Bavaria and Hesse – that was a small federal election. And it wasn’t just the two Union incumbents who won – what matters is how Berlin’s governing traffic light parties lost. For them, it was not a defeat, but a disaster. It’s also not a reminder election, because a reminder means that afterwards everything will continue as before. However, that won’t happen. After this Sunday, things in Berlin will not be the same as before.

Voters take advantage of this opportunity and don’t just stop at learning. Voters passed a motion of no confidence in the traffic light government – ​​it was a vote of no confidence, not a motion of protest. Protests may disappear again someday, but distrust remains.

The Chancellor doesn’t understand people

Until now, there has been no survey that can truly capture what people think when they see traffic lights. What the demoscope measures: They don’t trust the Social Democrat Chancellor, they don’t understand the Green Vice-Chancellor, they don’t think the Liberal Party leader fits in this coalition – if they don’t think the Liberal Party is completely unnecessary.

But what really bothers people is all of this combined: the huge contradiction between performance and self-expression. Olaf Scholz may think he is a very famous head of government – but he is not. And the louder he said how great he was, the greater the doubt among the people. It’s like this: it’s not the people who don’t understand the Chancellor, but the Chancellor who doesn’t understand the people. When it comes to heads of government, it’s not that the population lacks knowledge, it’s that the heads of government themselves do. If Scholz believes what he spreads or what he spreads about him, then only one decision remains: Scholz is the world’s greatest illusionist. in his own right to have sat in the Federal Chancellery.

Ampel had to say goodbye to arrogance

If this coalition in Berlin really wants to continue, it needs a completely new consciousness, a new mindset. To quote Willy Brandt, first he must dare to be more humble. To then say goodbye to their own arrogance, a sense of complacency that was difficult to bear and especially that exuded by the Red and Green ministers.

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Tonight’s lesson for them is: You only borrow your mandate. This is only a temporary task – and not one aimed at fundamentally changing the country – contrary to the wishes of the people, who two years ago strongly supported the revolution, but certainly did not order it. “Always slow in dealing with the people,” said Kurt Beck, a Social Democrat, who once served as Prime Minister of the Rhineland-Pfalz. He understands his German.

The Germans had long been too self-confident to allow themselves to be protected. Paternalism, but that’s a traffic light program. Which he, quite deluded, considers to be another alternative. Migration is a big issue – and rightly so. But if an immigration country means letting everyone in and half of them into a social system they’ve never paid into, then they don’t want an immigration country like this.

Traffic lights ignore climate issues

This is also unprecedented: no immigration country that selects its own workforce opens its doors wide to people it deems in need, only to provide them with care so luxurious that work no longer benefits them. Open doors plus the highest social standards – that is not a feature of an immigration country, but rather the opposite of an immigration country.

And the traffic light coalition is also confusing another big issue – climate change. Energy becomes more expensive without reducing CO2. We have to wait a few years and everything will be fine, traffic lights comfort society about the loss of their well-being. How many companies have emigrated in that time – with no prospect of returning?

Most people no longer believe green climate messages. And the numbers are unmistakable, they are the result of mathematics, not ideology: the world’s climate future will not be decided in Germany, but in China, the United States, Russia, India and Brazil. No other country considers Germany’s energy transition to be exemplary – what do they think?

If the coalition in Berlin still wants to continue after the vote of no confidence, then there will be no “business as usual”. A new start is needed. First a cruel inventory, then a taboo-free restart. If coalition partners find a way to work together.

Because: In fact, they lost trust in each other a long time ago. Nobody trusts each other anymore, that’s the real reason for the endless bickering. And they are not getting smaller, they are getting bigger. There are several reasons for this. The important thing is: the FDP, one of the coalition partners, is now clearly on the verge of death. And Christian Lindner’s line couldn’t be more relevant than this Sunday night: “It is better not to govern than to govern incorrectly.”

The SPD has isolated itself from society

Second reason: the SPD was once a proud party. Bavaria and especially Hesse showed that they no longer had any reason to be proud. The former People’s Party has long been estranged from the people. Before that happened, he was alienated from himself. In Hesse he wants to be more environmentally friendly than the Greens on climate and migration. It only has antennas for what its officials consider right, but is considered wrong by society.

Not just Nancy Faeser. The SPD in Hesse, whose elections have become almost customary there for many years, has lost its compass, or rather: the old compass has disappeared and the new compass is pointing in the wrong direction. But there is no need for two green parties in Germany.

The tasks of the Social Democratic Party are sufficient, in particular: the non-green Social Democratic Party. Where is social justice “first” when it comes to climate and migration? If a party could find the right balance between humanity and order, it might be an SPD based on old traditions. Let us remember: Without the common sense of the SPD, Germany’s massive asylum reforms of the early 1990s would not have happened. How should a working society develop? Should we really work less when working more is the current solution given the shortage of skilled workers? Who developed the creative concept for this? Finally, the welfare state core of the Social Democratic Party: How do we make pensions secure for the next generation of retirees?

Traffic lights can do it again if they understand this turning point. And if not? So from now on the Chancellor and the ministers will move from one bad compromise to another. This impression will be formed among the public: they only stick to their positions. Pessimism and disappointment with the government would turn into a full-blown depression in Germany.

And hopefully no one wants something like that.