Young and to the left? Not in Germany, where the Merkel generation prefers an old hand.... - 0 views
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Fifty-seven percent of first-time voters, for instance, favor the chancellor, compared with 21 percent who prefer her Social Democratic rival, Martin Schulz, according to polling conducted by the Forsa Institute.
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It also marks a change within Germany, where young voters typically have chosen the Social Democrats, and increasingly the Greens, in the postwar era. The first time Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union captured the largest share of the youth vote without the help of its Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union, was in 2013.
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This generation came to political consciousness in the anxious aftermath of the 9/11 attacks but then watched their own country weather the financial crisis later that decade with relative ease. The European Union is suddenly no longer a given, and the United States, which steered Germany to political normalization, is looking inward under a president who promises “America first.”
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much of her audience sees Merkel only for her role on the world stage — her ability to keep Russia in line, her willingness to counter President Trump and, most recently, her appeal for talks with North Korea.
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“I’m afraid about the future,” said Philipp Thiel, 27, who is training to become a teacher at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. “I don’t expect a third world war but maybe something like that, with North Korea, Turkey, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, Trump,” he said.
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Merkel, he said, is a contrast to bellicose world leaders. “She’s someone who will say, ‘Okay guys, calm down.’ ”
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Students in Magdeburg took comfort in Germany’s stability but voiced pessimism about the safety of the world — somewhat the inverse of the perspective with which earlier generations came of age.
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“A feeling that I sometimes sense among our viewers is, ‘Could somebody please stop the world for a moment, just so I could try to understand one crisis at a time?’ ” said Schulz, who is 27 and described 9/11 as the moment “politics started” for her. Her parents, she said, did not worry about terrorism, and they believed they had moved past the brand of politics it breeds — nationalism.
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in traveling across the country to prepare for the show, Schulz said, she heard one view repeatedly: “We are doing fine as a generation.” Germany boasts the lowest youth unemployment rate, 6.5 percent, of any E.U. country. Quibbles, Schulz said, are dismissed as “Luxusprobleme,” best translated as “First World problems.”
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But this idea — almost a sense of gratitude — may be dissuading young people from getting more involved in politics, Schulz warned. Just six lawmakers in the Bundestag, the 630-member lower house of Parliament, were born after 1985.
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Wolfgang Gründinger, author of the book “Old Geezers’ Politics,” said Germany’s older generations “are robbing the youth of their future,” pointing to the lack of attention to education and child poverty in this month’s electoral debate.
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Although Gründinger is an active member of the Social Democrats, he does not spare the party blame. “Fewer than 3 percent of SPD members are younger than 25, which means that the lives of younger people play virtually no role in the everyday debate,” said Gründinger, referring to the party.