Ein Brief An Kandidaten

Herren Habeck, Merz und Scholz,

All three of you (or at least your staffs) have received previous communications from me in German, but I will make a point of writing this particular message in English, partly due to time constraints these last few days of the election and partly due to the fact that English will be a factor in the below proposal for my aid as a historically unique outsider.

The polls going into this weekend’s vote do indeed seem to be fairly stable (Frau Reichinnek’s late surge and Frau Wagenknecht’s collapse in support notwithstanding), and so, while this letter might turn out to be a bit premature, it is indeed likely that you three gentlemen (and your respective parties) will be in a position to form a coalition.

At the risk of starting to sound a tad sexist (and I’ll get to that below), it of course goes without saying that Frau Weidel and her AfD friends should not be considered for any sort of capacity. This indisputable fact is a tad ironic, given the fact that it was Frau Weidel’s jaw-dropping reference to the “Unity Party” (her accent makes it a bit difficult to make out whether she said “Uni-Party” or “Unity Party”, but I think my point is made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpjKbWKZn00&t=1710s) that inspired me to write this letter (Weidel: On the one hand you have the AfD, and on the other hand, the so-called Unity Party. Right? [Musk: Yeah]. The Unity Party consisting of all the others, because, because, they stick together, and, um, no matter what they say, they’re not able to implement, to enforce, the promises they’re doing [sic] in every election …).

(I don’t know if Herr Musk’s “yeah” is significant, but perhaps the subject of the Unity Party came up over that airborne meal of Mickey D’s as Musk sat directly across the table from a certain Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a gentleman who tried and failed to secure the nomination of the party I founded and seems a tad obsessed with the name, having gone so far as to claim, during his August withdrawal speech, that Trump suggested forming the “Unity Party”; unfortunately that triggered a summer tsunami of confused “Uniters.”)

Esteemed gentlemen, to the point: I, the ultimate German-born outsider, and (at least for now) relative nobody, suggest that you gentlemen, your staffs and your security details retreat, after Sunday’s election, here to Bad Kreuznach, a wonderful resort town in the Rhineland which happens to be the city of my birth, to take Frau Weidel up on her suggestion of a “Unity Party” and hammer out a coalition deal. (It might be considered a bit rude to not invite her, but then again even suggesting that someone like Herr Höcke should be part of a 21st-century German government might be considered beyond rude.)

To be clear, my sarcasm only goes so far, and I’m not suggesting that the real Unity Party, officially started back in Colorado and now in 46 US states, be in any shape or form a real part of your coalition. I’m not suggesting that I have any role whatsoever in a very delicate negotiation process, beyond providing a professional tour of the hidden historical gem that’s the ancient town of Cruciniacum as a half-day break, though, to go back to the English angle, I think every thinking German should agree that it’s time to not only think outside the box, but outside whatever building that box might be housed in.

To finally veer around to (something resembling) a conclusion, I humbly suggest that you gentlemen consider conducting your negotiations in English, to place your minds in an entirely new space, and an English-speaking moderator would help. Do not consider this American jingoism by any stretch; perhaps this is still premature, but this boy born to a US Army officer thinks it might be time to ask the US military to leave German soil and to offer immediate permanent residency to those personnel ready to stay behind with their families to help build up the Bundeswehr to counter the new Russian threat; I for one would be happy to remind any officers willing to listen that they swore an oath to the Constitution, and not to a man who 404’d the Constitution minutes into this term.

Gentlemen, as an American born in Germany, I feel to the tips of my toes that I’ve inherited the best of both worlds. Don’t believe the propaganda; Germany can stand up to Russia with the right preparation; this humble English teacher has taught too many young Ukrainian men more interested in catching the latest IMAX movie with their girlfriends than defending their country, and I’d like to think German kids have a bit more backbone. Any American who wants to help Germany just has to remember the Alamo, and Germans just have to remember the Apollo program (those German rockets that incidentally had American flags on them); anything is possible with freedom and bravery.

Maybe Frau Weidel didn’t say “Unity Party,” maybe Neil Armstrong really did say “one small step for a man,” and maybe the fact that the two words “Unity Party,” increasingly welded together in an increasingly interconnected, English-speaking world, keep being seized upon by thinkers both shallow and deep, is what really matters in the end.

Speaking of ends: good luck this weekend, gentlemen, and I hope staffers with their thinking caps on share this proposal at the appropriate juncture. It would’ve been nice to have seen a future Frau Merkel added to the mix, but history has taught us that the first priority should always be charting a middle course. The staffers know where to reach me.