Merkel’s Moral Authority is a Vanishing Creed

(Bloomberg) --

Angela Merkel will visit the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau today at the long-standing invitation of the former Polish foreign minister, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a camp survivor who has since passed away.

As the chancellor pays tribute, she'll be prompting her fellow Germans to reflect on their country's troubled past. She'll also focus attention on troubling modern developments.

Jews in Germany are again on the defensive with anti-Semitic incidents on the rise. In October, two bystanders were murdered in Halle in the first armed attack on a synagogue in Germany since 1945.

In France this week, graves in a Jewish cemetery were daubed with swastikas, and the U.K. election campaign has seen accusations of anti-Semitism.

In politics, the language of hatred is proliferating, from attempts by Germany's AfD party to relativize the Nazi era, through the Italian League's casual denigration of migrants, to Donald Trump's tweets telling U.S. lawmakers of color to “go back” to the “corrupt and inept” countries they came from.

In the twilight of her chancellorship, Merkel worries the next generation of leaders won't be able to reverse the slide, Arne Delfs reports.

As Merkel visits Poland, her coalition partner meets to deliberate moves that could hasten her departure. Whether she stands down sooner or later, Merkel will leave behind a moral tone that's increasingly lacking in politics today.

Global Headlines

Corbyn's reckoning | Britain's election was supposed to be all about Brexit. As Kitty Donaldson and Robert Hutton report, it instead looks more like a referendum on Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist whose personality cult has cemented its grip on the Labour Party. As he and Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepare for a televised debate this evening, it may be the last chance for Corbyn to ensure his project isn't dead on arrival.

Moving fast | U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set Democrats on a rapid path to impeaching Trump, a timetable that fits with both her political imperatives and those of the president. Judiciary Committee Democrats will be working through the weekend and by next Thursday could begin to draft the articles of impeachment that will shape the debate in a Senate trial that likely will be held next year.

• Trump likes to boast about his unwavering Republican support in the face of impeachment. But that backing is softer than he suggests, Ryan Teague Beckwith reports.

Look back in anger | From Bolivia to Iraq, Hong Kong to South Africa, it's been a year of protests. Public anger at political leaders has spilled onto the streets with remarkable regularity — with varying outcomes. We've mapped the global unrest to show the political impact, and places to watch going into 2020. Notable among them is France, where unions have extended a mass strike, turning up the heat on Emmanuel Macron.

‘Damn liar' | Joe Biden called an elderly Iowa voter a “damn liar” and challenged him to a push-up competition after the man accused the Democratic presidential contender of improper dealings with Ukraine. The 83-year-old retired farmer said Biden was “selling access” to the White House and was “too old” to serve as president, prompting Biden — who has a history of verbal gaffes — to challenge him to physical and mental acuity tests.

Angry generation | The black-clad protesters who have battled for the political destiny of Hong Kong this year are also the future of its economy. As Jeff Black and Hannah Dormido report, the students and recent graduates who form the bulk of the protesting populace are also set to be part of a generational shift in the city's labor force as the working-age population enters decline.

What to Watch

• Democratic Presidential candidates including Biden, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg will participate in a forum tomorrow hosted by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
• An opposition presidential candidate in Ivory Coast, Mamadou Koulibaly, says the West African nation is too focused on doing business with France and should open up its market to investors from a wider range of countries.

Pop quiz, readers (no cheating!). Which world leader was called “two-faced” at this week's NATO summit? Send us your answers and tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.

And finally … Since the ouster of Sudanese strongman Omar al-Bashir in April, men and women are carving out new freedoms that would have been unthinkable a year ago under his Islamist policies. Like Saudi Arabia, Sudan is undergoing something of a social revolution. Laws criminalizing drinking alcohol and wearing revealing clothing have been scrapped, and the school curriculum is being revised to restore classes in philosophy, music and theater. But as Mohammed Alamin reports, the risk is that the new era is just a prelude to another incarnation of a long-festering culture war.

--With assistance from Kathleen Hunter and Ruth Pollard.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Karl Maier at kmaier2@bloomberg.net

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