Every time has its words. One look after the election, the “kingmakers” haunted the republic. Also in the show “Hart aber Fair”. There sit the Green politician Renate Künast and Alexander Graf Lambsdorff from the FDP. Representatives of the two parties who now have it in their hands who will be the next Chancellor. When it comes to the question of the political future (and the present), the group is primarily fighting over the word “People’s Party”. After more than 24 hours of analyzes, mixing colors and general flagging, some feel like big words and powerful theses. To the proclamation of a new era! From there with fuzzy coalition discussions. And, thank God, let it rip.
First you take a look at the federal chairman of the Junge Union, Tilman Kuban, who is present. It sits surprisingly relaxed in the semicircle. He smiles, shows his teeth, while Plasberg pokes at the humility that must be found in the gap between the last two federal elections, between the 32 and 24 percent. Plasberg tries the Kretschmer-Watschen, after all, on the same day, the Saxon Prime Minister and CDU party friend spoke of an “earthquake”, while Laschet has since appeased that it was just the underground.
The moderator finally fishes out of Kuban’s head the sentence “We lost the election. Period.” out and the somewhat mumbled confirmation that Kuban has not seen any Wolfgang Schäuble defending, congratulating Armin Laschet or massaging the tense shoulders. About five times that evening he says that the ball is currently in the SPD’s playing field. But he says it with audible confidence in the geometry that balls are known to roll by.
The harder cutlery unpacks the ZEIT journalist Mariam Lau, who speaks of the CDU as a “bled out and empty party”, while Iroquois blogger Sascha Lobo hammers with superlatives and the Union has a “crashing failure situation”, “a 10 out of 10” – Attested defeat.
Kuban snaps back
Kuban snaps back, bites in the direction of Renate Künast and her idea of red-red-green, where the left is not a democratic party. Künast, in a great mood anyway, suggests that he could try to forbid it, then he would lose again. The humility, if not from Kuban, is later in the form of a tweet from the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU member of the state parliament, Ellen Demuth (yes, really), who calls for Armin Laschet’s resignation.
The studio temperature will change now at the latest. This feeling arises that such nights are like no other. Uncork the “only-for-special-occasions” theses. The journalist Mariam Lau asks whether the CDU is crumbling now. Lobo proclaims the new era: “With these federal elections, the 21st century has only just begun politically.” Plasberg suspects that Robert Habeck will become Vice Chancellor, to which Renate Künast replies: “I don’t know anything about that.” The studio wall knows more. Habeck, Lindner and Scholz stand together, glowing red. But it’s called kingmakers, not kingmakers.
Plasberg finally unpacks old stories and slaps them on the table for SPD politician Kevin Kühnert. He had blasphemed about his possible future Kaolition partner that Lindner had “no serious financial concept”, but “a windy basis” and was an “Luftikus” anyway. Kühnert writhes out with a precise explanation that now is – contrary to the election campaign weeks – the time not to find the differences, but the similarities. “Luftikus” belongs to the cute category of insults anyway.
The FDP politician Graf Lambsdorff smiles at him. In the mild evening he brushes aside yesterday’s chatter. The subsequent discussion on the wealth tax shows that none of the parties draw their red lines in pastel colors, but that doesn’t dampen the spirit of optimism in the potential traffic light coalition either. Wealth tax, top tax rate, digitization – every era has its words. Last week Luftikus, today kingmaker.
Marlene Knobloch is a freelance, streaming author, but dreams of televisions in the kitchen and bedroom. Every Sunday she could doze off linearly to the come-good-for-the-week wishes of the night magazine presenters with thousands of viewers in Germany. Until then, she watches old Harald Schmidt episodes on her laptop while peeling potatoes.