How the New Basic Income Support Is Being Passed, Right-Wing Positions Gain Influence, and Resistance Needs New Paths

Three years after its introduction, the citizen’s benefit is effectively over. The federal cabinet has launched a reform that replaces the existing system with a new basic income support and introduces significantly harsher rules for around 5.5 million people. In the future, the complete loss of benefits may be imposed if recipients are deemed unreachable. As few as three missed appointments at the job center could be enough to suspend payments. Even housing costs may then no longer be covered. Formally, the draft law provides that affected individuals must be heard before sanctions are imposed. People with mental illnesses are supposed to be protected. But the discretionary power of the authorities is being massively expanded. At the same time, the treatment of assets is being tightened. The previous grace period is eliminated, personal income and savings must be used more quickly. The amount of protected assets is to depend on age in the future.

Officially, the government emphasizes that placement into work is once again at the center. Further training remains possible, but is to take precedence only if it is considered immediately promising. What stands out is that the reform brings hardly any financial effect. Savings of just 86 million euros are expected for 2026, and in subsequent years costs are even projected to rise slightly again. The social cut is substantial, the fiscal benefit minimal. Criticism comes from social associations, from the Left Party, the Greens, and parts of the SPD. They warn of a system that places mistrust above support and deeply interferes with the subsistence minimum. But these objections remain marginal notes. In broad media coverage, summaries or the absence of independent editorial opinions dominate, official statements and political framing within the narrow confines of the government narrative. The question of who this reform actually affects and what consequences it will have in everyday life largely remains unanswered, including beforehand. It is precisely here that independent journalism would have been necessary in advance, as a thorough examination of political decisions and their real effects. Instead, the news space in Germany is increasingly shaped by agency reports and populist media. Political decisions are administered, explained, contextualized, but only rarely directly questioned by editorial teams. Investigative work that makes consequences visible hardly takes place anymore.

The new basic income support is therefore not only a social policy turning point. It is also a mirror of how political decisions can now be implemented without being seriously questioned. That this void is barely noticed is no coincidence. It is an expression of journalism that increasingly lacks time, resources, and independence, and of a public that has grown accustomed to deep cuts becoming the norm.

For a country that in terms of area is roughly the size of the US state of Montana, it is remarkable how little resistance has developed. In 2004, there were still nationwide, large-scale demonstrations with 200,000 to 300,000 participants per week against the Hartz IV reform. This time, aside from a few small, locally based or politically embedded gatherings, nothing took place. The scale of the country stands in no relation to the public spaces that are retreating more and more, and that also built the AfD the necessary springboard in the first place. Not through actual political strength, but through permanent visibility. On social media, it is made bigger than it already is in reality, elevated through constant sharing, normalized through relentless attention. Even a politically insignificant trip is inflated with panic-driven coverage and ends up appearing more powerful than it ever was. Attention replaces contextualization, reach replaces relevance. The consequences are already evident, including in the case of the citizen’s benefit: tightening measures are implemented because resistance fails to materialize and the political framework has shifted to the right. As long as this mechanism is not recognized, Germany is gradually heading toward power relations in which the AfD is not only loud, but gains real authority. unbedeutende Reise wird mit Panikberichten aufgeladen und wirkt am Ende mächtiger, als sie es je war. Aufmerksamkeit ersetzt Einordnung, Reichweite ersetzt Relevanz. Die Folgen zeigen sich längst, auch beim Bürgergeld: Verschärfungen werden durchgesetzt, weil Widerstand ausbleibt und der politische Rahmen nach rechts verschoben wurde. Solange diese Mechanik nicht erkannt wird, steuert Deutschland schrittweise auf Machtverhältnisse zu, in denen die AfD nicht nur dröhnend ist, sondern reale Befugnisse erhält.

That this political imbalance is not going entirely unnoticed, but is increasingly being recognized from the outside as well, is another warning signal. Even across the Atlantic, what often feels only diffuse at home has clearly registered. The U.S. magazine Foreign Policy put it with striking clarity recently: “Germany loves to hate Friedrich Merz.” The sitting chancellor, the analysis argues, will never be a politician with a genuine following, never someone people follow because they trust him or identify with him. And yet, it continues, he and his government may well endure politically – not through approval, but through accumulated, reluctant respect. That is where the real diagnosis lies. Politics continues to function even without popular support, even without enthusiasm, as long as it is not seriously challenged. That even open unpopularity is no longer an obstacle, but sufficient to normalize governing, shows how deeply habituation and the absence of meaningful resistance have already become embedded in political culture.

Where the problem lies is also shown by this situation: the European Parliament has decided, with a right-wing majority, to make it easier to outsource responsibility for asylum seekers to non-EU states. Deportations are to become possible in the future even to countries to which those affected have no connection. Protection is to be sought there, no longer in Europe. The decision was carried by factions to the right of center, including the AfD, while the Left, Greens, and Social Democrats were outvoted. Particularly explosive is the weakening of protections for children and adolescents, who can now be sent to third countries even without any connection if authorities classify them as security risks in a blanket manner. In parallel, Parliament voted to expand the list of safe countries of origin in order to further accelerate deportations. In substance, this does not mark a technical step, but a political shift away from individual assessment toward outsourcing and deterrence, adopted with majorities that were once considered unbridgeable.

The current Sunday poll showed only slight shifts, but a clear structural problem. The SPD loses one percentage point, the Greens gain one. If a new Bundestag were elected now, the AfD would come in at 26 percent, well above its result in the federal election on February 23 with 20.8 percent. CDU and CSU would be at 24 percent. The SPD would come in at 13 percent, the Greens also at 13 percent, the Left at 11 percent. BSW and FDP play no role.

More striking than the party shifts, however, is another number: the share of nonvoters and undecided voters currently stands at 28 percent. In the last federal election, this figure was still 17.9 percent. More than a quarter of eligible voters are thus withdrawing from the political process or feel represented by no party. This development strongly resembles the situation in the United States. There, in the last presidential election, around 89 million eligible voters constituted the largest “group”, larger than any single party. There too, it was not primarily a massive mobilization of new majorities, but political fatigue and the withdrawal of many people that gave right-wing populist forces additional space.

A high number of nonvoters does not act neutrally. It shifts the balance of power in favor of those parties whose supporters are particularly cohesive, supportive, and mobilized. In Germany, this currently benefits above all the AfD. The Forsa figures make this clear: not only election results, but also political absence changes majorities, often quietly, but no less consequential.

People may reject us for this or withdraw their readership, and we accept that. We do not write to please, but on the basis of research, verifiable facts, and the results of our work. We respect other opinions without adopting them or declaring them correct. But we listen. Journalism that tells people what they want to hear may gain more support, but it fails in its mission. We will continue to pursue this path, in the United States and in Europe. But one thing is certain, regardless of one’s opinion, in the end it is always the weakest in society who lose first. 2025 is a year that is not simply a year, but a point of orientation for each individual, where they stand and what they accept.