The man from the 1990s

Dear Reader,

It is often said about Friedrich Merz that he is a ’90s politician who has been transported into 21st century politics.

The CDU leader famously took an extended sabbatical after Angela Merkel ousted him as Bundestag faction leader in the early 2000s. When he came back in 2018, opponents on the Left did their best to portray him as a man still imbued with the prejudices that were allegedly commonplace in the 1990s.

Most famously, Merz is supposed to think that gay people are all potential paedophiles.