By Michael Inacker 
Friedrich Merz and his party are no longer just fending off left-green forces; they are now facing growing pressure from the conservative right as well. A shifting media landscape is shaking the once-unquestioned dominance of the CDU/CSU.
It is election season—a time for simplistic answers. These are crafted by campaign agencies that neither grasp the complexity of societal change nor recognize the deep strategic shifts taking place. The CDU is in the process of squandering its momentum and its once-secure dominance in a dramatic fashion.
For the first time in its history, the CDU and its chancellor candidate, Friedrich Merz, are not primarily under attack from the left but from the right. The party is engaged in what amounts to a two-front battle.
The CDU’s campaign strategists at the Konrad Adenauer House, along with an overwhelmed party secretary-general, still believe they only need to push down the SPD and keep the Greens at bay to secure a CDU-led government. But they underestimate the AfD’s growing influence, reinforced by a network of right-wing influencersand a core group of truly conservative CDU supporters—the party’s former base voters. As a result, Merz, who was once perceived as the conservative challenger to Merkel’s centrist policies, is now being reduced to a reactionary figure, constantly forced to adjust his stance.
Merz and the CDU assumed they could defeat the Greens and the SPD with a strategy of political embrace, believing that their path to the chancellery would be a smooth one.
They built an impenetrable firewall against the right, convinced that no one would be able to cross it. The plan was to engage only with left-green policies, which could be easily dismissed as anti-industry and economically harmful. This led Merz to make statements such as “It doesn’t matter who holds the Economics Ministry, as long as there is a coalition agreement in place,” even suggesting that he could govern with Robert Habeck. The result: a growing narrative that a vote for Merz is essentially a vote for Habeck.
For the AfD, this situation presents a golden opportunity. The party effortlessly jumps over the CDU’s so-called firewall while leveraging an ever-growing army of social media influencers—who now wield more influence over public opinion than the traditional left-green mainstream media. One may lament this shift, but the reality remains: the media landscape has fundamentally changed.
It would be unfair to lump all conservative voices together—after all, Dieter Nuhr cannot be equated with publications like “Junge Freiheit.” Nuhr, with his sharp wit, is a valuable voice in Germany’s democratic discourse. The key point here is that the influence of “non-leftist” media platforms has expanded significantly.
If one were to roughly estimate the combined reach of Nius, “Oli Investiert,” Roger Köppel’s “Weltwoche Daily,” “Politikversagen,” “Demokratisch Denken,” WELT TV, and “Tichy’s Einblick,” it would easily amount to four to five million regular viewers and readers.
This shift has created a new conservative media echo chamber, which Merz and his campaign strategists have completely failed to acknowledge. This space is attacking the CDU/CSU from the right and from within the party’s traditional conservative stronghold—a particularly dangerous development for Merz, who once positioned himself as the staunch conservative alternative to Merkel’s centrist legacy.
The broad conservative umbrella that once held the CDU/CSU together is beginning to crack. The party is now divided between its pro-Atlanticist, NATO-aligned faction and a growing faction of Russia-sympathizers. A party that built its identity on strong Western alliances, following in the footsteps of Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl, is now aligning itself with the neutralist and pro-Russian positions of the BSW.
Merz faces an uphill battle. But if he does not radically adjust his campaign strategy, the CDU is headed for a repeat of the Laschet disaster. His Bavarian party colleague, Markus Söder, is already pointing out the fundamental flaws in Merz’s approach. His problem? Nobody believes he is doing it out of selflessness. After all, it’s Söder being Söder—again.
