from
Daniel Brössler
It’s October 15th. The day when three parties promise the country a new government. One after the other, the leading figures of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals take the floor in a functional building at the Berlin Fair. Everything sounds new and promising. But only when it is Christian Lindner’s turn does something strange happen. Many of those present believe that they see the FDP leader speak, but hear someone else entirely. Lindner calls the comparatively harmonious talks with the SPD and the Greens a “turning point for the political culture of Germany”. That, he says, “expanded the space of possibility” and paved the way for new “political imagination”. The thoughtful tone, this latently philosophizing – doesn’t that sound like someone else? Not only the government options seem to have changed, Christian Lindner too.