those according to NATO and the Bundeswehr. The word “NATO” does not even appear, and Olaf Scholz and Saskia Esken have made a note of the fact that the left in the Bundestag recently did not even want to support the evacuation operation in Kabul. Anyone who can hear and read has already received the message from them on Sunday: Maybe red-green-red will be an option at some point; 2029 or so. But right now the left is where the Greens were in about 1988.