German Chancellor Merz the most unpopular head of government, survey shows

Posted by BendicantMias@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 52 comments

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has the lowest approval rating among 24 democratically elected world leaders, with just 19% of Germans saying they are satisfied with his work, according to US-based opinion research institute Morning Consult.

French President Emmanuel Macron ranked second-lowest, with 18% approval and 75% disapproval, in the survey, which tracks leaders' popularity across major democracies.

However, Merz recorded the highest disapproval rate at 76%, while 19% of respondents said they were satisfied with his work. A recent survey conducted by Forsa on behalf of RTL produced similar results, with 78% of respondents dissatisfied with Merz's work and 20% satisfied.

According to the survey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ranked in the lower half of the mid-range. Around a third (36%) said they were satisfied with his political work, while exactly half (50%) of Turkish respondents disapproved.

US President Donald Trump ranked just ahead of Erdoğan in 10th place from the bottom, despite launching military operations in Iran. Some 38% of Americans said they were satisfied with his work, while 57% were dissatisfied.

Also in the mid-range were Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (38% in favour to 57% against), Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (39% to 55%) and Argentina's President Javier Milei (48% to 49%).

With his poor ratings, Merz has now fallen below former Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Even at his lowest point, Scholz was significantly more popular than Merz, according to surveys.

In mid-June 2024, 28% of respondents said they approved of Scholz's work as chancellor, while 67% rated it as poor.

The highest approval rating went to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (70%), followed by South Korean President Lee Jae-myung (63%) and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (55%).

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Able-Swing-6415@reddit

Italian fascist? All I've heard about meloni so far is positive.. she supports Ukraine, opposes Trump+israel's war (somewhat), opposes bombing Lebanon

Only thing lefties don't like about her is her immigration policy. If that's what makes her a fascist than you reddit lefties are further gone than I thought.

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Treating people differently based on their appearance, place of birth, language, culture etc. is fascist. A leader of a party whose supporters meet regularly annually and show the fascist greeting on a large scale can also be called that.

And please don't compare me with any left-wing liberals. I am a Marxist, you can push your funny horseshoe in your ass.

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lewllewllewl@reddit

The leader of Italy should treat Italians differently from non-Italians, yes

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Manndeufel@reddit

Nationalism is the greatest ulcer on earth ~ Albert Einstein

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deetyneedy@reddit

Treating people differently based on their appearance, place of birth, language, culture etc. is fascist.

No it isn't lol

A leader of a party whose supporters meet regularly annually and show the fascist greeting on a large scale can also be called that.

What policies have she implemented that are fascist? And that don't end in -phobic or -ist.

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Manndeufel@reddit

I certainly do not need to be instructed by a conservative US American that his holy nation's origin based on the genocide of the natives living there.

Go to your daddy Trump and suck his balls.

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Pingy_Junk@reddit

Only thing? What about the fact that she has made it so that same sex couples aren’t recognized on their children’s documents? Or the fact that she used to praise Mussolini until she was called out on it.

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sakezaf123@reddit

Babygirl was literally praising mussolinini a decade ago. Has her govt been more stable than expected? Absolutely. But saying the person who was a member of a fascist youth organization, and praised mussolini publicly, cannot be called a fascist is the stupidest thing I've heard so far.

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historicusXIII@reddit

The fascism allegations don't come from nowhere though. Her party is a direct succesor of a post-fascist party (I mean, it was the post-fascist party that was founded in 1946 to succeed Mussolini's fascist party), she was part of the fascist youth organisation and has praised Mussolini in her youth. And while she hasn't repeated those statements in her latter carreer, neither did she disown them or apologise for them.

In practise, she governs like a run-of-the-mill conservative and more competently so than other European conservatives.

Red_Tien@reddit

I'm wondering if the problem Germany has is that it's government wants to fully push to militarize and supply Ukraine among other things. Yet the people disapprove and want some thing else. Can't speak for them but letting the Nord Stream get blown up is kinda embarrassing in reality.

Platypus__Gems@reddit

The issue is that the center-right parties, again and again, try to compromise with the far-right, and don't see that what they are doing does not lead to the far-right voters thinking center-right is good enough for them now, but that they are just giving far-right free PR by the news showing their ideas are coming through.

TheGalator@reddit

The problem is going in the other direction leads to far right getting even more votes and at least in germany everything is better than weidel getting more than 33%

BendicantMias@reddit (OP)

Why compare yourself to America when you can just compare yourself to the UK, which is facing an almost identical situation?

Because uk is dumber

In american both choices suck but both wanna win

Im the uk they rave each other to the bottom

SyriseUnseen@reddit

When did the CDU compromise with the AfD on a national level?

mxcw@reddit

As a German: no country has a single problem, we don’t either. And if there were one single problem, it certainly would not be Ukraine. It would be our broken social security system, our lack of digital and specifically compute infrastructure, demographic trend, etc., to name only a few examples.

Vague and suggestive comments such as yours piss me off. Reality is so much more complex

Wooden-Agent2669@reddit

This is just, german maxxing while saying nothing. It boils down, "we don't do this in germany, we are not like this in Germany" meme. The comment you replied to doesn't even say Germany has a single problem.

You’re saying buzzword after buzzword.

And if there were one single problem, it certainly would not be Ukraine.

The AfD is the biggest party in polling lmao and most workers vote for it. Believing people care more about the lack of digital and specifically compute infrastructure instead of the other stuff such as cheap energy and living cost is just german maxxing mindblowing,

chikunshak@reddit

That was probably poorly worded, but for a country like Germany to be behind France and the UK in almost every aspect that is AI/ML related is a problem: compute, infrastructure, and models.

No it wasn't poorly worded. It's just that no one cares, people have actual fears about loosing workplaces and lower standard of living and a high cost of living. No one votes for those AI buzzwords. The parties that ride the whole "digital and specifically compute infrastructure" struggle with getting any relevant support.

To me it seems like a lot of Germans actually do have one and only problem actually. Immigration. And they are willing to bring Nazism back to solve it.

AfD is number 1 in polls.
People genuinely don't give a shit about what you mentioned, smart people do, but they are in minority.

ussrname1312@reddit

demographic trend

hmmm

Emergency_War_2714@reddit

“In mein country…”

Anxious_Katz@reddit

The problem with Germany is an unfathomable amount of unnecessary bureaucratic bloat and that social welfare has been rendered ineffective because of these red tapes. Of course both the Archconservative CDU and far right AfD blame it on immigration and plan to privatize what's left of the welfare system. The German population is so sedated that they agree with this! you can see this in the newest polls where the CDU has suffered barely any percentage losses and the AfD has become the most popular party. There is virtually no opposition because the greens want literally everything the CDU wants only woke and greenwashed. The SPD is on the fast track to irrelevancy and the Left party is vying to take SPD's place ~~on the cuck chair~~ as controlled opposition.

Hard but true words. May I ask where you would classify yourself politically?

SaveMarioIncandenza@reddit

It’s probably the hardcore dedication to centrism and Zionism

Neurobeak@reddit

Can't speak for them but letting the Nord Stream get blown up is kinda embarrassing in reality.

Not only that, but after it was blown up by the Ukrainians with the help of the US (I'm absolutely sure of this) and Poland let the person who is responsible tobget away, after all this they wiped the piss from their faces and went on their business as usual, meaning giving money to Ukraine and buying gas from the US. Realistically, one cannot be more cucked than this level.

moonorplanet@reddit

Germany is currently going through deindustrialisation, loss of cheap energy and raw materials among other systemic issues has already resulted in over 250k skilled job losses in the last 5 years.

The country's 2026 budget has them spending 27% of their federal tax revenues on defence and 3% on Ukraine Defence. All this while the countries production is shrinking.

jaehaerys48@reddit

People are more angry about immigration than Ukraine.

SurturOfMuspelheim@reddit

It's incredibly embarrassing, not just kinda

See the embarrassed German above

An italian fascist, a turkish nationalist and an anarcho capitalist are more popular than Friedrich Merz. This fact should be left like this.

Now if you are a multimillionaire to be the ominous middle class, you definitely show how remote from the reality you think. Typical conservative.

ZippyDan@reddit

Honestly I think this speaks more to the education and common sense of the German electorate than to Merz's and Macron's relative performance.

Germans and French have many reasons to be disappointed in their leadership, and their approval rates show what you would expect from their performance.

But there's no way that they're worse for their country than Trump or Erdogan for their own countries. Those two are on another level of incompetence. They've both trashed their own economies, and Trump has gone farther to trash the world.

That speaks more to the extreme brainwashing, tribalism, and strongman worship of the Turkish and American publics.

Oh no. Merz is definitely causing long term harm that has the potential to be Trumpian. It's just that Germany's social safety nets were at a much higher quality than the US so there is a lot to dismantle for Merz and his corrupt cronies. No worries though! They're really hard at work. This week they proposed cuts to healthcare for disabled people and children. Great stuff!

Professional-Syrup-0@reddit

Germanys social security nets have been steadily dismantled since the 90s.

Kohl copied it from Thatcher, then Schröder doubled down on it with Agenda 2010 and Hartz IV, Merkel managed the same progress, Scholz got rich of his own on it (Cum Ex) and Blackrock Merz is now the latest private equity cherry on top.

The situation is so silly that for many years there’s been a conspiracy theory that the FRG is not actually a sovereign country working for the public but rather a private company.

It’s how the German equivalent of “sovereign citizens” argue they shouldn’t have to pay taxes or follow laws.

Kohl copied it from Thatcher

By pretty much any metric, the welfare state has never (before or since) been bigger than during Kohl.

"Potential to be Trumpian".

So, not yet there. Germans are disapproving of his work at an appropriate rate, while Americans support Trump, who has actually accomplished far worse at a large scale, at more than double his rate.

TheBoizAreBackInTown@reddit

Unrelated, but we should probably stop calling things "anarcho capitalist" because that's a completely made up term to mask what they really are. Even the name is stupid af, they have no connection to the anarchist thought whatsoever. Anarcho capitalists are just hardcore, often facist-leaning neoliberals who were bullied too much when they were calling themselves libertarians or neoliberals. Neoliberal economic policies and socio-political order has always been garbage and people are finally starting to catch up to that after 60 years. I would say neoliberalism doesn't work, but that would be a lie, as it works exactly as intended - widening the wealth gap, making the majority of the public politically inert, eroding education and democratic institutions, tying the state to the economy (despite claiming the opposite).

matlynar@reddit

Yes, let's call everything fascist until it just means "not left".

You know who also is going to love that? Actual fascists, who no longer have to face stigma because most people are no longer shocked by the word.

Let’s call everybody a “tankie” who doesn’t agree with us until it just means “not fascist”.

You're the only person using this term around here, buddy.

I was criticizing an actual comment that made a long point about calling liberals/libertarians facists, you're just fighting windmills.

I'm sorry, where did I call all liberals or even libertarians facists? Neoliberals definitely enable various extremist groups like neofacists to become relevant by eroding democratic institutions, worsening media/political literacy and so on. But they are not (for the most part) extremists themselves.

Now, people who call themselves "anarcho capitalists" are hardcore, extreme neoliberals, and they often share the same values and views as neofacists and associated groups. Extreme individualism, complete disregard for social policies and the working class (except for cheap populist tricks), etc. And they claim they wanna remove the state from the equation (thus "anarchist"), but the solution they propose (privatization of every service) does the exact same thing that neoliberalism does: it handes over the power and wealth to the already powerful and wealthy individuals, groups and corporations. What's the big difference between a broken "democracy" we have right now which caters to the will of the wealthy, and an order without such a state, which still relinquishes all control to that same class? It's just a faster and more extreme way to get to the same end goal, a society where chosen few prosper, while the majority don't have (and never will have) the means to fight that order.

I have no issues with your criticism of neoliberals but that's not what fascism is about at all. Fascism is about strong state intervention and nationalism. The total opposite of leaving people alone (and all the issues that come with leaving the wealthy alone).

And neofacism is also about populism, scapegoating minorities and leftist groups, free market and nationalist-preservationist state. Basically everything "anarcho capitalists" like, even though they wanna abolish the state in the end of that process (or so they claim).

even though they wanna abolish the state in the end of that process (or so they claim).

You're also describing every communist country turned authoritarian ever.

SujiroKimisuge@reddit

There are actual fascists like Bolsonaro around, and pretty much every single selftitled "anarchocapitalist" i've known supported the guy like he was Jesus reborn. In fact, the only bolsonarista i can call my friend nowadays, when asked about, always says he's an ""anarchist"" because we hang out in alternative places and he's evidently shy of admitting his political views.

Nice that you're from Brazil too.

You know who also was called a fascist once over here?
Our current vice-president, chosen by Lula, our left-wing president.

You know who called him a fascist? A lot of left-wing publications, many of them sponsored by the government at some point.

But also, members of Lula's government.

So, are there good fascists? Are there ex-fascists? Or, more likely, it's just a buzzword thrown around by the left that has lost its original meaning?

Illesbogar@reddit

Fascists noonger face stigma bc modern people just call them 'conservative' or 'right-wing populist' and bc they are actually politically relevant again.

Would you disagree that a decent amount of so called "anarcho" capitalists has strong ties to neo-facist, ultranacionalist and similar groups?

I'm absolutely against calling everything facist, but that pales in comparison to the real problem, and that's the growth of neofacism.

This can be discussed at Milei. The self-staging is exactly that, an anarcho capitalist. In the end, like any neoliberal pipe, he is happy to grant corporations great power.I don't know whether he would completely give up his power in favor of the corporations, but I don't know enough about the current situation in Argentina.