Satire at Anne Will (ARD): "If you choose Olaf Scholz, choose a left-wing chancellor"

In the ARD talk, Anne Will asks her guests: “Minimum wage, wealth tax, debt brake – is Germany facing a choice of direction?”

Berlin – First of all, a side note on the subject of balance among the public broadcasters: On this evening, Anne Will (ARD) sat across from a Social Democrat and a representative of the Left Party from the Christian Democrat Brinkhaus, the far right Chrupalla and a journalist from the right-wing conservative FAZ. Whereby one wonders what the right winger is doing in this group, like his colleague B. von Storch recently with Sandra Maischberger: Competence cannot be the criterion for the invitations, rather the hope for a little riot.

And on Sunday of the coming week, in the “four-way battle” of the candidates from the FDP, AfD, and Left, the CSU was also sneaked in, although it did not even compete nationwide. Balanced? It fits in with the fact that the upcoming “Triell” will be co-moderated by Claudia von Brauchitsch, who worked for the CDU and its station CDU-TV, on the private channels of the ProSieben Group (September 19, 8 pm to 3 pm). So much for the nonsensical claim that the media and especially the public broadcasters are dominated by the left.

Anne Will, ARD: Malice criticized in the political discussion

And the colleague from the FAZ also let the ARD see where she stands. She sees so much “malice” in the political discussion, and she made it more precise when she spoke of a “disruptive feeling” with a view to the “rich tax” that Janine Wissler would like to raise. The descriptions by the Left give the impression that Germany is “decoupled”. But she believes that the process of change is going too fast for many people. Therefore, the journalist doubts that there will be a change in mood. And from the standpoint of a well-appointed editor, the view of the situation may be different from that of an underpaid caregiver. But the gap between rich and poor has widened and widened in recent years.

With the FAZ, Anne Will also began her program on the subject of “Minimum wages, wealth tax, debt brake – is Germany facing a choice of direction?” In the Sunday edition of the paper it was suggested that it was not Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, but the SPD party chairmen Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans would make the decision on a future coalition – with the left. What Ralph Brinkhaus immediately tried to use: “If you choose Olaf Scholz, choose a left-wing chancellor”. Calling Scholz “left-wing chancellor” had something of satire about it, and Walter-Borjans dismissed the attempt as unsuitable. “I’m not going to let you drive me into a red-red-green coalition.”

The invitation to AfD boss Chrupalla knew convincingly to confirm as pointless. First, Anne Will was able to refute him with numbers that the demand of the Nazi friends that Germany should leave the EU is not shared by the citizens, since 84 percent feel they are EU citizens. And the assertion that we have more financial disadvantages than advantages could expose Will’s editorial team to be false. Maybe that was the deeper meaning of the ARD’s invitation to Chrupalla: to show that the AfD is telling nonsense. But you knew that beforehand.

Anne Will, ARD: AfD boss only speaks in between

It didn’t get any better when it came to taxes; the AfD boss only spoke in between. More interesting was the presentation by Brinkhaus, whose party wants to hold on to the debt brake and let companies and citizens raise the costs for climate change, for example more people in work – and the economy is flourishing.

But Will’s editorial team had a quote from Michael Hüther, the thoroughly conservative director of the Institute for German Economics. And he cleared the CDU down the argument that the debt brake was too old: “Growing out of debt will not succeed,” according to Huether’s expertise. Because the demographic development speaks against it. Brinkhaus undaunted: Economic growth will come. With this hope, the CDU justifies that it wants to spare the rich and, for example, abolish the solidarity surcharge that only high-income earners pay – unlike the SPD, the Greens and the Left.

Anne Will, ARD: Left Janine Wissler under pressure

For them it got tight again at the end of the show. First, Anne asked why the party was only six percent in the polls, despite advocating for the disadvantaged in society. Janine Wissler didn’t have a convincing answer to that; she pointed to a certain disenchantment with politics. She was even more embarrassed when the moderator held her membership in a Trotskyist organization (ended in 2020) that wants to abolish capitalism. Wissler did not want to distance herself from this and pointed out that she was sitting here for the party of the left. She was not wrong with her assessment of capitalism and its harmful consequences. But the suspicion of indulging in the overthrow is always poison for the election success, which is why the CDU is now using the red sock polemic as a last resort. (Daland Sailor)

Anne Will, Das Erste, on September 5th, 9.45pm. In the web.