For the past 16 years, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been the most powerful woman in the world. Yet the only thing most people outside Germany know about her impressive rule is what they saw of her interaction with the world’s most powerful men. And even then, three viral images probably account for much of what they know.
The first is of former president George W. Bush goofing around and giving Merkel a shoulder massage at the 2006 G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. She was not amused; in fact, she looks noticeably annoyed.
The second is of former president Barack Obama sitting back and relaxing with Merkel regaling him at the 2015 G7 Summit in Bavaria, Germany. Their setting evokes allusions to Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer as Baronin Maria Von Trapp and Baron Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, respectively.
And the third is of former president Donald Trump sitting up and pouting at Merkel standing over him at the 2018 G7 Summit in Quebec, Canada. She looks like a fed-up schoolmarm reprimanding him for being an unruly child … again.
Granted, most Europeans will probably remember her most for her failure to prevent Brexit and all it (still) portends for the now fracturing European Union. But I will remember her most for two things:
The way she schooled French President Emanuel Macron on dealing with America’s increasingly demoralizing and unreliable leadership in NATO. Macron wanted to seek military compacts with Russia and China; whereas Merkel advised the better course would be to strengthen European leadership within NATO. I elaborated in “France’s Macron: NATO Is Dying; Germany’s Merkel: Don’t Be So Quick to Surrender,” November 8, 2019- The way she maneuvered like a chess grandmaster and showed that she was “not too blinded by politically correct emotion to make corrective political decisions. Specifically, her moves to mollify concerns about the “plague” of Syrian/African migration left her political opponents reeling.” That’s how I described her actions in “Hail, Merkel! The Grandmaster of German Politics,” September 23, 2017, which includes this account of my begrudging admiration from a previous commentary:
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel can be forgiven for bemoaning that no good deed goes unpunished.
Recall that she made quite a show last summer of welcoming as many refugees as could make it to Germany. But she soon had just cause to rue her open door policy – as reports of assimilation woes and spikes in crime attended sequent waves. I duly commented in ‘Migrant Invasion Causing Humanitarian Remorse in Germany,’ September 28, 2015.
Understandably, Merkel felt compelled to allay growing fears. Unfortunately, she did so by pitting the categorical imperatives of assimilation against the transforming impositions of multiculturalism. She even pledged to close Germany’s open door enough to ‘drastically decrease’ the number of refugees entering the country. I duly commented in ‘Merkel Betraying Migration Policy that Won Her ‘Person of the Year,’ December 21, 2015.
(“Germany: Muslim Men More Sexual Predators than Asylum Seekers…?” The iPINIONS Journal, January 11, 2016)
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Except that, even though Merkel’s betrayal disappointed liberals like me, it so endeared her to German voters, everyone felt they would shower her with yellow roses of schoolmarm affection for another four years.
Sure enough, that’s exactly what they did in the September 2017 elections – two years after my lament.
Which brings me to Merkel’s farewell and Scholz’s inauguration:
The German Bundestag elected Olaf Scholz as chancellor on Wednesday morning, as Angela Merkel bows out from the political stage. …
Merkel wished Scholz the best of luck, using a German idiom that might be loosely translated as a ‘felicitous hand,’ while carrying out ‘the best job there is.’ …
Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) emerged as the largest party in September’s general election and has since negotiated a coalition deal with the environmentalist Greens and the business-focused Free Democratic Party (FDP). …
Merkel leaves office as Germany’s second-longest serving postwar chancellor, just 10 days short of the 16 years and 26 days that Helmut Kohl spent in office between 1982 and 1998.
(Deutsche Welle (DW), December 8, 2021)
By all accounts, Merkel could not be leaving Germany in more competent hands. And even though Scholz will champion more liberal domestic policies (e.g., on climate change and marijuana), his foreign policies are expected to mirror Merkel’s (e.g., on NATO and Russia).
Indeed, the only criticism anyone seems to have of him is that Scholz is an insufferable bore. Two things:
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Surely Donald Trump made clear that it’s far better to have a bore who is competent to lead than a charismatic who can do little more than entertain. I’ve commented on the enduring appeal of the latter in commentaries like “P.T. Barnum Biographer Validates My Analogies to Trump,” October 7, 2009, “Trumpasites Gagging on the Lies and Promises They Swallowed,” January 30, 2017, which includes the following:
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The phenomenon of Donald Trump says far more about the American people than him. They clearly want to be entertained by the disruptive spectacle he creates and couldn’t care less about the offensive and invariably self-aggrandizing things he tweets or does.
More to the point, the nature of foolish pride is such that, no matter how willfully he betrays them or endangers us, these Trumpasites will be loath to ever admit they were wrong about him. [T]his is especially the case with the evangelicals who betrayed zealous adherence to moral rectitude (and sold their souls) to vote for him.
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They say the French are more American than other Europeans. This probably explains the uncanny success Éric Zemmour is having aping Trump as a presidential candidate.
The speech, riddled with attacks on the news media, elites and immigrants, with a fiery orator whipping up thousands of flag-waving supporters, was reminiscent of a Donald J. Trump campaign stop from years past.
But the scene was in France, last weekend, where Éric Zemmour, the polarizing far-right polemicist who has scrambled French politics, launched his presidential campaign with a rally in front of thousands of ardent supporters.
(The New York Times, December 11, 2021)
Hey, monkey see, monkey do. And of course the mainstream media there are dooming the French by covering him like the second coming of Jesus Christ. Because ratings trump any lesson to be learned from America’s recent history.
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen must be cursing the Gods for sending yet another charismatic father (figure) to upstage her presidential ambitions. But I sympathize with Bernard-Henri Lévy. This man must be an embarrassment to any self-respecting Jew … anywhere.
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I hardly know Scholz, but I had cause to criticize him from the day he was sworn into office. And it has everything to do with him not waiting “just 10 days” to give Merkel the honor of becoming Germany’s longest-serving post-war chancellor.
Clearly, she’s too classy to have manipulated events to guarantee it. But the classy thing would’ve been for him to delay his transition to ensure he was not ready to be sworn in until this was a fait accompli. That Scholz overlooked this simple but very consequential human gesture suggests that he might be too much of a technocrat to be a great leader…
Related commentaries:
Merkel and Macron… Hail, Merkel… PT Barnum, Trump…