4 ms·
Leyen failing upwards is a pretty accurate description of her political career in Germany. She was never popular, one of her first "big ideas", as the head of
by freeflight 6y ago
Leyen failing upwards is a pretty accurate description of her political career in Germany.
She was never popular, one of her first "big ideas", as the head of the ministry for families, was to introduce DNS Internet-censorship against child pornography, which ultimately failed due to the public backlash.
Like many other German career politicians, her doctors dissertation was found to be partly plagiarized.
Her changes to the family allowances were across the board unpopular: High income couples profited the most from these changes, while middle and lower income classes lost out.
There's even an active committee of inquiry still going on into her habit of hiring external, private, consultants to do the work for her at ministries. As a response to that she had the data on her mobile phone deleted, official files illegally redacted, and other data, that could be used as evidence, straight up deleted.
For many Germans she's the definition of what's wrong with German politics because she didn't get where she is out of her own abilities, but rather as a consequence of her family having had that kind of influence in Germany for generations [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_family
- estaseuropano 6y agoShe is a product of the CDU - which promotes based on internal networks, not quality results. I would say she's not one of the worst politicians - everyone with that length in public life has a few scandals. I haven't forgiven her for her censorship laws, but the other 'scandals' seem rather be a matter of hubris (often confused with 'vision'). In other countries that's a normal expectation - new policies such as on childcare will have some birthing problems - but in germany politicians usually have waited for a solid plan before they announce big measures.
- monopoledance 6y agoI think Alice Schwarzer's words seeded some doubt in me, that v.d. Leyen got a fair chance overall. Seems like she lost her ways in fighting conservative opposition all her career. Anyway, Schwarzer is a nasty person, with some rather ignorant positions, so whatever. I just don't want to jump to conclusions on v.d. Leyen, without really reading up on shit, no more.
- monopoledance 6y ago> For many Germans she's the definition of what's wrong with German politics because she didn't get where she is out of her own abilities, but rather as a consequence of her family having had that kind of influence in Germany for generations Lucky her, now we think of Scheuer instead. Her fuckups are pretty tame compared to that guy... and he's still not canceled. https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit_ist_eine_zier https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit... https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Scheuer https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Scheuer Quite sadly, the english wiki article is... well pretty misleading about this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Scheuer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Scheuer PKW-Maut isn't even mentioned..