Freitag Columnist Philip Grassmann Accuses Merz's Union of Authoritarian Rhetoric Against Greens and SPD

In a Freitag column, Philip Grassmann argues that the Union's warnings about a Red-Green-Red government in Berlin amount to traditional left-bashing rather than substantive political debate. He compares the current rhetorical climate to the distance between the starship Enterprise and Earth in the Next Generation episode "Der Reisende" — very many light years. Grassmann notes that warning of nothing less than the apocalypse should the Left, the PDS, or the SED successors gain power belongs to the traditional conservative rhetorical arsenal. He recalls Reinhard Höppner, who had the courage in 1994 to be tolerated by the PDS, and the treatment he received at the time. The column appears under the heading "Endlich Freitag!" and also previews an HSV football item and a house visit with Slavoj Žižek. The piece frames the Union's attacks on the Greens and SPD as an authoritarian posture rather than a policy argument.