What just happened? Much was hidden in the selfie of the four eco-liberal explorers. Four satisfied faces, at peace with themselves and the world, warmly turned towards each other. Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck from the Greens, Christian Lindner and Volker Wissing from the FDP. Above all, it was noticeable how much they resemble each other. Again now that they want to walk quickly towards the traffic lights.
Both parties will almost certainly belong to the new federal government. That obliges. Or is it more? FDP and Greens are the most popular among first-time voters. It is said that this points to a division among the youth.
It is different: The young people quickly understood that the additional potential of Liberals and Greens is greater than the barriers to demarcation.
The time is long gone when a Cem Özdemir, then the head of the Greens, shouted to his supporters that nothing was going on with the liberals, neither in the state nor in the federal government. The “genetic differences” are simply too great. That was eleven years ago. The genes as a metaphor for an unchangeable core of identity. Özdemir said that the nuclear phase-out was non-negotiable for the Greens. “That is more or less genetic.”
A liaison seemed impossible years ago
For the Greens, the Liberals were ambitious, morally lacking in character, obsessed with technology and believing in innovation. For the liberals, the Greens were naive with beards, hyper-moral, embracing trees, apocalyptic. It seemed impossible that anything good could ever emerge from a liaison between these parties.
[Wenn Sie alle aktuellen Entwicklungen zur Coronavirus-Pandemie live auf Ihr Handy haben wollen, empfehlen wir Ihnen unsere App, die Sie hier für Apple- und Android-Geräte herunterladen können.]
The selfie and the joint walk to traffic light conversations now sharpen the eye for commonalities. The clientele, for example, to advertise the Greens and the FDP, has many overlaps in social terms. It is wealthy, academic, urban, bourgeois, globally oriented, culturally modern – for “marriage for all”, the legalization of hashish, a right to vote at the age of 16.
Only in the field of biomedicine, keyword stem cell research, and euthanasia, there is a bit of a crunch between the religiously affine Greens and the more agnostic liberals.
For a long time, the Greens and the FDP have been taking turns in wearing the title of being the “party of the higher earners”. The Liberals are currently just ahead. Both parties are elected by well-supplied postal materialists who can afford expensive organic products, kerosene surcharges, gasoline price increases, higher electricity prices and higher parking fees in city centers.
The Greens have learned that no climate protection is possible without technology and innovation, see Tesla, photovoltaics, wind power. The liberals have learned that climate protection can promote growth, see lightbulbs, refrigerators, e-cars and much more, which for ecological reasons has to be constantly bought or converted.
In the pragmatic, de-ideologized view of the problems, Greens and Liberals look like twins who were separated at birth and now, after a long phase of adolescence, find each other. Fortunately, the SPD would still be there in a traffic light for social issues and justice.
