Every four years a patient comes to Stephan Grünewald who is strangely dressed and often opaque, but who has interesting things to say. This patient is called Germany, although this needs to be specified in two ways.
It concerns Grünewald, the founder of the market and media research institute Rheingold, in the self-study carried out since 2002 before the federal elections about the part of the population entitled to vote. 50 voters are compiled according to party preferences and socio-demographic parameters and asked in two-hour deep psychological interviews and group discussions how they perceive the country, the mood and the election campaign.
Stephan Grünewald and his colleagues do not conduct their discussions with therapeutic intent, but with the aim of being able to describe the so-called overall political situation. The interviews are followed by a detailed evaluation discussion with the psychologists involved, which in turn results in a paper as a content-related condensate. This summer, the SZ was able to take part in the evaluation as well as view the results in advance.
The end of Chancellor Merkel, the Corona crisis, the global mega-problems from climate change to the situation in Afghanistan – more adversity wells up into the world every day. The Rheingold Institute therefore sees voters facing autumn in a “fatal feasibility and implementation dilemma”. “They recognize the urgent need for change and action, but at the same time they are too anxious or too comfortable to make him decisively ready to act to convict “.
The young want freedom, the older withdraw into the snail shell
The reasons for this are easier to assess than the consequences. Grünewald and colleagues write that the harsh restrictions caused by the pandemic have strengthened the need for predominantly younger people to enjoy summer freedoms in a compensatory way. The self-referentiality has also increased in the elderly, albeit in a different way. A retreat into one’s own snail shell can be observed in a symbolic way, driven by the longing for stability and security. As a result, many people took care of regaining control of their everyday lives – this is one of the reasons why they experienced the previous election campaign “as a distant and remote event”.
The combination of retreating into private life and the increasingly noticeable pressure to change leads to ambivalent attitudes towards the federal election at the end of September. The study found that voters were disappointed that only “damaged doers” as top candidates of leading parties contested the election campaign. Annalena Baerbock screwed up early on, Laschet was too lax, Scholz too proud, Lindner too self-indulgent.
A thunderstorm is brewing in the snow globe. Two moods collide: Everyone feels the pressure to change, but most of them want everything to stay as it is.
(Photo: Imago)
In this disappointment, however, there is already some relief, only apparently a paradox. In the perceived weakness of the candidates, the unspoken hope is priced into the fact that these candidates will not be able to change as terribly much after the election as they should. In other words: With weak candidates, change can be chosen without really having to fear any.
Such a thing could easily be dismissed again with the empty and dangerous word of “political disaffection”. With such a word, actors with a tendency to self-deception can exculpate themselves wonderfully – people turn away? It’s not me! It has never been that easy, of course, and it is even less so this year. The Rheingold experts report exemplarily on their conversations with, perhaps soon, former CDU voters. A certain “bewilderment” spread among them in the face of epidemic corruption and even more so of its lack of consequences.
“If I do something like that in my life, it has consequences, and it happens all the time in politics,” a psychologist quoted a test subject who was not suspected of being a part of the angry bourgeoisie. When everything came together in the exploratory talks – the rapidly growing problems of the world and the country, the political class perceived as deficient – then it got dark between voters and experts, yes, then there was a thunderstorm in the magic ball.
Laschet is perceived as a joke, Habeck and Baerbock as Adam and Eve
In a group discussion “there was a bit of a mood, Germany is at the end, and somehow they almost convinced me!”, An expert reported to the group at Rheingold. Even with less desperate people, however, there is often maximum indecision with a view to the federal election, “everyone is waiting very much for the voting machine” and “already feel bad for the cross that they will give to whoever”.
Rheingold conducts around 200 studies a year for industry, media and politics. A “kaleidoscope of German sensitivities” is created in this way, says Stephan Grünewald. Sometimes it gets really screamingly colorful, for example when there is a bubble in the press text about “Sekt brands as a mood changer” and when a reference is made to one brand that it should “never be so clear that your partner can see the ones you have brought with you. . Bottle has the feeling of having to perform erotically in the evening “.
In the federal election, on the other hand, when looking at the population, top politicians should definitely have the feeling that they have to perform politically after election evening. The interim certificate at Rheingold does not exist with digits up to the first decimal place. But classic surveys sometimes seem inconclusive in an increasingly nervous people who are willing to change votes. And it is precisely against this background that qualitative records in words do not necessarily have to be less precise than quantitative records in numbers.
After recording the Rheingold test subjects, Armin Laschet did not have a bad start as a candidate for the “Keep it up with small corrections”. But he missed the chance of a little reflection on Merkel “through his laughter, which almost every voter remembers”. In his perception, he also went from being cheerful to being a joke.
The Greens, on the other hand, would be perceived as credible in their claim to change, but the “complementary relationship” between her and Robert Habeck seems to be more important to the voters than the candidate Baerbock. Only “as Adam and Eve” in this way would the “almost paradisiacal idea of a traffic-calmed world” outshine the mandatory renunciation.
According to Grünewald and colleagues, Christian Lindner from the FDP is perceived “as the inner child of the voter”, who can sometimes be defiant and who, with belief in progress, offers a redeeming way out of the “feasibility dilemma”. Olaf Scholz has risen from the “invisible third party” to a candidate who promises continuity like only the CDU otherwise – but his problem is the SPD, with which he is not associated for better or for worse. The voters would have Scholz on the slip, “but they will not find him on the ballot paper”.
In the Rheingold report, the AfD, a great mysterious unknown in the last election, also from the area code investigations, comes across as a kind of catchment basin for Germany. With the downplaying of global problems such as climate change, however, she is still making a noticeable offer to more voters than the left, which is seen as “without leadership or conception”.
As in no previous election, Stephan Grünewald finally states that the voters think “in coalitions” and want to enrich Constance (CDU or Scholz) with moderate efforts (Greens) and a corrective to preserve personal freedoms (FDP). How these intentions translate into an election result and then a government in the autumn, nobody knows. However, one thing is clear: With all the current and future devastation in the world, a glass of even very good sparkling wine will not be enough to change the mood.