Germany's CDU down thanks to the media
While the world's media are still obsessing over the US primary race, we had a real election in Germany yesterday, the state elections. Here's a quick brush-up for those that didn't follow it: The results are in, and the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), who were once heavily favored to win by 12 points, instead skated ahead of the competition by a razor-thin margin of 0.1%.
The majority of the people who read this weblog are Americans, and most of them couldn't care less about what happens in German politics. But the election was illustrative for another reason: if the media lies to the public enough, people will begin to believe it.
For weeks, German media had reported that Roland Koch, the governor of Hesse and a leader in the CDU, had been running a "divisive" campaign, and that people found his "attacks" on immigrants "offensive".
Problem is, Koch never really said anything offensive (I wrote about all this earlier here), or anything that anyone really disagreed with (you can go to that link to see his actual words, but essentially, he only pledged to deport foreigners who committed crimes in Germany). But that didn't matter. The media's consensus was that Koch was running a "nasty" campaign, and without any real questioning of the matter, self-identified "offended" people were proof of this.
So now we are supposed to accept that Koch lost the election for the CDU because his approach was considered "attacking immigrants". By the way Spiegel looks at it, Chancellor Andrea Merkel (who is also CDU) and Mr. Koch must be in deep mourning over their "loss". Incredibly, in an article that crosses the line from news into editorialism, Die Welt is celebrating the SPD's "victory", and glowingly calls Andrea Ypsilanti (from the socialist SPD party, Governor Koch's main opponent in the election) the "governor of the heart".
Problem is, if I need to remind once again, the CDU actually won (albeit just barely), and nobody was attacking law-abiding people in the campaign. But no matter. The media have spoken, and the people follow.
It's a pretty good lesson for America too.
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1 comments:
Only got interested who is Richard Silverstein's latest net enemy.
So this is who you are? Heavily bending towards the right and bending fact accordingly. The Welt is sternly conservative. Not right enough for you?
The problem with Koch is that he used the trick with the double citizenship last time. This time he came up with something really weak, don't you think?
Double citizenship for them evil Turks was much more efficient to court the voter's resentment than demanding higher sentences for juvenile delinquents. How often was something stolen from you or your family by a juvenile delinquent, or you, your wife & kids were harmed by one? Even Merkel, and hardliner Schaeuble first denied that harder sentences were necessary. Did you pay attention?
Why didn't you try to find out what made Merkel change her mind to support Koch. Was she afraid he would come to Berlin?
I am not saying I am a fan of the SPD lady either ... Rather weak performance.
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