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Demovictory9

(32,324 posts)
Sun Mar 29, 2020, 01:41 AM Mar 2020

The Leader of the Free World Gives a Speech, and She Nails It

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/angela-merkel-nails-coronavirus-speech-unlike-trump.html

Angela Merkel doesn’t do drama and she doesn’t give speeches on TV. So the mere fact that the German chancellor faced the camera across a desk and spoke to the nation Wednesday evening made the gravity of the situation clear. “Es ist ernst,” she said—“This is serious”— and those three bland words had more power than a hellfire sermon. Then she pivoted from statement to plea: “Take it seriously.” Quickly, she moved on to historical context, the reason for her unprecedented impromptu appearance: “Since German unification—no, since the Second World War—no challenge to our nation has ever demanded such a degree of common and united action.”

Merkel made no specific announcements and called for no nationwide curfews or additional closures. Yet what gave her address its force was her tone, which was direct, honest, and searingly empathic. She laid bare not just the test we all face but also the solace that leadership can provide. Without accusations, boasts, hedges, obfuscations, dubious claims, or apocalyptic metaphors she did what a leader is supposed to do: explain the gravity of the situation and promise that the government’s help would flow to everyone who needed it. She gave full-throated thanks to front-line medical workers, assured Germans that there is no need to hoard, and paused to offer gratitude to a group of workers who rarely get recognized by heads of state on national TV: “Those who sit at supermarket cash registers or restock shelves are doing one of the hardest jobs there is right now.”

This is a war without a human enemy, and Merkel lay no blame. She asked for the sacrifice of discipline, for heroic acts of kindness. She acknowledged the paradox in calling for solidarity and apartness at the same time. She understood how painful it is that just when people desperately want to come together, families and friends have to endure separation. To Americans, Merkel’s appeals to democracy, and her sadness at having to use the full weight of her authority, come as a welcome shock. No German could listen to her calls for self-policing without recalling that she grew up in East Germany under the eye of the Stasi. “For someone like myself, for whom freedom of travel and movement were hard-won rights,” she said, “such restrictions can only be justified when they are absolutely necessary.” No American could hear that statement and fail to contrast it with our own leader’s ringing words: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/angela-merkel-nails-coronavirus-speech-unlike-trump.html
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The Leader of the Free World Gives a Speech, and She Nails It (Original Post) Demovictory9 Mar 2020 OP
KR for Angela Merkel.. it's good to know Cha Mar 2020 #1
It is good to know that the disease called GOP has not taken over every democracy. Hermit-The-Prog Mar 2020 #2
She is a leader. sheshe2 Mar 2020 #3
... 2naSalit Mar 2020 #5
She's amazing. 2naSalit Mar 2020 #4
K&R smirkymonkey Mar 2020 #6
K & R SunSeeker Mar 2020 #7
She is doing a great job for her people. pazzyanne Mar 2020 #8
Her very lack of attempt at flair gives great weight to her pronouncements. DFW Mar 2020 #9
That's a speech Trump could never give. C_U_L8R Mar 2020 #10
Interesting, in the 1930s and WWII, they had Adolf and we raccoon Mar 2020 #11
The lady is a class act malaise Mar 2020 #12

2naSalit

(86,061 posts)
4. She's amazing.
Sun Mar 29, 2020, 02:56 AM
Mar 2020

I find her and several other women with whom we are familiar are the trailblazers of our time. I hope that there will always be women like them.

pazzyanne

(6,519 posts)
8. She is doing a great job for her people.
Sun Mar 29, 2020, 03:08 AM
Mar 2020

She has been living under self imposed quarantine due to receiving a vaccination given by a doctor who later tested positive for the coronavirus. She focused on her people and their needs and did not spend 2 hours whining as our mango menace does. She concentrated on her people and proved she is a great leader and a decent person. Wish we had her here in the USA.

DFW

(54,056 posts)
9. Her very lack of attempt at flair gives great weight to her pronouncements.
Sun Mar 29, 2020, 03:50 AM
Mar 2020

In the last national elections, where she won her fourth term as chancellor, the Social Democrats, led by a real jerk of a bureaucrat, had two slogans: "more justice," to address an economic inequality that is hardly on the radar compared to us, and "alt und verbraucht--old and used up." They basically tried what the Republicans tried on Hillary.

They confused the fact that Angela Merkel sees no need for shouting or sensationalism to mean that she was not much of a leader. With all its problems, Germany has managed to post a budget surplus, even while absorbing more that a million refugees, and for someone who is "old and used up," Merkel has earned the respect of every other leader in the EU as well as Putin. While he may not like her much, he respects her for standing up to him. It helps that Putin speaks fluent German from his time as a KGB occupier in East Germany. Having grown up in East Germany, one would presume Merkel knows some Russian, too, as it was mandatory in East German schools.

In contrast to Trump (and, to a lesser extent, some of her other contemporaries), Merkel understands that flamboyance does not equal effectiveness. It is no coincidence that she won four terms in a row. She will not win a fifth for the simple reason that she is stepping down after her fourth term. If she wanted a fifth term, I think no bookmaker in the world would give any odds at all on her losing.

raccoon

(31,091 posts)
11. Interesting, in the 1930s and WWII, they had Adolf and we
Sun Mar 29, 2020, 07:24 AM
Mar 2020

Had FDR, who was a great leader Now they have Merkel and we have... the worse than useless Dotard.

malaise

(267,823 posts)
12. The lady is a class act
Sun Mar 29, 2020, 07:27 AM
Mar 2020


This is what M$Greedia should be repeating not the undiluted fuckery from the Holey Moran Emperor
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