"Hard but fair": Mayor from Saxony uses the stage, CSU man does not

Frank Plasberg invites you to “Hart aber fair” on ARD, a mayor from Saxony and a world journalist use the stage. CSU General Secretary Blume does not. The TV review.

Well, it works. Winning elections, keeping the AfD in check, driving out the Greens’ blooming dreams – this Armin Laschet managed all of this in the federal elections. Says Frank Plasberg. And, true to the title of his show, “Hard but fair” is improving. Oops, small mix-ups, says Plasberg, the man’s name is Haseloff – and his state of Saxony-Anhalt. The plot is set: here the radiant hero Reiner Haseloff, there the pale free rider Laschet.

And, so much can be revealed, despite well-rehearsed headlines such as “Election present for Laschet, Laschet passes acid test and tailwind for Armin Laschet”, somehow nothing of the success of the Saxon-Anhalt country father sticks to the CDU candidate for chancellor. Basically not and not in any of the speeches on “Hard but fair”. Which may also be due to the fact that the Union is represented by Markus Blume of all people. Qua office as CSU General Secretary, he is the two-legged mouthpiece of the self-proclaimed Chancellor candidate of the hearts named Markus Söder.

However, it quickly turns out that neither the length comparison between Söder and Laschet nor the question of whether Haseloff, thanks to or simply despite his federal party chairman, could keep the unloved AfD (measured against the worst fears) small, will be negotiated centrally on this evening in the ARD.

“Hard but fair” (ARD): Mayor Neubauer has a lot to say about Frank Plasberg

Instead, the elephant begins to be encircled in the room: Why do so many people in the East actually vote for a party that is being observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected extremist case? Are these all Nazis? Or just misunderstood souls who feel left behind? As it is in life – and especially in post-factual times – there are several answers to this question.

There is Dirk Neubauer’s opinion. He is mayor in the Saxon town of Augustusburg, non-party and with around 70 percent re-elected where the AfD is particularly strong. In addition, he was briefly in the SPD, in order to quickly escape into non-party status. The reason for this? He doesn’t want to be bent, doesn’t want to pay “high prices for government participation”, doesn’t want to sell himself. That sounds so crisp that “the mayor”, as CSU General Blume persistently calls him, remains credible. And that, although his eyebrows often derailed noticeably in displayed skepticism in higher regions.

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Because he definitely has a lot to say that has a certain plausibility inherent in it. He can explain why so many young people in the east follow the Höckes and Kirchner party, which has been declared a suspected extremist case for Germany by the protection of the constitution in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. “Inherited injuries” drove the young, mostly male East Germans into the arms of the party with simple answers to complex problems and the feeling of being left behind.

Dirk Neubauer on “hart aber fair” (ARD): “I’ll just go there to make my position clear”

What can you do about it? Mayor Neubauer outlines his solution: Maintain contact with the ground and talk to and above all with people in clear, understandable main sentences. Even with lateral thinkers. He would be far from their opinion, says Neubauer, but he still goes there. People are then surprised: “He’s talking to us”. The Augustusburger sums it up: “I’m not going there and somehow I try to convince them that we are a big family now. But I go there to make my position clear and to make it clear that I take it seriously and take it seriously. “

Sounds almost good, CSU-Blume wants to step on the step and praises his party completely free of shame for having attached the motto “closer to the people” to the logo. Close to the people CSU edition, so to speak. It resonates: We, the important ones, do not go to the people, but we say that this is actually important to us. OK.

“Hard but fair”: Sascha Lobo and Robin Alexander score with objectivity

In the midst of all this we-are-the-people’s understanding, columnist Sascha Lobo bursts with a plausible punchline: The tactic of talking to everyone, according to Lobo, may be very interesting on a small scale, but in the larger context he prefers the “Haseloff method” . This is “the opposite of talking to everyone”. Because: “At certain points it is easy to say: We can discuss up to this point and from then on we will no longer discuss in a democracy.”

This is where Robin Alexander, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Welt and Welt am Sonntag, comes in. Haseloff has shown that both work. “Clear edge” against the AfD while simultaneously assuming positions of those who turn away from democracy. To be against gender, against the corona policy of the federal government. Alexander, who delivers the coolest, because most rational, appearance that evening, Haseloff neither wants to protect nor expose him. Rather, he exposes the CDU Prime Minister, who has repeatedly been celebrated almost as an anti-fascist, as a tough opportunist on a factual level.

Greens Deputy Chief Ricarda Lang does not look good with Frank Plasberg in the ARD

Ricarda Lang tries again and again to set her own punchlines. The deputy federal chairman of the Greens gets tangled up in agonizing academic debauchery again and again. Her favorite vocabulary that evening: “Service of life”. It sounds so fresh, youthful and close to the people that she herself gets to hear from World Vice President Alexander: “You really think that the word general welfare is the best thing for young voters?” Sascha Lobo seconded: He had this word “outside of it of political operations “never heard of. So “really never”.

Lang, the youngest participant in the group at the age of 27, is now eagerly trying to dust off her punched empty phrases from the moth box of political rhetoric – too late. She really doesn’t have her best performance that evening. Even if it is not crushed between Neubauer’s local color and Alexander’s sovereignty, it does not get through with its messages. However, she will not be the loser of the evening.

“Hard but fair” on ARD: CSU General Secretary Markus Blume loser of the evening

Because the CSU phrase thriller Blume, which is frighteningly colorless and meaningless today at Frank Plasberg’s, then claims this title for himself. Sometimes up to the borderline of foreign shame, he drags around between less credible and also extremely narrow support for Armin Laschet and a superficially suppressed disappointment about not being allowed to lead the election campaign of a candidate for Chancellor Söder these days.

Pointed out that his Union criticized the Greens for a gasoline price increase of 16 cents by 2023 with simultaneous compensation for less well-paid people, although in their own coalition agreement at the federal level an increase of 15.5 percent by 2025 is to be found, Blume “counters” with the yes so completely different time span. Robin Alexander, as world deputy chief expected more at Blume than at Lang, then completely trims the CSU general and certifies that the Greens have a more credible and coherent gasoline price concept than the Union.

Even the vice-boss of the Greens can add little to this. She will be happy to have heard Alexander’s statement that Annalena Baerbock’s belatedly reported but fully taxed additional income was a “donkey”. However, this cannot be compared with the “corruption” that Union MPs have carried out by buying masks. Perhaps Ricarda Lang should have just left it at that.

Mayor Neubauer disarming at “hard but fair”: “Finally talking about the majority in the East”

Despite this fine submission, Lang – who had to be accused of having merged with politics between the lines – is really ready to say, completely painlessly: “Lobbying is an important part of democracy.” Your subsequent relativization does not work this sentence from the mouth of a top green sounds more real, too wrong. Similarly wrong: “Of course we work with lobbyists. I’m not a fan of portraying lobbying as something bad. “

Mayor Neubauer does better. Its most memorable passage, mentioned in the first section of this issue of “Hard but fair”, is as simple as it is disarming: “It would be nice if we could talk about the majority in the East. We always talk about the 20 percent who make this strange cross. “(Mirko Schmid)