It is very unthankful to be a liberal party or a party that is somewhere in the center, and is not the strongest political force in the country. It is easy when you are in opposition and criticize, that is how you get points. But what is the point of being in opposition all the time? Every politician and every political option, that has a vision and a program, has to find a way to realize those ideas at least partially, and that is impossible when you are not in a position of power. To get to that position, you have to form a coalition with the right or the left. When the liberals form a coalition with the right, they will disappoint a part of their electorate (the part that cannot stand the right) and those people will certainly not vote for the liberals in the next elections. If they form a coalition with the left, they will disappoint a part of their electorate again, the other part that cannot stand the left. That is a terribly unthankful position because the voters of liberal parties are probably the worst critics in the world (I know this from my own experience).
Merz will now form a coalition with the SPD. Do you think that will make any CDU voter stop voting for the CDU because of this? I highly doubt it. Merkel has already formed a coalition with the Social Democrats and has lost nothing. Only the liberals are being criticized for that. And it is precisely the liberal parties that should be inclusive by default and able to form coalitions with both sides of the political spectrum.
Lindner was criticized for everything that Scholz's government did, even though in 90% of cases he could do nothing about it. What he did was protect citizens from even worse inflation by not releasing the brake on public debt. If he had not been in government, the Left would have been in government and Germans would probably be choking on inflation now. But people simply don't know that because they didn't experience it, so no one is acknowledging it.
The media blamed him for bringing down the left-liberal government they loved, and the voters blamed him for even entering it. The man is the victim of a series of unfortunate circumstances and prejudices. The truth is that without a strong FDP, things in German high politics will only get worse.
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