Three Words and What They Cost Her

Wir schaffen das. We can do this. Angela Merkel said it in the summer of 2015, at the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis, and the phrase became a kind of Rorschach test: proof of basic decency to some, evidence of dangerous naivety to others. Her coalition never fully forgave her for it.

What I remember from reading her statements that summer was the precision. Not tearful, not performative—just clear. Extreme groups would not be tolerated. People fleeing active war zones were entitled to protection. Germany, specifically, carried an obligation given its history that other countries could argue their way around but Germany could not. She said the obvious things, and in the context of what was being said elsewhere—the flood metaphors, the invasion rhetoric, politicians sprinting to prove their toughness—the obvious things felt almost radical.

She was a politician I’d spent years finding mostly uninspiring, the kind of leader who survives by being unreadable. But that summer she was readable, and what she said was: these are people, they need help, we help them. The "concerned citizens" staging violent demonstrations at refugee shelters got a clear answer from the top. The neo-Nazis firebombing housing got a clear answer. For a few months it felt like someone with actual power was being the adult in the room.

It didn’t hold, and it didn’t solve anything, and the political cost turned out to be enormous. But I keep returning to that specific moment—the precision of it, the willingness to just say the thing—and finding it harder to dismiss than I expected.