Thirty-five years after reunification, Germans are more united than ever — in their dissatisfaction with the people running the country. An ARD-Deutschlandtrend survey of 1,303 eligible voters finds just one in ten satisfied with the federal government's performance, a historic low for the post-reunification era. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's personal approval tracks at the same basement level, with only 40% of his own CDU supporters still backing him. The September state elections delivered the receipts. The CDU lost 10 percentage points in Saxony-Anhalt and Berlin, and in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania it failed to clear the 5% threshold for parliamentary representation — a first in the party's history. These were not isolated regional tremors. They are the surface expression of a structural realignment: the center-right party that once commanded 43.8% of the national vote in 1990 now polls at 20%. Its coalition partner, the SPD, sits at 13%. Together, the governing parties cannot muster a third of the electorate. The AfD, classified in part as far-right extremist by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, holds steady at 27% nationwide, making it the country's strongest political force. The Greens have crept up to 16%, the Left Party has slipped to 11%. Any governing coalition would require improbable arithmetic. The political landscape is fragmenting in a way that makes stable governance genuinely difficult. The economic anxieties are concrete. About half of respondents fear they cannot maintain their standard of living. The long-term care population has exploded from 2.8 million in 2015 to 6.5 million, and only one in six voters believes the government can make social security systems sustainable. Three-quarters view the government's proposed reforms as contradictory — promising relief while delivering burden. Sixty-one percent want cuts scaled to individual financial capacity, and half say they would accept austerity if someone simply explained the rationale honestly. Energy policy compounds the dysfunction. High prices driven by the Persian Gulf crisis are squeezing households and industry alike. The government's response — a renewed Tankrabatt cutting fuel taxes by about €0.17 per liter through year-end — is a repeat of a measure that previously cost €3.4 billion, with some of the savings captured by oil companies and gas station operators rather than passed to consumers. Half of those surveyed call it the wrong approach. Subsidizing fossil fuels during a supply shortage while maintaining climate commitments is a contradiction the public can see clearly. The deeper worry transcends any single policy. By far the largest source of concern is that political parties cannot find common answers to key issues. Two-thirds worry about losing control over AI, an equal share about the consequences of Trump's policies for Germany, six in ten about climate change, and just over half about a potential Russian attack on other European countries. Nearly nine in ten express overall concern about the direction of the country; only one in eight is optimistic. What Germans say works well tells its own story: social benefits and medical care top the list of national strengths, while education finishes last. The welfare state is simultaneously the country's proudest achievement and the system most visibly under strain. The message from this survey is not complicated: voters want competent governance, honest communication about trade-offs, and reforms distributed fairly. They are getting none of the three.
